“You’re welcome to leave,” I replied, though inwardly I thought, “Please don’t.”
“The seat is comfortable, and I’m finding your smart mouth extremely appealing right now.” His dark eyes grew hooded as it fell to my lips.
My heart raced as this invisible rope seemed to lasso around us both, drawing us closer and closer. I didn’t understand it. Every nerve ending tingled with life, my skin was hot, and my whole being was lit with awareness.
“I have a boyfriend,” I blurted out.
Michael’s disappointment was obvious. We looked at each other for a few seconds, and then he asked, “Serious?”
I shrugged. “We haven’t been dating long, but it’s good.”
“How long is not long?”
“Two months.”
His lips twitched. “That’s not long at all.”
I tried not to smile and failed. “You’d go after another guy’s girl?”
“Never have before, but you’re the exception to the rule.”
“I am?” My heart was bursting.
Michael nodded. “You can’t tell me you don’t feel this?”
Biting my lip, I nodded slowly.
Something hungry flickered in his expression.
Wow.
I shook my head, as if to shake off the indescribable urge to jump him. This was insane. “I wouldn’t cheat. Not ever.”
“Neither would I,” he promised. “Sit with me a while.”
I wondered if that was a good idea.
“What are you thinking?”
“How much I shouldn’t have liked that you were disappointed that I have a boyfriend.”
“Speaking of, does he know you’re working here?”
“No. And he doesn’t need to. It’s a temporary gig that pays a lot an hour, and it isn’t causing anyone any harm.”
“I beg to differ.”
“How?”
“It’s causing your boyfriend harm. If you hadn’t been working here, I wouldn’t have seen you, decided you’re the most gorgeous fuckin’ thing I’ve ever seen, and then sat my ass down to talk to you. Now I find out that not only are you gorgeous but you’re smart and you’re funny—which I already knew when you flipped me off—which means I’m not leaving until we exchange numbers. And I do this knowing if you feel half as attracted to me as I do to you, you’ll put your not-so-serious boyfriend aside to call me and give me a shot. So yeah, I’d say this job caused your boyfriend some harm.”
I gaped at him. “You’re very cocky.”
“No, but I am determined.”
“My boyfriend is good in bed.” I was exasperated by this sudden feeling of being torn in two. “That’s difficult to find.”
Michael smiled at my bluntness. “Dahlin’, you’ve haven’t seen anything yet. You’re what, in your early twenties?”
I nodded. “Twenty. So?”
“So maybe you’re mistaking okay sex for good sex.” He leaned forward, so our noses were almost touching, and my breath caught in my throat as the spicy, dark scent he wore tickled my senses. “If I were lucky enough to have you in my bed, I’d make you feel things you never knew existed. If you were mine, you wouldn’t flirt with other guys. You wouldn’t want to, knowing no other guy would appreciate you the way I would. Trust me, dahlin’, I appreciate the good things in life, and I’m more grateful than I can say when I come across special. Just never thought I’d come across goddamn extraordinary in my life, let alone find it in an art gallery.”
Oh. My. God.
“What are you doing to me?” I snapped, sitting back in my chair to get some distance. “I’m Irish, okay. I grew up surrounded by Irish guys who know how to charm the panties off a girl. You, mister, you’re like the freaking champion. And don’t tell me you’re not Irish. I know you’re Irish.”
“I am. But I’m not feeding you a line.”
Flustered, I pushed my chair back from the table and grabbed my purse. I liked Gary. Things were going good! Like, great. And this guy scared me. I mean, I could be a pretty impulsive person, but I’d never wanted to launch myself across the table at a guy I didn’t know and screw him six ways until Sunday. Sex until Gary had been about answering the calls of my hormonally charged body and being disappointed every time.
This pull with Michael was so much more than that. Yes, it was sexually charged, but there was something here. Some connection I didn’t understand. It was freaking me out!
“I have to go.”
“Don’t.” He stood, coming across unsure, which seemed out of character for him. But how would I know? We didn’t know each other! “I’m sorry if I came on too strong. I’ve never …” He shrugged, looking very young all of a sudden.
And I realized he was younger than I’d first thought—he had said he was a rookie cop. I put him at maybe my age or Gary’s, who was two years older than me.
“Stay. Talk.” He gestured to the table and then gave me a coaxing smile. “Tell me your name.”
“I can’t.” I needed some distance from this guy, and I needed to see Gary so I could be reminded that what we had was pretty damn good.
But Michael’s crestfallen expression tugged at my heart.
“Look, I’ll be back here on Wednesday night and then on Saturday again. If you’re sincere, then show up. We’ll go from there.”
His relief was visible.
“I like that too.” I smiled at him, and his eyes zeroed in on the dimple in my left cheek. It was a gift from my dad.
“Like what?”
“No bullshit. You tell me what you feel without even saying it. And I like you’re relieved. I take it you’ll be here?”
“Dahlin’, you smile at me like that, giving me that gorgeous little dimple, I’ll do anything short of murdering someone for you. Maybe even then,” he teased.
I grinned harder, and his expression turned tender. My God. “Then I’ll see you soon.”
“At least tell me your name,” he called as I strolled away.
I turned, walking backward, “I tell you what. You show, I’ll tell you my name.”
“Tease.”
I flipped him off with a playful grin, and his laughter followed me as I left. I was giddy with the kind of anticipation a girl with a boyfriend definitely should not feel.
* * *
“You doin’ okay?” Ally asked me as I handed change over to a customer.
My shift at Wilde’s Place had started two hours ago, and I’d worked my way around the bar pretty fast. I already had bartending experience, so it was no big deal, and the customers there were a lot more down-to-earth and fun to talk to than those at the college bar.
“Everything is going great.” I threw her a smile.
“Your boyfriend gonna be here soon?”
The thought of Gary caused a prickle of guilt. I’d technically arranged some kind of date with another guy. It didn’t seem like it at the time but giving myself distance from Michael made me realize how shitty what I’d done was. I’d flirted with another guy, and I’d arranged to see him again at my job. Yet, I couldn’t forget those butterflies or how I still felt them when I thought about the stranger. I didn’t have those with Gary, as much as I cared about him.
But was Michael worth ruining what I had with Gary? My boyfriend had called me before my shift to tell me that Sully had a Saturday night free, so he was bringing him to Wilde’s Place to meet me. Sully was Gary’s best friend, but he was a cop and hadn’t had a lot of free time lately. He’d been with Boston PD for nearly two years so he was now only getting a regular shift pattern that would allow him to see his buddies more.
I was a little nervous about meeting him. Gary talked about him all the time. They’d grown up together, and while Gary screwed around a lot, Sully was always there to get him out of scrapes. From what I knew about my boyfriend, he’d definitely been the irresponsible one in that friendship. Until me, Gary had only been interested in casual sex, whereas he used to rib Sully for being a one-woman kind of guy. S
ully had wanted to go to college to be a lawyer, but his family didn’t have the money to send him, so he took his police exam at nineteen, was a cadet with the Boston PD before he could apply for the police academy at twenty-one, and he became a cop like his old man.
Gary, on the other hand, had flitted from one job to the next, getting fired right, left, and center, until his uncle took him on as a mechanic. Since then he’d settled down. Including with me.
If Gary and his best friend knew what I’d done today, they’d hate me.
But I didn’t do anything, I argued with myself. Not really.
“Hey, gorgeous.”
My boyfriend’s familiar voice pulled me out of my guilt-ridden thoughts, and I handed over the beer to my customer. Gary leaned over the bar, grinning at me.
Smiling back, I leaned over to press a kiss to his lips. A couple of guys around the bar groaned in fake disappointment, and Gary smiled against my mouth before pulling back to shoot a grin their way. “That’s right, fellas, she’s mine, so back off.”
I shook my head at his nonsense. “You doin’ okay?”
“I’m supposed to be asking you that. How’s it goin’?”
“Good.”
He nodded and then turned to look over his shoulder. “I brought Sully. Told you he wasn’t an imaginary friend.”
I laughed because I’d teased him about that as more weeks passed without meeting this elusive Sully. Glancing past my boyfriend to smile at his friend as he stepped up to the bar, my smile stuck before it could widen my mouth.
Shock rooted me to the spot as I looked into familiar dark-brown eyes.
Michael?
Surprise momentarily flickered in his expression, but he was quicker at recovering than I was. He held out his hand and said pointedly, “Michael Sullivan, nice to meet you.”
Oh my God.
Sullivan. Sully.
Duh.
Well, didn’t this suck at the highest level? I swallowed my shock and disappointment and gingerly took his hand. My skin tingled at his touch, and his hand seemed to reflexively tighten around mine. “Dahlia.” It was hard to get words out, so they came out soft and uncertain. “Nice to meet you too.”
“Don’t tell me you’re going all shy on me,” Gary huffed.
My smile was strained. “He’s your best friend. I want him to like me.”
Right. Only I hadn’t expected to want him to like me like me.
“Of course he’ll like you. Won’t you, Sully? What’s not to like?”
Michael gave us a flat smile. “You’ve talked about her so much, I feel like I already do.”
Gary patted him on the back and then took a stool at the bar. Michael and I exchanged a loaded look before he slid in beside his friend.
Shaking inwardly and doing my best to hide it, I at once panicked that Michael would tell Gary I was flirting with him, and that Michael wouldn’t turn up to see me again. Of course, he wouldn’t! How messed up was that kind of thinking? We couldn’t hurt Gary like that. It was ridiculous.
God, why was this happening? Why couldn’t I have met Michael first?
And is that what I wanted? To have met him first? A guy I knew little about? I only knew what I’d heard from Gary (all of it good—FYI, my boyfriend hero-worshipped the guy) and what I’d felt today when we met.
But Gary was sweet, and he was good in bed, and he treated me well.
Oh hell.
I tried to be my funny, light, breezy self as I talked to my boyfriend and his best friend between serving customers. The horrible part of the evening came when Gary excused himself to the bathroom, and Michael called me over.
His dark eyes were no longer filled with laughter and desire. They were still warm but there was a polite distance in them, and I missed the way he’d looked at me that afternoon.
“I won’t tell Gary about today.”
I nodded. “I don’t normally flirt with other guys.”
He leaned over the bar and lowered his voice. “I know. I know today was unexpected for both of us.”
I remembered then that Gary had told me Michael was twenty-three. Only three years older than me but he had this air of maturity about him that none of my other friends had. Not even Gary. It was very attractive.
Damn.
“It’s against the code to tell you this, but Gary likes you. I’ve never seen him with a girl like he is with you.” He gave me a sad smile. “And now I get why. But his life hasn’t been easy and um … well, I won’t fuck this up for him.”
I found myself unable to meet his eyes as a swell of disappointment I didn’t understand overwhelmed me.
“I won’t be coming back to the gallery, Dahlia.”
Nodding and swallowing past the lump in my throat, I replied, “I understand.”
“He cares about you. Be good to him.”
I gave him a weak smile. “I won’t hurt him.”
Walking down the bar to get away from Michael, I thought to myself, no, I won’t hurt Gary because if it feels anything like this, I wouldn’t want to sting someone that badly.
Hartwell, Delaware
Two Months Ago
Years ago, during a short time in my life, I used alcohol to numb my feelings. Gin would soak through the giant, aching ball of grief in my chest and it eased its grip on my soul. It made getting through the next day and the one after easier. However, it numbed not only the grief, it stopped me from feeling much of anything. It almost killed me.
Once I gave up alcohol and let myself feel, I had to give myself over to time and patience. And, thankfully, time and distance (and therapy) did what the alcohol had attempted to do. Time dulled the pain. There were moments when not even time could do that, but for the most part, I lived my life relatively content.
So I guess I forgot.
I forgot that life doesn’t let you have time and distance. You can’t coast through your existence with nothing ever happening again to throw you back into that place.
Life doesn’t work like that at all.
And that day was the day it decided to remind me of that fact.
It was nearing the end of summer, and I’d closed my gift shop/workshop that I owned on the boardwalk in the seaside city of Hartwell, Delaware. It was technically a city, but it was small with a small-town mentality. The boardwalk was about a mile long, and the north end was made up of commercial buildings, including my gift shop where I sold unique items I not only sourced but jewelry I made and designed in my workshop.
We boardwalk owners were a tight-knit community. My best friend was Bailey Hartwell, and she owned Hart’s Inn, which sat right next to my shop on the boards.
I’d closed up shop for an hour, and Bailey had left the running of the inn to her manager, Aydan, so we could grab a coffee with our friend Emery Saunders, who owned Emery’s Bookstore and Coffeehouse.
Usually, our coffee breaks were an excuse to chat about everything and nothing, but that day we had a specific focus. Bailey. Not only was her little sister in town causing problems, but Bailey had started seeing Vaughn Tremaine. This was big news in our small town. Why? Well, mostly, because anything involving Bailey was big news. As a descendant of the founding family, she was well known. But more than that, she was liked and respected. When Vaughn Tremaine bought the old Hart’s Boardwalk Hotel and ripped it down to build his contemporary five-star hotel, Paradise Sands, Bailey was not happy. She made sure the whole town and Tremaine were aware of how unhappy she was and in doing so caused a miniature war between her and the deliciously sexy Manhattan-born hotelier.
If that wasn’t enough to keep tongues wagging, Bailey’s boyfriend of ten years, Tom, shocked the hell out of everyone by cheating on her. After they broke up, the tension that had been simmering between Bailey and Tremaine sort of exploded and as I’d always suspected, they admitted they were attracted to each other.
After months of dancing around each other, they were finally dating.
I was happy for my best friend. No one deserved t
o get her happily-ever-after more than Bailey Hartwell.
“I never felt this way with Tom,” Bailey said with a huff as we sat drinking our coffee. We were up in the raised section of the bookstore, sitting around the open fireplace. The light spilling in from the low, shallow windows behind us cast a copper halo around her auburn hair. “I actually liked the space from Tom, even in the beginning. But with Vaughn, I want to be with him all the time because every moment we spend together, I find out something new about him—his quirks, his sense of humor, his cockiness, his flaws. And do you know what? I like it all. Flaws and all! What is that?”
Emery beamed. “You’re falling in love.”
I grinned at the dreaminess of Emery’s smile as Bailey denied such claims. To be honest, I’d kept to myself living in Hartwell these past nine years. Emery had moved to town a year after me, but she was so shy and socially awkward, no one really knew her. That is until Jessica Huntington came to Hartwell last year, befriended Bailey, and then Emery. Jessica was now Jessica Lawson. She’d married our friend Cooper who owned the bar next to Emery’s bookstore. Jessica was one of the town doctors, and if she had time between appointments, she’d try to join us for coffee. However, she and Cooper were on their honeymoon in Canada.
And now all four of us were friends. Emery was coming out of her shell more and more, but the woman was still a mystery.
All I knew about her was that she inherited a lot of money from her grandmother, including property like the bookstore. I knew she was timid, especially around men, which made no sense considering she was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met in real life. Seriously. She was tall, slender with curves in all the right places, had long white-blond hair that no grown woman should have naturally, and the delicate features of a Disney cartoon. Cooper’s sister, Cat, often joked that Emery looked like Elsa from Frozen.
Aside from her resemblance to a Disney character, I also knew Emery was a total romantic. Anytime Bailey spoke about Vaughn, or Jess talked about Cooper, Emery got this sweet look of longing on her face.
“Shouldn’t he want to spend all of his time with me?” Bailey pulled me out of my Emery thoughts.
Things We Never Said: A Hart's Boardwalk Novel Page 2
