Summer beamed at him. “You can look, but for God’s sake, don’t touch anything. Same goes for you, Josh.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not in the mood to browse for a little black dress. Although, if you’ve got anything in silver sequins in the back, I might be interested.”
“Very funny.” The wedges on her brown leather boots barely made a sound as she joined Annabeth behind the counter—and out of Riley’s reach. Then Summer cocked her head and gave him a slow up and down once-over. “With your coloring, Josh, you need to go gold, not silver. Wouldn’t you agree, Annabeth?”
Teasing Josh was always a good time. He could be counted on to take it with an easy laugh and, more often than not, keep the joke going. But right now, she couldn’t so much as nod her agreement. Because Josh had turned those bright blue eyes onto her. Just like he had three weeks ago at his party. Right before he kissed her senseless.
Thinking about that kiss had pretty much filled Annabeth’s brain nonstop. Like Styrofoam packing peanuts, the memory of it sifted and filled every single empty spot.
It had been wrong.
Dumb.
Spontaneous stupidity.
Because 1) she was friends with him and didn’t want to ruin said friendship; 2) she was friends with his closest friends…and didn’t want to ruin said friendships; 3) she was friends with the very serious girlfriend of one of his best friends…and didn’t want to ruin said friendship; and 4) she also worked for the very serious girlfriend of one of his best friends and didn’t want to endanger her job.
Any one of those things would be a red flag. Any two of them put together would be enough to make anyone question her sanity. The theme of how epically wrong this whole thing could go wasn’t tough to pin down.
And yet—she’d kissed him right back. Not because of enchanted costumes or the romantic full moon or knocking back too many drinks. No, Annabeth had kissed Josh because she’d always, always wondered what it would be like.
All of the guys were handsome. Griff with his military stance, muscles, and confident swagger, Knox and his whole sexy-nerd persona, and then Riley and Logan nailed the tall, dark, and handsome thing.
But none of them had ever turned her head. Put butterflies of what-if in her stomach. Just Josh produced that effect. Josh with his high cheekbones and freaking dimple in his chin like an actual superhero. Josh was the only one of them she’d accidentally caught herself staring at countless freaking times over the years.
So she’d given in to temptation. To the moment.
Once was risky. Twice would be stupid.
Annabeth didn’t have a wall full of diplomas, but she sure as hell had street smarts up the wazoo. And since she didn’t know how to look at him, let alone talk to him, without thinking about the kiss, Annabeth did the only logical thing.
She put down her bottle, grabbed a random top off the nearest rack, and fled to the stockroom.
The rapid, wordless exit was great in terms of self-preservation. In terms of keeping her boss from realizing something was up? It had all the strategy of a toddler staring between the stair railings, “hiding” while waiting for Santa.
Summer managed to follow her in and close the door before Annabeth sank completely into the giant papasan in the corner. “What was that?”
“Oh, nothing.” Super casual and not at all suspicious. At least, that was Annabeth’s hope. And she had about as much chance of that hope coming true as her hope to win the lottery even though she’d never, ever, not once bought a ticket. She smoothed a hand over the stiff red blouse with oversized bell sleeves. “I wanted to check on how many of these we’ve got back here. I have a feeling they’ll fly out the door for daytime office holiday parties.”
“Agreed. On the sales potential of the blouse.” Summer yanked it from her lap and hooked it onto the jam-packed rack. “I do not, however, agree for a second that ‘nothing’ is what I just witnessed. What is the weirdness happening between you and Josh?”
“If I say ‘nothing’ again, with more sincerity, will you drop the subject?”
“Nope. I also can’t be bribed into dropping it. Because you’re my friend, and this is the first time I’ve seen you look this…unsettled. Uncomfortable. Ill at ease.”
“I’ll take all of the above for five hundred,” Annabeth joked. Lamely. But even a lame joke bought her another fifteen seconds of procrastination before spilling the truth.
Summer knelt on a thick stack of mohair scarves. “Now I’m really worried. What’s the matter?”
Damn it.
Annabeth had managed to keep this a secret for three straight weeks. She’d laughed and joked and voted on bridesmaid-dress options for Madison’s wedding just last weekend. Summer, Chloe, and Brooke had all been there. Her newest circle of besties. Women who’d been open and honest about their own struggles as they’d fallen head over heels in love this summer. Telling them had seemed pointless, since she was never ever going to slip up and kiss Josh again.
But now? Confronted with him and all of his irresistibleness and the irrevocable knowledge of what a knee-meltingly good kisser he was?
Annabeth didn’t know what to do. Which meant she had to come clean with Summer. “There, ah, is some weirdness with Josh. I’m a little uncomfortable around him. Ever since the Halloween party, actually.”
“Oh hell, what did he do? Did he get drunk and say something stupid?”
“No. He stayed completely sober and kissed me until I literally forgot how to breathe for a few seconds.”
A slow, smug grin spread across Summer’s burgundy-slicked lips. “Attaboy. I knew he’d be good at it. Some guys, you can just look at and tell that they can do amazing things with their mouths.”
“No!” Annabeth slapped her palms against the curved wooden frame of the chair. “No attaboy. And for the record, I have no idea what else he can do with his mouth besides kissing on the lips. We both recovered our sanity and stopped fairly quickly.”
“So why is it weird?”
“Obviously, it shouldn’t have happened at all. Obviously, it can’t happen again.” Annabeth sighed. “Obviously, I want what I can’t have.”
Summer leaned back on her heels. “Look, there’s no morality clause in your contract. As far as I’m concerned—as your employer—you can date him, you can date the Elven Prince of the Five Isles, or you can date a man with four ex-wives and a hinky glint in his eye.”
“I wouldn’t object to a prince from any country, real or imaginary, if that’s going to be on the table as an option.”
“But as your friend, ‘obviously,’” Summer made air quotes with her fingers and grinned at echoing Annabeth, “I can see how being with Josh could cause a complication.”
“It can’t happen. But I can’t stop thinking about it. About him. But I know better. But—”
Summer cut her off by tossing a pair of pants at her. Then another. Then a weighty, chunky Irish fisherman’s sweater that didn’t seem to belong in their shop at all. Was it Riley’s? Were Summer and Riley doing it in the back room for a little variety? Annabeth didn’t actually care. The thought just gave her a teensy break from worrying about Josh.
“Stop it,” her boss ordered. “The obsessing—because you’re a strong, independent woman who can make up her own mind and go after what she wants. But also stop the weirdness. I don’t care how you settle it. Thanksgiving is exactly eight days away. We’ll all be at the guys’ house to celebrate. Josh is cooking. There won’t be any way for you to avoid him. So, for the sake of everyone—fix this.”
Standing, Summer blew her an air kiss to soften the command and left the stockroom.
Deciding to fix the problem was one thing. Coming up with the solution? Was something else entirely.
She’d have to go cold turkey. Yes, she’d see Josh on Thanksgiving. And act like the Halloween kiss never happened. But between now and then? Annabeth simply wouldn’t allow herself to think about him or replay the memory.
Maybe a little negative bribery would
do the trick. Every time she slipped and thought about Josh, she’d pinch herself. If those thoughts wandered toward kissing, she’d penalize herself with cutting out wine for the week.
Because she was strong. She’d managed to ignore—well, turn away from—her undeniable attraction to Josh for years. It’d be like riding a bike. Easy to hop back on and feel comfortable.
Motivated, empowered, Annabeth struggled to roll her way out of the papasan. She even refolded all the clothes Summer had tossed at her. She was in command of her own mind, her own freaking destiny.
The moment she slipped out of the stockroom, two things became instantly clear.
Summer and Riley had left for the night. The closed sign was even flipped over on the door.
And Josh was still standing next to the tall circular rack of cocktail dresses. He was pacing in a tight circle and arguing with someone on his cell.
Annabeth was alone with Josh.
And she was quite certain that she was not in control of anything.
CHAPTER FOUR
“My boys don’t want no one making fun of them,” Kordell said. “They’s nervous.”
Josh bent forward, leaned his forehead against the exposed brick wall of the boutique, and gently banged it several times. Because he’d had this same conversation with Kordell two weeks ago and again two days ago when he showed up for his shift on the Capitol Grilled.
“We’re not going to make fun of your friends. We’re putting them on the podcast because they’re amazing kids. Because we want to spotlight how they’ve pulled themselves out of bad situations, with help. If they come on and talk about it, hopefully other people will reach out to help.”
“They don’t talk so good.”
Neither did Kordell. And Josh didn’t care one way or the other. The kid was a hard worker and quick to pick up everything Josh taught him on the food truck…
Ohhhhhh.
God, he was stupid. Or insensitive. Probably both.
This wasn’t about Kordell’s friends. This was Kordell’s own embarrassment talking. Now that he didn’t spend all day on a stoop in the hood, he’d become aware that his grammar didn’t sound anything like that of the congressmen, policy wonks, staffers, and governmental employees who were regular customers on their food truck’s circuit of the biggest federal buildings.
The only way to deal with Kordell’s insecurity was to distract him from it. “This was your idea, remember? You volunteered to come on and talk about going from homelessness to foster care to working on my truck.”
“Yeah. But I never thought you’d go for it. Millions of people listen to that podcast. They don’t care ’bout me.”
Josh sighed. He pushed off the wall and paced in a tight circle. Tight because he felt as tall and wide as one of those double-decker sightseeing buses in here. Everything was tiny and bright-colored and fragile and goddamned expensive.
“Dude, that’s the point. We’re going to make them care about you, and your friends, and all the kids who have a raw deal in life. We’ll make them care so much that they run out and figure out how to give kids near them a helping hand. Don’t wuss out on me, okay?”
Happily, Kordell laughed. “That’s low, calling me a wuss. You know I got no choice now, right?”
“That’s the idea.” Josh bent his knees into a near-squat in sheer relief that this conversation—or at least, this iteration of it—was finally over. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Crack-of-ass o’clock.”
“Yeah.”
As usual, Kordell hung up without saying goodbye. He’d have to figure out a way to work in a lesson on phone etiquette while they did prep in the morning. That was sure to go over about as well as the time he laid down the law about Kordell’s jeans being pulled up enough to cover his boxers. That had been three days of sour looks and a whole lotta lip.
Josh would suck it all up, though. Because he didn’t want to just train Kordell in how to man a grill and make change on the fly. The kid was his responsibility as long as he paid him. So that meant training him for life.
“Are you okay? You’ve got a line between your eyes deeper than the crack in the Liberty Bell.” The concern in Annabeth’s voice jolted his attention off of his phone.
Shit.
They were alone.
And being alone with Annabeth was something that Josh had sworn to himself not to do. Not for a good, long while anyway. Not until he figured out how to resist temptation. Not until he figured out how to put the genie back in the bottle. Lock Pandora’s box the fuck down.
Because now that he’d tasted her once? Josh literally could not imagine going through life without kissing her again.
Just looking at her stirred him up. Tight jeans were tucked into knee-high brown boots with lots of buckles. Josh had unzipped enough women out of their boots to know the buckles probably didn’t do jack shit. But they gave Annabeth a bad-girl vibe, like she was in a sexy motorcycle gang.
It was hot.
Her brown jacket was belted over a dark green shirt. Like she was a sexy pine tree he wanted to climb.
See? He couldn’t think through three sentences about her without slipping in the word sexy. If his brain couldn’t filter it, couldn’t go back to seeing her as just a friend, what the hell might accidentally come out of his mouth?
Pull it together, Hardwick.
Josh cracked his neck. Rubbed the back of it. And then, indeed, pulled it together enough to shoot her one of his trademark grins. “I’m fine. I’m always fine, didn’t you know?”
“You may tell people that. But everyone has stuff. Bad things that weigh them down. Struggles.” She rolled hazel eyes that were guarded by the thick, long, black spikes of her lashes. “Why do you think I made top dollar at a cocktail bar?”
“Because you’re funny and gorgeous?” Damn it. Was that a normal compliment? Friendly flirting, like they’d done a million times at the POV? Or had Annabeth heard the deeper level of sincerity in his voice?
Or was it his own damn paranoia?
Yeah. Of course. That’s all it was. No different than him undercooking scallops last week after he’d cooked them into pure rubber the time before. Which, for the record and because it still chafed his ass, had been Griff’s fault for daring him to cook while standing on the prototype hoverboard Knox was working on.
It’d bucked him off twice. Josh was pretty sure Knox had programmed it to do that.
“I’ll give about fifty percent of the credit for that to my boobs and my snarky sense of humor. But the rest of those tips? Were because people don’t want to sit home alone, feeling like crap. They’d come in, have a drink, and get a chance to vent.”
Josh slid his phone into his pocket. “I thought that only happened to bartenders.”
She waved her hand, sending a trio of thick wooden bracelets clanking. “Urban legend. You bring someone a drink? Instant gratification. That turns their mood around, if only for a second. And when they feel better, they start talking.”
“I had no idea.”
“Seriously? You guys talked to me all the time. Bitched about work, asked my advice about women.”
And that added up to using a waitress as a therapist?
No. No way. He stayed the hell away from anything that even remotely smelled like a psychiatrist.
Josh had had more than his share of therapy visits when they returned from Italy eleven years ago. Every damn hour in that office, he’d been forced to relive the worst three days of his life. Each time, it catapulted him back and deeper into that misery and panic.
Ever since, he’d done his damnedest to live in the moment. Bitching about your problems never made them go away.
Josh shook his head. Shook off even the suggestion that they’d used her to freaking talk through their troubles. “That’s just because we’re all friends. We enjoyed shooting the breeze with you. Getting your, ah, female wisdom applied to our lives.”
“And I liked you guys, so I talked back. You know how many tables unloaded on me a
nd I didn’t bother to hang out, jawing while my other customers got antsy?” Annabeth reached out her hand. Stopped, almost tentatively, with it hanging in the air halfway between them. Then she kept going and smoothed the tip of her finger over the crease in his forehead. “C’mon, tough guy. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Hard to ignore the soft request, coupled with the even softer touch. But…wait.
This was good.
The way Annabeth had laid it out? This was simply a friend thing. He’d pretend they were back at the POV, that Griff and Ry were at the table next to him, and he was just blowing off steam. As platonic as talking to his sister. No possibility of kissing and, more important, no possible reason to let his mind even start to go down that path.
After all, what could be more of an emotional cock block than talking about his fostering program?
Josh shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m taking the lead for the next Naked Men podcast.”
When the five of them all had gone off in different directions after high school, they’d discovered that, being men, they weren’t great at keeping in touch. But they’d missed the routine give-and-take with each other, the laughs, having someone who understood you better than anyone on the planet to bounce ideas off of. So they started a group blog.
It got the name—originally as a joke—as a place where they could be naked emotionally without feeling all weird about it. No staring at each other while they talked about freaking uncomfortable things big and small.
First, it was just for them. Then they opened it up to friends, friends of friends, and finally took it wide.
But this spring, they’d gotten an offer from the biggest satellite radio conglomerate in the world to turn it into a weekly podcast. Only a handful of episodes later, it turned into such a hit that it now live-streamed as a video once a month. They used the surprisingly big checks from that to do good. To make sure that while the world watched, they shone their spotlight on people who were usually in the shadows.
There were plenty of other weeks in the year to rant about whether Premier League soccer was stronger than Bundesliga.
Having It All Page 3
