Hot Under His Collar - Andie J. Christopher Page 0,6
didn’t turn around until Nathan put down his card and said, “Keep it open.”
He must have thought that this was going to last for longer than one drink. Sasha girded her loins for two hours of small talk, then shook her head. She was just here to get to know him better. A first date was low stakes. She tried to reframe it as something that could be fun. When had she stopped being curious about other people?
Probably around the same time that she’d gone on her thousandth first date. Still, she could pretend. One thing that she would have to keep from her upbringing was faking it until she made it.
When Nathan returned to the table, she put on her best smile and said, “Thank you,” even though he hadn’t asked her what she wanted. She took a sip of her vodka and soda, and it was strong. Must be Patrick looking out for her.
Must not think of Patrick.
She smiled at Nathan. “So, tell me about your job.”
When he started detailing the finer points of ticket sales for a professional baseball team for ten minutes, she blocked out everything else.
* * *
—
PATRICK DIDN’T LIKE THAT Sasha was in his dad’s bar. He didn’t like that she would be here any night, and he really didn’t like that she was here the night he’d happened to agree to fill in for his dad. And he really didn’t like that she was here with a date. Generally, he needed to brace to see the woman. Like, before the wedding last Saturday, he’d run an extra two miles in the hopes that he wouldn’t react to her. Because he shouldn’t even be thinking about her.
He knew he couldn’t avoid her because she was his best friend’s wife’s best friend. They were bound to run into each other, unless he avoided his best friend, and that wasn’t going to happen.
Sasha got under his skin. There was something about her shiny perfection that irked him. And she was very beautiful and made him think of things that were not helpful for a priest to think of.
When they’d first met a couple years ago, he’d thought he had died and was encountering an angel. Her face was pale and almost cherubic—with a ski-slope nose and a cleft in her chin. She was almost too beautiful to look at straight on.
But now, he thought she was probably a witch sent by some malevolent force to make him question his sanity.
Mostly he got through the whole celibacy thing with vigorous exercise and pretending that he didn’t have a dick. Sasha, with her sweet smell that reminded him of the summer during college he’d spent in Greece, silky brown hair, and doe eyes, definitely reminded him that he had a dick. More than any other woman he’d met since Ashley, she reminded him of the deep satisfaction that could come from earthly, carnal love. Every time he saw her, he had to pray that God would remind him of why he’d taken his vows. Christ’s love was assured and infinite, and it would never leave him.
Christ’s love survived death. And when he was a grieving and heartbroken twenty-one-year-old man, he’d found that so compelling that he’d committed his life to it.
He’d made a life inside it, and he was of service to his community and to God. What he did and who he did it for was important. Joining the priesthood had saved him—he owed his life to the Church.
Seeing Sasha, feeling the things she aroused in him—remembering who he’d been before—made him forget who he was supposed to be now. He couldn’t do anything with his attraction, so he tried to block out its source.
He would not waver.
But even with her back to him, it was impossible to ignore her. So he scrubbed the already clean bar that was older than him and had kept his belly full and his feet shod for over thirty-two years. He promised himself he would pour an extra-large draught of the good scotch his brother had given him for Christmas before bed. He might not be able to have a woman to keep him warm, but whiskey was permissible. The peat would scrub his nostrils of the sweet fig scent that Sasha had brought into the bar with her.
He tried desperately to ignore her presence while she was on a date in his bar with a man who looked entirely too appropriate for her.