A Charm Like You

by Sharla Lovelace

  “That makes no sense.”

  “Don’t argue with me,” she said. “You’re going. Go get a shower. I’ll find clothes.”

  “Or we could stay in and watch sappy movies and eat comfort food and drink—I think I have some wine.”

  The doorbell rang again and I swiveled for the door.

  “My pizza!”

  “It’ll be here when you get out,” she said, wagging a finger in a circle for me to turn around. “The faster you get done, the faster we can eat.” She grabbed a chip and loaded up some cheese dip. “Wine gives me a headache, I’m holding out for one of Leo’s special whiskey sours.”

  “It’s not karaoke night, is it?” I asked, trudging toward the bathroom. “I don’t have a good track record on Rojo’s karaoke night.”

  As in I’d managed to avoid eight months’ worth of them since I’d gotten wasted and ended up riding a cowboy during “Ride A Cowboy” without my knowledge or consent. And then hurling into a stranger’s beer bucket.

  “I don’t think so,” Micah said. “But if it is, I’ll sit on you.”

  “Fine,” I said, pointing at the door. “Get my pizza. You’re paying for it.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “What happened to Jackson’s whole Thatcher’s too old to hang with him theory?” I asked on the short ride from my house to downtown Charmed, where Rojo’s resided right around the corner from the shop. Literally, if I was already living there, I could have walked the whole half a block. Not that I was in a hurry.

  “I don’t know,” Micah said around a mouthful of pepperoni and sausage pizza. We’d hit up the box—or she had hit up the box—while I was getting ready, and ended up taking it on the road. I was too nervous to eat, plus I might have had plenty of cheese dip and other crap to tide me over. “He just texted me earlier saying they were riding in together around eight, and he’d see us there.”

  Eight. It was seven forty-five. Time for me to grab a drink and shake off my nerves before I had to get social again with a tall, moody, hazel-eyed stranger who kept making me all twitchy inside.

  “Leo already working?”

  Micah nodded, a slow smile pulling at her lips. “There’s something so sexy about cutting through all the women at the bar to get your drink handed to you by the hottest man ever created.”

  I laughed. “You’re hopeless.”

  “I’m so hopeless.” She chuckled, shoving another large bite of pizza in her mouth. “You know, I was never a big believer in love and all its accoutrements, but this guy just—whew.”

  “Butters your biscuit?” I offered with a grin.

  “Girl, he butters everything,” she said with a cocky little head tilt. “I can’t imagine my life without him anymore.”

  I kind of remembered what that felt like. Maybe. No, not really. It was never like that with Bart, I didn’t think. Never life-altering or all-encompassing. I remembered crushing on him a million years ago, but we never looked at each other like Leo and Micah did. They had that thing. That phenomenon that some couples have when they have their own language, their own complete idea exchange and sharing of heart, body, and soul with just a look across a crowded room. There is no question that they are one unit.

  “Well, will he have your drink ready for you when you walk in the door?” I asked. “That is the question. Will he go all James Bond at just the mere hint of your nearness?”

  Micah burst out laughing. “Last night he nearly bit my hand off when my nearness got too close to his laundry. I’ve never seen someone so independent that he won’t let me wash his dirty jeans.” She elbowed me as we pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant. “You never did tell me if you invited Hot Guy to come.”

  Bam. Nerve shot straight to the belly.

  “Nope.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t grab the chance!” she said, aiming her Mustang into a corner spot next to an old coppery red Camaro. “You were the one this morning talking about needing new batteries because you couldn’t wait a week.”

  “Yeah, well—”

  “Yeah, well, nothing,” she said, palming her keys. “You look smoking hot tonight, and you could have totally gotten lucky.”

  With your brother.

  “I think I kind of jumped the gun with that whole train of thought,” I said. “That—he wasn’t all that big of a deal. I think it was all a big—fluke.”

  I felt nauseous. I’d sold out.

  “A fluke?” she said. “That’s a cop out, Gabi. That’s that baggage mess you were spouting earlier. You are not anyone’s burden, you’re a hot catch.”

  “Oh sure,” I said. “Divorced and mental, with screwed up credit, living above my parents’ shop, I just can’t imagine what’s not to love.”

  She grabbed my phone. “How’s he listed? I’m calling him.”

  “No!” I screeched. Yes, I screeched. Flailing like a wounded octopus, I snatched my phone back before she could find it and recognize the number. “Just leave it be,” I said, pulling my voice down to a more manageable tone.

  “Fine,” she said, pushing her door open as I did the same. “Be an eighty-something-year-old hermit with no life or love like Mr. Bailey,” she said. “You said you never met him in person, right? He’s creepy looking as shit.”

  “No, I—”

  My tongue failed me as I stepped out and found myself just feet away from the tastiest looking male I’d ever laid eyes on. And that was saying something, considering my friends’ other halves. He’d outdone himself, even for him.

  But it wasn’t the black button-down shirt or the black jeans or the black boots. It wasn’t the light dusting of scruff on his face that was just the day’s growth since he’d shaved this morning and probably killed him to leave there. It was the look on his face as he stopped in his tracks and his eyes found me.

  Like he could take me right there. Between the cars. On the car, in the car, upside down, whatever. Not dirty or leering, or off-putting. It was raw and primal and familiar like a lover recognizing his mate, and I’d never in my life felt so powerful and hot. And thrown completely off balance.

  My breath catching in my chest and all possible words leaking out of my head, I just raised my chin and shouldered the strap on the tiny going-out purse I’d brought.

  “Can you shut your door so I can get out?” said a male voice to my left.

  I head-jerked to my left to see Jackson peering through a crack in his door next to me.

  “Sorry,” I said, clearing my throat as I closed my door, using every opportunity to breathe and pull my brain back from my nether regions. “I didn’t realize this was—” I cleared my throat again. “So, y’all made good time.”

  “Yep,” he said.

  Thatcher was still standing there behind both cars, having hugged his sister and responded to some dig she made while I was having a meltdown. He was looking at me again. I could feel it, and I decided right there to turn this shit around. I wasn’t going to spend the evening avoiding this guy, dancing around myself and tripping over my own tongue because of my business partner. Micah’s brother. Yes, we’d had a weird and unfortunate meeting before we realized who the other was, leading us to believe we could go somewhere we can’t. Yes, we’d had an amazing hot night. Yes, we’d had a hot kiss on the stairs of the restaurant earlier. Yes, my entire body was responding to him, just standing there, five feet away.

  I was stronger than all of those things, however. I needed a friend to tell me that. I needed Micah to tell me that. If it was—Lanie’s brother, for instance, Micah would probably tell me to be careful, that it could get sticky. If it was just a business partner, she’d tell me to walk the hell away. Combine the two, and most definitely no.

  So.

  There.

  I had my Micah advice, without ever involving her. All was good and settled. I could feel feminine and sexy and
powerful in the clothes she had set out for me (thank you, Micah), write off the grope and the making out and kiss as an enjoyable memory, and move on.

  “You look nice,” he said slowly. “Hot Guy meeting you out here?”

  Cute.

  Breathe.

  I smiled. “Not tonight. My sister might meet us for a little bit though. Have you met Drew?”

  “A couple of times,” he said. “She told me I needed to get a tattoo.”

  I had to laugh as I almost told him where Drew had one, but then thought better of it since human nature would draw the eye to that spot and I might spontaneously combust if his gaze landed so close to my hoo-hah. We all strolled towards the entrance as Micah chatted, and damn it, I could feel his eyes on me, anyway.

  “Be glad it’s not festival time, or Honey War time, or—” she was saying as she stopped and glanced at me as we approached the front door of Rojo’s.

  Was I supposed to finish? What was she talking about? “Or anytime basically from spring to fall,” I said randomly, hoping that made sense.

  “Honey Wars?”

  Thatcher’s voice behind us nearly vibrated through me, and we weren’t even touching. Yeah, I was the poster child for moving on.

  “They go nuts for their honey here,” she said, opening the door for all of us. “Attack you on the sidewalk with spoons.”

  “Welcome!” hawked a short elderly lady with a pixie cut, standing just inside the entryway with a bright red jersey sweatshirt that read Rub My Dice. It had two strategically placed dice on the chest.

  We both jumped, and Micah threw her arm in front of me like she was saving me, shoving me backwards a step and straight into Thatcher’s front.

  I gasped and his sharp intake of breath was hard to miss. As was the hand that spontaneously landed on my right shoulder. My bare shoulder. Damn, this shirt.

  “Sorry,” I whispered, turning my head.

  His thumb trailed toward my neck for about a half second before he dropped his hand. In my head, though, and my chest where my heart took off like a deranged bat, it went on much longer.

  “Jesus, Miss Mavis,” Micah breathed. “You scared me.”

  “Sorry, hon,” she said, laughing. “Our Bunko group is taking over Rojo’s tonight, and the other ladies put me on welcome duty.”

  Miss Mavis was usually on a giant three-wheeled bicycle, roaming the town and collecting-slash-sharing gossip as she sold whatever her latest craft was out of a basket. I didn’t know if I’d ever seen her standing upright.

  “Uh-oh,” Micah said with a wink. “Y’all might be too much for us tonight. We might have to go somewhere tamer.”

  “You joke,” Miss Mavis said. “But you haven’t seen us in action yet, Miss Roman.” She nudged me, as though to get me in on the funny, but then I realized it was to get me out of the way. “Hello,” she said, smiling up at Thatcher and Jackson. “Who might you be?”

  “They’d be the Mister Romans,” Micah said. “My brothers.”

  “Thatcher.”

  “Jackson,” Jackson said, each of them taking one of her hands. I had a real fear that she just might faint dead away. “It’s an honor to meet you, ma’am.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Miss Mavis said breathily. “All that pretty in one family. How do you stand having such good-looking brothers, Micah?”

  “It’s a struggle,” Micah said, deadpan.

  “Is one of them yours?” Miss Mavis asked, looking at me.

  My mouth went dry.

  “Nope,” I said quickly, backing as far away from Thatcher as the small space would allow. “Not mine.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” she said. “You just got divorced, didn’t you? From the Larson fellow that’s marrying the Dartwell girl? Is it true she’s pregnant?”

  All the pretty clothes in the world couldn’t dress up the firebomb damage. All the progress I’d made, the repairs to my self-esteem after being cheated on so publicly, peeled off me like a layer of onion.

  “I don’t—” I began, my voice sounding odd and tinny. I wanted to say it wasn’t her business, but they’d made it the whole town’s business. My failure to produce a child in a decade was kept private, but Bart and Dixie’s success was spreading in hours. “I—”

  “Gabi’s fibbing,” Thatcher said, suddenly at my side. His warm hand landed on my back and traveled up under my hair to the nape of my neck as he pulled me to him. My hand instantly went around his back before I could process the movement. “We’re just new, and she’s trying to keep it on the down-low.” He winked at Miss Mavis. “You understand.”

  I looked up at him, ignoring how close his face was, how his smell surrounded me like a cocoon.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered.

  “I keep telling her she doesn’t have to be so cautious,” he said, running a finger along my cheek that might as well have been carved into me with a match. “But we’re only on what—the third date? She didn’t want talk to start.”

  I had no words. I barely had thoughts, except for counting up the encounters. First night he fed me a cookie. Second night he fed me kiwi, drove me home, and felt me up in his truck. It really was like a third date. Cute.

  “Oh, I get it,” Miss Mavis said in a loud whisper, her eyes wide and sweet. “This town can get very loose lips, let me tell you.”

  I tore my gaze away from Thatcher’s to meet hers. It was her gossip that led to my finding out about Bart’s affair. Indirectly, anyway. I’d recommended Dixie for an intern position, and I’d heard talk from Miss Mavis that she’d heard Dixie was making her way up the wrong way. I went up there to surprise Bart for lunch and give her a heads-up that tongues were wagging and to keep it clean, when I found her tongue otherwise occupied in my husband’s mouth. While the rest of her was wrapped around his nether regions. Surprise was on me.

  “You think?”

  “I know,” she answered, nodding seriously like we were now soul sisters. “You wouldn’t believe the things people tell me.”

  “I bet I would,” I said with a cheesy smile as his fingers moved on my neck and my heart skipped ahead. I moved in to him and rested my other hand low on his stomach, making him inhale long and deep and smile to cover it.

  Oh, yeah. That was worth it.

  “Well, you two enjoy your date,” she said, squeezing his hand. “You won’t hear a peep out of me.”

  “Thank you,” Thatcher said, winking at her again and making her cheeks glow pink.

  She tittered off behind us to welcome whoever was coming in next, probably adding the juicy little tidbit that Gabi Graham had a hot date with Micah Roman’s brother.

  “Oh my God,” I said under my breath, letting my eyes flutter closed.

  “Wow,” Micah said, laughing behind her hand. “Well played, Thatch.”

  “Yeah,” I said, grimacing behind a smile. “Well played, Thatch. Third date?”

  He shrugged and a grin pulled at his lips that made my eyes drop to watch. So much for keeping my distance to let things cool down. Now people were expecting something. Like dinner theater.

  Micah and Jackson turned to talk to the host, and Thatcher squeezed me to him quickly and then let go, letting his fingers trail slowly down my back. I felt every centimeter.

  “You realize the whole town will hear about this within the hour, right?” I asked.

  His hand stopped where my jeans began, and I wondered if I was going to be this hyperaware of his every move all night, or just the ones involving me.

  “And alakazam—you aren’t the victim anymore,” he said softly. “In their eyes, you’ve moved on, too.”

  My chest tightened, and I for real wanted to kiss him for that.

  “Why would you do that?” I asked.

  We were motioned to move forward as the hostess crooked a finger, and he pulled me in front of him, keepin
g his hands on my shoulders as we made slow progress. He felt solid against my back as his mouth brushed my ear.

  “It’s what friends do.”

  Jesus.

  Little waves of electricity shot down my right side at the contact. He was paying me back for the stomach thing. Okay, I thought with a small grin. Game on, friend.

  * * * *

  “Lanie, you look miserable,” I said.

  That’s not normally something you say to a woman, especially a very pregnant one, but the girl looked positively ready to split at the seams.

  We’d been there for an hour. Nick and Lanie sat across from me, Allie and Bash next to them, Jackson shared the end with Drew when he wasn’t off flirting with a woman at another table or when all of the guys weren’t up at the bar congregating with Leo. Micah sat on the other side of Thatcher. Who was very close to me, smelling like heaven and having way too much fun playing up the date angle. Every time one of the Bunko ladies passed by, he’d slide his hand along the top of my chair and let his fingers toy with my bare shoulder. I became hooked on the sensation, waiting for those ladies to go to the restroom like a druggie needing a fix.

  “I’m about to take her home soon,” Nick said, kissing his wife’s head. He gave Thatcher a look and a nod, and I looked at his profile but didn’t see a response.

  “Yeah, I’m afraid I’m not much fun right now,” Lanie said, breathing out slowly. “And I want a margarita so badly right now, I could punch all of you people.”

  Nick laughed and squeezed her to him. “My sweet girl.”

  “You’re the first on the list,” she said, winking. She frowned as she looked at Micah. “You don’t look so good, either,” she said. “You okay?”

  I leaned around Thatcher to see Micah fanning herself with a coaster. The light was dim and weird in our little corner, made up of red and green and orange lights placed randomly, so everyone had the same bizarre coppery hue about them, but Micah looked relatively paler than when we’d arrived.

  “Just feel weird,” she said, patting her face and dropping her hand to her belly. “Maybe I need to switch to water. Or a Coke.”