Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 59713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
He sauntered over, and my stomach clenched. That strut of his should be criminal.
He took a swig of his beer as he made it over to me and leaned against the bar.
“Hey,” he said. “Good to see you again.”
“Good to see you too,” I said. I gestured toward Fiona. “This is my best friend, Fiona. Fiona, this is Alex King.”
“Hi,” he said.
“Hello,” Fiona said.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a decided flutter of her eyelashes, but it didn’t seem to register with Alex. He was staring at me, his attention totally focused.
“How did the rest of your Friday turn out?” he asked. “I heard the kids are starting to work on their final projects for the semester.”
That led us into chatting about work and him giving me some tips about how to best handle the class while also not completely losing myself in Mr. Proctor’s shadow. He admitted that could be hard considering how iconic the older teacher was but encouraged me to find my own voice and teaching style and make the class my own when the time came.
The conversation was all innocent, but I couldn’t help but notice him eyeing me as we spoke. His haunting eyes ran up and down my body, tracing the side of my neck in such an intimate way it was almost like he was touching me with his fingertips.
As much as I wanted to give in to the attraction and see where it went, I couldn’t. There was no way he wanted more than a one-night stand, and that was all I needed to know to be sure I couldn’t even entertain the thought of trying something with him. I definitely wasn’t ready for a man like him.
“Alex,” I heard the man across the bar call out to him.
We looked over, and he was gesturing for him to come back.
“Looks like I'm being beckoned,” he said. “It was great talking to you.”
I nodded. “Yeah, you too. Have a great night.”
As soon as Alex walked away, I slumped back in the seat.
“Wow,” Fiona said.
“What?”
“Don’t act like you didn’t notice how he was looking at you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She laughed and rolled her eyes slightly. “Oh, honey. That man wanted to devour you.”
I groaned. “No, he doesn’t. I told you, we met yesterday, and he was just asking me about work.”
Fiona shook her head. “You just don’t see it.”
CHAPTER 10
ALEX
Before we moved to the vineyard, Sundays were usually a day I took to myself and did absolutely nothing worthwhile with. They were days to lie around the house, carb load, use all my cheat day points, and catch up on television I skipped while working fifty hours a day. It was glorious. I usually didn’t even end up working out, though occasionally working out was part of the enjoyment of the day, I just did it somewhere else than my office. Unless, of course, the whole point of the day was to not leave my fortress of solitude.
Yet, since we began working at the vineyard and spent the first few dozen Sundays fixing part of it or catching up on other things around the buildings, we had begun to meet up at the restaurant and having dinner. Then, when Noah and Ally had baby Bella, and started settling down, we all started going over there for dinner. It was nice and reminded me of when our parents were still alive, and we would all go over to Grandma’s for dinner on Sunday evenings.
Now, the dinners were edging earlier and earlier as we all liked to collect and spend most of the day together. Noah in particular seemed to enjoy having everyone over, and now that our family was growing with more kids, I wondered if there was going to be a power struggle over where the Sunday dinner was held. At least for now, there hadn’t been any issue, and we collected at Noah’s big place in the woods like normal.
We were only a few miles from the vineyard, but it was like a different world out there. I stood on his large back porch, looking out over the woods and seeing deer in the distance in the bright sunlight. While I wasn’t a big nature guy, I understood it, and the occasional time spent out away from brick and screens was good for the soul.
Noah’s soul seemed to have been doing pretty good too. He’d had a hard life before he met Ally, and I was glad to see him so happy. Kane and his fiancée, Danica, were also blissfully happy, and while Cam, Derek, and I were still single, there was a definite feeling that we were changing, moving on to the next stages in our lives.
The more I watched Noah and Ally or Kane and Danica, the more I realized that my mind started wandering to what it would be like to have someone with me like they did. And every time it did that, it always put one face there. Camilla.