had turned toward the entry, looking like he was ready to walk in and find her, Lexi ran out the back, claiming a headache and cursing Chad Stevens. Not that she could envision herself long term with the date in question, a man who headed up the local LARP coalition, but there had been chocolate.
Telling Chad to go away should have been easy. But Lexi had promised Pricilla that she would honor her date with Chad—only if he personally told her the official meeting time. Which meant he had to track her down. And Lexi figured that if she could avoid him long enough, he’d give up. Find some other divorcée to stalk.
After a long moment, she chanced a peek through the window, only to find Chad staring back, studying her car. “Get a clue,” she muttered.
“You could always write him a note.” She could tell from the golden-boy tone and the way her stomach did stupid little flips that Marc was directly behind her. “I think I have some binder paper in my backpack. The wide-ruled kind. Oh, wait, I left it in the car. Want me to grab it?”
Wingman barked his approval.
“I think I can manage without, thanks,” Lexi said, turning back around and resuming her seat on the hot asphalt. Wingman’s whole body shook excitedly as he loped over. He nosed at the ground and around her legs, and when he couldn’t get to her rear end he settled on a big, doggie face lick.
“Wingman, come. Sorry about that, he’s all muddy from the trail.”
Wingman rolled into her and plopped down—right on her feet. Mud dripped off and speckled her jeans.
“He’s not that bad.”
“Really?” Marc looked across the street and frowned. “He’s a total tool.”
“I was talking about the dog.”
“Good, because you can do better than Chad. In fact, I’ve got a friend. Nice guy. Single, loves to travel, owns a hotel, handsome as hell. In fact, I think you already have a date with him tonight. He wanted me to ask what you were planning on wearing, and suggest something with no straps, bra optional.”
“Really?”
He shrugged.
“It’s not a date. And I’m not listening to you right now,” Lexi said, also not noticing how his running shorts hung low on his waist and highlighted his impressive thighs. Or how his shirt, a little damp from the heat of the morning, clung to his broad chest as it would to someone who’d been pounding the pavement, which she’d guessed he’d been doing before he decided to poke his unwanted nose in her business.
“Stevens, huh? Never figured him for your type.” Even with his mirrored sunglasses on, Lexi could feel Marc staring straight at her, pinning her with a gaze that made sitting still impossible. “A little too handsy for the prom queen, if you ask me.”
“Maybe I like handsy.” Wingman pressed farther into her legs, letting out a protective growl and sending a big glob of mud splatting to the ground. “Plus, Chad and I were friends back in school.” Okay, that was a lie, but there was no way he would remember that she hated Chad.
Marc pocketed the sunglasses, his whiskey-brown eyes flickering with amusement and—crap! He remembered. “You kneed the poor bastard sophomore year when he tried to get up close and personal with your pom-poms.”
It had been junior year, when she and Jeffery had broken up for three days because she had tried out for the cheer team and it conflicted with her ability to support him from the stands on game night.
“He helped me put up my posters for class president, senior year.” Another time that she and Jeffery had taken a break.
“He liked to look up your cheerleading skirt. But hey, who am I to stop true love?” Marc looked over the top of the car and waved. “Hey, Chad. How’s it going? Are you looking—”
Lexi grabbed Marc’s hand and yanked him to the ground. “Can you not? I have enough people trying to run my love life.”
“So you admit that there is a love life.” When she didn’t answer, except to drop her head to her knees with a frustrated grunt, Marc leaned against the car next to her, close enough so that their thighs brushed. Wingman rested his snout on Marc’s running shoe. “Ah, too much of a love life.”
“My marriage officially ended two weeks ago. I have a bakery that needs to become a bistro, and my grandma has set me up with at least two first dates a day.