Chapter 5
“How could you ask them to come over here?” I sputter, grabbing my handbag and rifling through it for my makeup bag. “Do you not see how I look right now?”
“If you are quote, hanging out, unquote, why do you care?” Holly challenges.
I pause for a moment to give her a mock glare. “I’m so not your best friend anymore.”
Holly laughs. “Ha-ha. You should love me for delivering a hot sexy Swiss man to you to go along with your iced coffee.”
I pull out my compact.
Maybe I don’t appear as horrific as I fear I do.
I brace before flipping it open and GAH! It’s worse.
In addition to not having any makeup on, I have dark circles under my eyes causing me to look as exhausted as I feel. I draw the mirror up closer to the natural light and see a random eyebrow hair I need to tweeze.
“Damn it, my eyebrows are a mess,” I say, setting my compact down and searching for tweezers.
“What are you talking about?” Holly asks. “You look beautiful.”
I stop and tap my finger right between my eyebrows. “Look at this random hair! It’s standing at attention.”
“So even your eyebrow hairs are excited to see JP?”
“I’m ignoring you,” I say, finding my tweezers and holding my mirror back up so I can see. “I can’t believe I’m going to tweeze my eyebrows in a café, but the lighting in the restroom is bad.”
“I doubt JP is going to notice your eyebrows.”
“He’s into eyes. He’ll notice,” I say, plucking away. “I swear I sprout these things overnight.”
“Good to see you taking this so casually,” Holly deadpans.
I freeze mid-pluck.
What am I doing?
I shouldn’t care about this.
I can’t care about this.
I toss the tweezers back into my bag as if they were on fire and retrieve my lipstick instead, casually swiping it on.
“My lips are dry,” I say, knowing Holly isn’t going to buy that for one second.
And neither do I.
“Ooh, here they come,” Holly says, smiling as she glances out the window.
I follow her gaze. JP and Matt are walking down the sidewalk. Matt is talking, and JP laughs at something he said.
My breath catches in my throat as I watch JP and how his smile lights up his face.
He’s absolutely beautiful when he smiles.
Matt looks up. He grins and waves, and Holly waves back as they enter the coffeehouse.
I turn my attention to the door as they step inside. For a split-second, I wonder if JP can be as incredible as I remembered him being last night.
“Care if we join you?” Matt asks, moving next to Holly and dropping an affectionate kiss on her head.
JP removes his sunglasses, and, oh, my, those amazing eyes, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, are now locked on mine.
“For the record,” JP says slowly, “I normally bathe before I get coffee.” Then a slow, sexy grin spreads across his face.
My stomach flips upside down. Ooh! He’s using my line from last night!
“Now that’s an interesting conversation starter,” I say, repeating his answer to him.
“Is it okay to talk to you?”
I furrow my brow. “What? Of course, why would you even ask that?”
“Making sure you’ve had enough coffee. For talkie.”
I’m burning my entire stupid T-shirt collection the second I get home.
My cheeks burn, and now I’m double irritated. First, because I have on another uninspired outfit in front of JP, and second, because I’m blushing. Why am I blushing again?
I reach for my iced coffee and take a sip, using that second to pull my rapidly unhinging self together.
“Iced coffee has been consumed,” I explain. “I’m absolutely game for conversation.”
“Good,” JP says, staring at me.
Oh, my, he’s going to be the end of me.
“I’m going to get a cappuccino. Do you need anything?” JP asks.
“No, thank you, I’m good,” I say.
Unless you count the jumble of nerves I feel inside whenever I’m around you. In that case, I’m a mess.
But, so far, it’s turning out to be a good mess.
Matt and JP go up to get their drinks, and I turn to Holly, who has the biggest grin on her face.
“Don’t say a word,” I warn her.
Holly takes a sip of her latte. “I don’t need to. Watching you two tells me everything I need to know. You’re very interested. No. I’m a writer, so let me change very because it’s too overused. You have more than a passing interest in JP. You’re captivated by him.”
I groan. “Captivated? What am I, the heroine in your next novel?”
“Ooh, good idea,” Holly says. “I’ll put you in my planner for the next book. Reese and JP.”
“Wrong. Your readers will hate that book. Holly Johansson is not known for writing stories about two characters hanging out.”
“Exactly,” Holly says seriously.
Matt comes back up and takes a seat next to Holly at the counter. He leans forward so he can talk to me.
“Going out with Rochat on Friday night, huh?”
My heart leaps. JP did talk about me.
“Yeah,” I say casually.
But my heart is reacting in anything but a casual way.
“It’s about time,” Matt says, smiling at me. “I’ve been telling him to make a move since last spring.”
What?
JP comes back and takes the seat next to me, so I can’t follow up on that comment, but I need to. I shift my attention to JP, wondering if he’s been interested in me since last spring. Have I been the woman on his thoughts all this time? The reason all his pics on Connectivity this summer were with his family and friends?
Stop. You’re being ridiculous.
I sound like I stalked him all summer on social media.
Looking at accounts of people you know isn’t stalking.
It’s staying informed.
That is my theory, and I’m sticking with it.
“How are you?” JP asks, his rich, deep voice practically reverberating down my spine and interrupting my rationalization of why I checked his status all summer.
“Tired,” I admit. “You?”
“Tired,” JP says, taking a sip of his cappuccino. “I stayed up too late texting this girl with feline-like eyes.”
Oh!
“Hopefully the texts made it worth it, Batman,” I flirt back.
“Yes,” JP says. “I find her interesting.”
Electricity sweeps through me, a new current like nothing I’ve experienced before when talking to a man.
“Hey,” Matt says, interrupting our conversation. “Are either of you guys busy tonight?”
I glance at JP.
“I have nothing going on,” JP says. “What about you, Reese?”
“No, nothing,” I say, wondering what I’m about to get myself into.
Matt and Holly exchange a knowing look, and I resist the urge to dive under the countertop and hide.
“Team Challenge. Bowling,” Matt says.
“Bowling?” I ask. “Oh, I haven’t bowled in forever.”
“Neither have I, so that’s fair,” Holly says.
“What’s the challenge?” JP asks.
I love how JP gets right down to the challenge part.
“You and Reese against me and Holly,” Matt says. “Losing team picks up the tab for bowling and dinner. But I know you’ll be paying, Rochat.”
Ooh, the gauntlet has been thrown down.
“I’m in,” JP says, “and we’re going upscale bowling, Rhinelander, at that place that has craft beer and lobster tails. Prepare to open your wallet because I don’t intend to lose.”
JP’s competitive streak is the same as mine. Holly and Matt are going down, despite the fact that I haven’t bowled in years and am moving with the efficiency of a one-hundred-year-old woman today.
“Are you in, Reese?” Matt asks.
“I’m so in,” I say.
I turn back to JP, who is smiling at me in a way that makes me practically melt.
As I smile back at him, I can’t help but wonder if I’m so in on multiple levels.
Not just with bowling.
But with one fantastically sexy Swiss man sitting next to me.