Indigo (For The Love of Purple #1) - Audrey Faye Page 0,17

Violet explores the town and I try to keep her from acquiring things for our apartments before Blue is done with the renovations.

Gracie waves me over. She stands up when I get there, offering me her chair. “Here. I think we’re occupying your table.”

Drew’s face emerges from the shadows behind her, his eyes sheepish. “Sorry. I didn’t realize it would be this crowded.”

Gracie grins. “That’s because you usually stumble in here ten minutes before it closes and bat your puppy-dog eyes at Molly until she puts some soup in a container for you.”

His lips quirk. “Guilty.”

I need to remember that trick.

Gracie waves an imperious hand at the other occupants of Drew’s table. “Let’s go, people. We’ve crashed their date plenty for one night. Let’s pretend this town has some manners for another week or two, shall we?”

Mars, who owns the flower shop, and Naya, who runs the bookstore, and Hamish, who manages the brewery, all climb to their feet. Hamish squeezes my shoulder on his way by. “Enjoy your date. Try the spicy street noodles. They’re really good tonight, and any guy who can’t handle the heat doesn’t deserve you.”

I sit down next to Drew as the table invaders wander off. “A date, huh?”

He huffs out a laugh. “I didn’t say a word, I swear. Molly pointed me to a nice, empty table in the corner. By the time I got here, it was occupied and the inquisition was in progress.”

I tilt my head. “You don’t seem to mind. The inquisition part, I mean.” Which is a fascinating trait in guy who basically lives the life of a wandering hermit. I really do need to see his chart.

He shrugs a little and looks down at the menu in front of him.

That’s the same kind of low-key, vulnerable reticence that my Cancer feels when she needs to crawl into her shell, but doesn’t want to leave her people. “Is it lonely, living like you do?”

His eyes fly up, surprised.

Oops. “Sorry. Too personal.”

He shakes his head. “It’s fine. I’m just used to dinners that might be dates starting off with awkward, careful questions instead of real ones.”

I sit quietly as his words wrap around me, warm and comforting like a good couch throw. I agreed to have dinner with him mostly on a whim. He caught me at a moment when a distraction was welcome and my friends were too preoccupied to make me examine my motivations. “I like real.”

“Me too.” He smiles. “My life doesn’t usually feel lonely. I spend a lot of it communing with tubes of paint, but when I come out of my cave, people are usually pretty friendly.”

“That sounds a fair amount like my life. Except no paint.” And it’s not random people who are there when I emerge.

His eyes fill with curiosity. “Tell me about yours. What does it look like? What do you do there? Why do you need it?”

That’s a lot of questions for a loner. Aquarius moon, maybe. With something in his chart that enjoys people. I feel my way around in his questions and decide to start with the last one, which surprises my inner crab. She doesn’t like to get naked too quickly.

I snort and remind her that she shares a soul with the zodiac’s most frequent skinny dipper. “I like the analysis and nuance of astrology. I’m not as good at the interpersonal aspects of it. People can get pretty emotional over the contents of their charts, and some of them want answers that I can’t give them. Or shouldn’t, anyhow.”

His grin pops out in response to my wry one. “Do you often have opinions you don’t share?”

Busted. “Yup. Which works fine online, but it’s harder to do in person. I have a terrible poker face. People can tell when I’m sitting on my hands.”

He watches them as they flutter down to the table, their work momentarily done. “That seems like it might be a challenge for you.”

He has no idea. Or he might. “Says the man who wields a paintbrush for a living.”

He chuckles. “Do you write your blog posts so you can let out all of those opinions without pinning them on someone in particular?”

That’s actually pretty close to the truth for a guy who still doesn’t know what kind of soup I like best. “More or less. I got into trouble in university for putting too much attitude into my term papers. It turns out that snark is a virtue when you’re competing for eyeballs online.”

Quiet eyes.