Finding Mr. Write (Business of Love #5) - Ali Parker Page 0,15

a chess board. “Suspense.”

“No.”

“Horror.”

“Definitely not.”

“Science fiction?”

“Nope.”

Briar removed her hand from her cheek and drummed her nails on the bar. “Non-fiction?”

“I’m offended.”

She rocked back on her stool and laughed. It made me smile in turn, and when she collected herself, she took a sip of her drink. “You’re good company, Wes. I’m glad you came and sat with me. I needed a laugh today. It’s been a rough one.”

“You know,” I said, “there’s only one thing writers are really good at besides writing.”

“Oh, and what’s that?”

“Listening.”

Briar rolled her eyes but smiled. “Is that so?”

I nodded earnestly. “It is. So, if you’d like to talk about it, I’m all ears.”

“Promise you won’t put it in a book?”

“Why does everyone think their life is so interesting that writers want to put them in their books?”

Briar crossed her arms. “Why are writers so good at evading questions with more questions?”

I chuckled. “All right, all right. I won’t put it in a book.”

Chapter 7

Briar

I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something about Wes that just made him easy to talk to. He sat in rapture, leaning inward, eyes fixed on me, and all the while, I blabbed about my last forty-eight hours, including the very beginning when my friends were late driving me to the airport. He sympathized and scowled and shook his head at the unfair tidbits of the story, and nodded with what seemed like pride when I told him how I’d spent my first night alone in a motel.

“You weren’t lying,” he said. “You’ve definitely had a rough go.”

Having someone else acknowledge how hard my day had been took a weight off my shoulders. “I know, right? And here I was naively thinking everything would work out in my favor and I’d fall into a well-paying job and find an apartment all within my first day.” I smirked at my own foolish optimism. “Stupid, right?”

“Not at all.”

“You’re just being nice.”

“Maybe a little.”

I laughed and so did he. Wes had a nice laugh. In fact, he had a nice everything. When he first came and sat down next to me, I hadn’t been sure what to think. My guard had been up because every guy who ever made a move on me in Waynesville had done so after having one too many drinks. Those fools thought they were charming as hell as they slurred about how pretty I was and mispronounced my name and tried to order me shots of tequila.

Wes didn’t have any of that small-town classlessness to him that I’d grown so used to. He was polite and calm, and he had a disarming smile that made me want to trust him and believe he was good to his core.

Not only that, but he was quite handsome.

He was quite tall. His hair was dark brown, almost black, and his eyes were hazel, almost gold. Beneath his thick dark brows, they almost looked like they were glowing in the dim lighting of the bar. His features were shockingly symmetrical, his jaw sharp and square but not too wide and shadowed by a day or two’s growth of stubble. He had dimples that were absolutely swoon-worthy, and his hands were large, his fingers long, his wrists thick.

Maybe it was his good looks that had made me wary of him at first. Men with good intentions never looked this good. Men with bad intentions? Well, they were much more likely to be this attractive. It opened doors for them.

“Are you going back to job hunting tomorrow then?” Wes asked.

I nodded and swirled my drink. Wes had ordered us a second Old Fashioned and it was going down even easier than the first. My hair had long since dried out and my clothes no longer clung cold and damp to my skin. “Yep, I don’t have a choice. I only have so much savings to last me a couple of months and I don’t want to blow through it all. Who knows what kind of deposits I might have to make when I find a place to rent? You know all about it, I’m sure. An artist’s life, am I right?”

Wes smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “Struggling artists anonymous should be a support group.”

I giggled into my drink and took a sip. He intrigued me. “Can I read some of what you have written in there?”

Wes glanced at his notebook. “I fear I’m not nearly drunk enough to let a stranger read my work right in front of me. That’s