“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.
“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, keeping 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.”
“Bad vodka?” Allie asked. “Did you have one of your brother’s shots?”
Jackson kept ordering various shots, trying to outdrink Thatcher, using going to the bar as an excuse to talk to the pretty blonde, but where Jackson got progressively more lit, Thatcher acted like he was throwing back sweet tea.
“No,” Micah said weakly, fanning herself again. “Just the two whiskeys. And Gabi’s pizza.”
“You had pizza?” Drew asked. “Thanks for inviting.”
“Gabi ordered it to stay home, but I made her come so we ate it in the car,” Micah said.
“You ate it in the car,” I said. “I was too—” I stopped myself. “I just wasn’t hungry.”
“You weren’t coming?” Thatcher asked, the mischief in his eyes telling me he knew why.
“Nope,” I said, giving him a full-on look, chin up.
“Scared?” he whispered.
Oh, the nerve. I let a grin pull at my lips so that his eyes would drop there.
“Smart,” I mouthed.
He chuckled and turned away.
“I planned on a movie night for the last night of normal in my house,” I said. “Your sister kidnapped me and ate all my pizza.”
“My siblings tend to do that,” he said, with a pointed look at Jackson, who gave him an inebriated version of innocence. “Eat everything. Drink everything. Don’t clean up after themselves.”
“Hey,” Micah said with a frown.
“You’ll miss me when I’m gone,” Jackson said, pulling out his phone when it dinged. Glancing at it, his brows furrowed, and he knocked back another large gulp of his drink.
“Slow that down,” Thatcher said.
“What, so you can keep up?”
“No, so you can drive us home,” Thatcher said. “What’s going on?” he asked, nodding toward Jackson’s phone.
“Nothing,” Jackson said, his fingers tapping out a text. “My neighbor’s letting me know there’s some guys hanging around.”
“That’s not good,” Micah said, leaning forward, blinking to focus.
“He’s the sheriff, he’ll take care of it,” Jackson said, his thumbs still tapping.
“The sheriff lives next door to you?” Drew asked.
Jackson smirked as he finished up. “Sometimes it has its perks.”
“Mayor Anderson!” said a shrill voice behind me that made me jump and groan, and every other woman at the table grimace. A tall, buxom redhead with a cloud of perfume and body glitter that seemed to waft in her wake clomped around the table on three-inch heels to side-hug Bash and Nick’s heads at one time. The size of her chest made it look as if she had four boobs. “How are two of my favorite guys tonight? Are you drinking on the house tonight, Mayor?” She giggled. “It’s so weird to call you that.”
“Yeah, it’s still hard to get used to,” Bash said, raking his dark hair back after she’d messed it up. “No, I’m paying like everyone else. How’s it going, Kat?”
She had a gold nametag pinned to her shirt.
“Are you working here now?” I asked her.
Katrina Bowman was a slut of all trades. Married to the female version of her, Alan Bowman, a sleazeball with a car salesman smile, she tended to land herself in various roles, from party-thrower, to jewelry-maker, to an independent event planner, to evidently now a bar waitress.
Last year, she’d thrown herself at Nick, prompting Lanie to flash her boobs at her in public to back her down. She’d hit on Bash for years, drooled all over Sully when he first came back to town, made sure to drape herself over Leo routinely when he and Micah got here, and was now eyeing Thatcher and Jackson like new meat she needed to sink her pointy little teeth into.
“Part time, yes,” she said, flashing said teeth. “I still have my event planning business and it’s doing fabulously,” she emphasized. “But until I build a more significant customer base, I need to supplement a tiny bit.”
“Awesome,” Lanie said, deadpan, and Katrina cut her eyes briefly in Lanie’s direction. There was no love lost there.
“After last summer’s speed dating event they held here, and the karaoke night that stuck, the manager here decided that having me on staff to bring in venues would be an asset,” she said.
“I’ll bet,” Allie said sweetly, leaning her elbows on the table.
“So, I suggested to the ladies over there that they should book their game nights here,” Katrina said. “And here they are!”
“Here they are.” I nodded. “Did we lose our other waitress?”
Allie snickered and I clamped my lips shut. Oops.
“So, introduce me to your friends,” Katrina said after shooting me a not-so-nice look, drawing out the last word in a sing-songy voice.
“Not friends,” Micah said, pushing her drink away. “My brothers, Thatcher and Jackson.”
“Thanks a lot,” Jackson said, nudging her. “And why am I always second? J comes before T.”
“Age before beauty,” Thatcher said.
Jackson pointed at him, his eyes starting to have the heavy blinking affliction of the greatly inebriated. “That must be it. I am the pretty one.” He looked over his shoulder at his new friend, who was indeed agreeing with every ounce of feminine body language.
Katrina zeroed in on Thatcher, however, with all the subtlety of a train wreck. “You’re both pretty,” she said, smiling at Thatcher, her hands still on Nick’s and Bash’s shoulders. Warmth like a thousand suns heated my back as his hand moved up to the back of my neck and pulled me closer. Possessively. Protectively. Or maybe it was playfully, and just all part of his game tonight. Ugh.
Drew narrowed her eyes with a little head tilt at me. I’d explained the whole fake date thing the first time one of the ladies made a comment, but she was studying more than I preferred.
Katrina caught the move, too, her keen eyes absorbing more than her ditzy manner advertised.
“Yeah, Mrs. Boudreaux said you were back in the saddle, Gabi,” she said, doing a little circular move with her hips as my jaw hit the table. “Way to go.”
“Oh my God,” Allie said, laughing behind her hand.
“Seriously,” Lanie whispered under her breath.
“I—there’s no—” I stammered. “Saddles. We’re just on a date.”
“Third date,” Audrey Mason said, as she scooted past us, her Bunko shirt blinged out with rhinestones so it looked like her boobs were glowing. She giggled as she patted my shoulder. Audrey was one of the drugstore Masons, and perpetually giggled or laughed in every situation or conversation. I always suspected she was a little too happy to be normal. “We’re so happy for you, Gabi. You know, with that hideous wedding going on and all.”
Katrina put her hands on her hips.
“Dixie’s wedding is not hideous,” she said. “I’m doing it myself. Not that the Graham’s was any help in a pinch.”
I opened my mouth to ask her if she’d lost her mind, but Drew beat me to it.
“Excuse me?” Drew said, finger combing her dark hair back. “Did you really expect us to take that job? I mean seriously.”
Lanie chuckled. “It explains so much.”
Katrina leveled a look at her, ignoring Drew. “Meaning?”
“Meaning finding out that you’re doing it,” Lanie said. “Cheap. Gaudy. Embarrassing.”
“Don’t poke the beast,” Nick whispered through unmoving lips.
“I don’t care, I’m pregnant,” Lanie said. “The only time in my life I can say exactly what I want and get away with it.” She smiled back up at Katrina, who had gone redder than her fake hair. “Go away, Kat.”
“I hope your baby comes out with fangs and talons and tears your tits apart,” Katrina spat.
Lanie raised her eyebrows, at a loss for a comeback for a few seconds. “Well, I’ll give you points for originality, anyway. Thank you, Kat, I’ll be sure to send it to your house afterward.”
Katrina stormed away, extra sass popping her hips. Something about her doing Dixie and Bart’s wedding and knowing it would be a hot mess and would horrify Mrs. Dartwell, and make poor little perfect pregnant Dixie cry—made me feel better. I was probably going to hell for that. Then again, that wasn’t even the worst of my sins lately.
“Guess she’s not taking our order,” Bash said, amusement dancing on his face. “Man, I know I’m supposed to like everybody now, but she just drives me crazy.”
“You just have to like people to their face,” Allie said, kissing his. “No one can be expected to really like the Bowmans.”
“Here here,” Nick said, holding up his drink.
I held up my drink and toasted her retreat, sucking in a deep breath as Thatcher pulled my head to him.
Jesus. Yeah. This was the worst.
“I’m getting another beer,” he said against my ear, sending warmth and all kinds of naughty sensations traveling warp speed over my entire body. “Do you want anything?”
A chuckle escaped my lips at the double entendre, and I slid my hand to his thigh under the table as I turned to face him. His mouth was closer than I expected, my hand landed higher than I intended, and his low growl of barely restrained lust was thankfully covered by background music and one of the ladies across the room yelling Bunko! at the top of her lungs.
Bunko, indeed.
Micah leaned forward, grimacing as she did but looking over at us with an eyebrow quirked. “You two sure are taking this pretend dating thing to a believable level.”
Oh, she had no idea. Hell, and all that.
I chuckled again, forcing myself to pull back from his face, his grip, the hard-on pushing against the side of my little finger.
“Go big or go home, you know?” I said breathily, pulling my clingy shirt away from my chest just in case my very turned-on nipples decided to rip my bra open.
He laughed, sounding like he was in pain, and shifted a little in his chair, moving his focus to his sister. I was doing the opposite, as my sister had her eagle-eyed stare going, and I didn’t dare meet it. It was like friggin’ x-ray vision.
“You okay?” he asked. “Need me to get you something?”
Jackson glanced at Micah as well, and rubbed her back. “Are you sure you aren’t having a baby, too?”
“That would be a shocker,” Micah said, stroking her throat.
“Oh hell, see that move?” Thatcher said, pointing at her. Micah froze, mid-stroke, and stared at him.
“What?”
“You used to do that when you were little right before you’d puke.”
She elbowed him and frowned. “Stop it, I’m not gonna puke.”
“And she did some doozies,” Jackson said. “Remember that time at the pool—”
“Can we please stop talking about it?” Micah said, patting her face again.
“Mom was so mad,” he continued. “She had that brand new sun thing.”
“It was a swimsuit cover-up,” Micah said. “It was cotton and polyester and perfectly washable, not made out of spun gold. But everyone placated her like they always did, letting her make me—the sick child—into the bad guy.”
“Someone sounds like a child right now,” Thatcher said.
“Seriously?” she said, turning sideways in her chair. “You’re still taking up for her, even now.”
“And you’re still bitching about her,” he said. “Honestly, Micah, let it go.”
“Okay,” Lanie said, beginning to push out of her seat. “Maybe you need a Coke to settle your stomach.”
And change the subject. The tension was getting uncomfortable.
“Let me go,” Nick said, scraping his chair back and laying a hand on her shoulder.
“I’ll go with you,” Bash said, rising as well.
“My God, it’s like pack mentality,” Allie said, watching them walk up to the bar together again. Even Thatcher glanced back as if he were missing out on something important. “And they say women do things in groups.”
As Nick and Bash left the table and chatting commenced, Lanie and Allie agreeing on probably heading out soon, and Jackson wandering off again to watch his pretty friend flip her hair and flash cleavage, Thatcher reached under the table and found my hand.
My heart fluttered in my chest as he placed my hand back on his leg and loosely held it with his. High enough on his thigh to be hot. Familiar enough to be comfortable.
Comfortable.
This game was getting riskier by the second.