spot on the bar, desperately trying to avoid Braden’s gaze.
“Does he always talk to you like that?”
Braden’s question brought my head up reluctantly and I immediately felt the need to reassure him and defend Craig when I saw his cool, lethal eyes narrowed in my colleague’s direction. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.”
“Oh man, that break surely wasn’t ten minutes?” Jo complained as she wandered slowly behind the bar. She reeked of cigarette smoke. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would put up with any habit that made them stink so badly. I wrinkled my nose at her and Jo instantly understood. Not taking it to heart, she just shrugged and blew me a teasing kiss as she stopped to lean against the bar across from Braden. Her big green eyes drank him in as though he were a cigarette she was trying to quit. “And who do we have here?”
“I’m Ellie.” She waved at Jo as though she was a cute fifteen year old. I smiled at her. She was kind of adorable. “I’m Joss’ new flatmate.”
“Hi.” Jo offered her a polite smile before looking back at Braden expectantly.
I wasn’t at all annoyed by her blatant interest in him.
“Braden.” He nodded at her, his eyes quickly returning to my face.
Okay.
Really?
I was stunned.
If I were honest with myself I would admit that I had been bracing myself to watch Braden turn the flirt up a notch for Jo. She was tall, model thin, and had thick, poker-straight, long strawberry blonde hair. If Braden Carmichael transformed into a smoldering flirt around me then I had totally been expecting him to melt Jo into the floor with his charm.
Instead he’d been kind of cool towards her.
That did not make me happy in any way.
Hmm. I’d always been good at lying to myself.
“Braden Carmichael?” Jo asked, oblivious to his disinterest. “Oh my God. You own Fire.”
Damn my curiosity over this guy. “Fire?”
“The club on Victoria Street. You know, just off the Grassmarket.” Jo’s eyelashes were batting a mile a minute at him now.
He owns a nightclub. Of course he does.
“I do,” he muttered and then checked his watch.
I knew that move. I used that move whenever I was uncomfortable. In that moment I really wanted to slap Jo for gushing all over him. Braden was not replacing Steven. No way.
“I love that place,” Jo continued, leaning further over the bar to give him an eagle-eye view of her small, inconsequential chest.
Meow. Where did that come from?
“Maybe we could go together some time? I’m Jo, by the way.”
Ugh. She was giggling like a five-year-old. For some reason that giggle, which I heard every Thursday and Friday night, was suddenly very irritating.
Braden nudged Ellie as if to say ‘let’s go’, his expression impatient now. But Ellie was too busy murmuring to Adam to notice her brother’s quiet desperation.
“What do you say?” Jo persisted.
Braden shot me a searching look I didn’t quite understand before shrugging at her. “I have a girlfriend.”
Jo snorted, fluffing her hair over her shoulder. “So leave her at home.”
Oh Jesus C… “Ellie, didn’t you say you guys were meeting someone?” I asked loudly enough to drag her away from Adam. She needed to rescue her brother pronto.
“What?”
I gave her a pointed look and repeated the question with gritted teeth.
Finally recognizing the look on Jo’s face and the one on her brother’s, Ellie nodded wide-eyed with understanding. “Oh yes. We better leave.”
Jo sulked. “Don’t you-”
“Jo!” Craig called for assistance from the bottom end of the bar where more customers had started congregating. I sort of loved him in that moment.
Grumbling, Jo shot Braden a childish pout and hurried over to Craig and the waiting customers.
“Sorry.” Ellie bit her lip, casting Braden an apologetic look.
He waved her apology off and stepped back, gesturing like a gentleman for her to take the lead out of the bar.
“Bye, Joss.” She gave me a wide smile and a wave. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Yeah. Have a good night.”
I observed the proprietary hand Adam placed on Ellie’s lower back as he nodded a polite goodbye my way and led her out. Was there something going on there? Possibly. Not that I would ask her about it. She’d only turn my curiosity back on me with questions about my non-existent love life and then she’d want to know why my love-life was non-existent. That was not a conversation I wanted to have with anyone.
My skin prickled and reluctantly I let my gaze travel back to Braden who’d taken a