Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Still, yeah, I wasn’t a complete fucking idiot. I knew that I couldn’t.
Why then did fate have to keep fucking putting her in my path?
CHAPTER SIX
Mere
“Okay. What’s his name?” Vega asked two mornings later, snapping me out of my swirling thoughts. Admittedly, about a particular him.
You know, the him that I caught in Dennis’s office. The him that I, apparently, sort of worked for. The him that Maudine was clearly very fond of and knew at least somewhat well from when he lived in Balm Harbour for a few years.
Broke every heart in town when he decided to leave, I tell you. Mine included.
She’d said that last past wistfully, making me think she actually meant it. Not that I thought she was trying to get with him, per se. But because she enjoyed the fantasy of it.
I couldn’t blame her.
Clearly, I was having all sorts of fantasies about the man as well.
Really, it was a little out of hand, to be honest. That cup that he’d drank out of and left on the desk? I’d left it there all day. I never did that. I took my own cup to the back to wash it out, dry, and put it away as soon as I was done.
But I’d left his cup there.
Like some kind of weird shrine.
It wasn’t until I was cleaning up for the day that I finally washed it out. Thinking thoughts I had no business thinking about a man who was, in a way, a boss to me.
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, Mere. This is me you’re talking to here,” she said, shooting me a wicked little smirk as she pulled on a blouse over her bra. A pearl-pink silk shirt that I knew she resented having to put on. She had it paired with black slacks that flared a bit toward her heeled boots. And there was a black suit jacket hung over the chair where her purse was set.
“See, I distinctly remember this look on your face when you were, what? Seventeen? I was home from college, so that about tracks. And you had this thing for the guy who worked at the coffee shop with you.”
Ugh.
That was the one flaw about living with someone who knew you so well. They knew all your little tells.
“Then, sure enough, a few weeks later, you were banging him after closing up one night.”
Oh, yes.
Bryan.
With a y.
He’d been… sweet enough. I mean, I’d practically thrown myself at him. And he’d been easy with me, making my first time a not altogether horrible experience.
We’d even hooked up another time or two before he was let go, and I never heard from him again.
Not that I expected to. Since, according to our boss, I was the reason he was fired. Not because I’d told on him for something or anything like that, but because I was such an overachiever that I unintentionally made him look like he wasn’t doing enough.
“So, who is he?”
“I’m not seeing anyone,” I insisted. That part was true at least.
“You should know better than trying to get past me with little technicalities. You’re not dating anyone. Duh. But you’re clearly thinking about someone.”
“There was an attractive guy in the shop the other day. That’s all,” I told her.
And it was the truth. For the most part.
“Tourist?” she asked. “It had to have been a tourist. I mean, there are hot locals, but you’d have seen them all by now.”
That was true.
It wasn’t exactly a large town.
It had been teetering under nine-thousand residents for as long as I had been around.
A lot of people, sure, but after a while, everyone was familiar enough.
“It sucks when the hot guys are only in town for a weekend, right? I mean, it works for me, but I know you’re not the random hook-up type.”
I wasn’t any type at the moment.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested.
I liked men.
Working at La Flora really did show me some of the best sides of men. The ones coming in for birthdays, anniversaries, or just a random Monday to put a smile on their lady’s face. The ones who knew their woman’s favorite flower and color and which ones she was allergic to.
Love was in the details.
And some men really paid attention to them.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Cesare Costa was one of those men.
Or if he was the type to forget birthdays and anniversaries. If he even got serious enough about a woman to reach those little relationship milestones.
“Well, I’m sorry your Polly Pocket won’t have anyone to play with it,” Vega said, making a groaning snort escape me at her wording. “What? You looked like you were attempting to imitate a beet when I called it a pussy last time,” she reasoned.
That was true.
I wasn’t a prude. I mean, maybe by some standards, I was. I think it had been more surprising than anything when she’d said it. So calmly, so casually, like we all just referred to our bits as that.