Shay stopped short at the sight of Harper’s aggressive stance. “What the . . .”
“I thought you were a bear.”
“Huh,” Shay said, but didn’t offer anything further, snarky or sarcastic or otherwise.
That was when Harper realized Shay had more than just rain on her face. It was tears, streaming down her cheeks. “Hey. Are you okay?”
“Do I look okay?”
“No, you look like you’re crying.”
Shay swiped at her tears. “That’s because my life status is currently holding it all together with one bobby pin.”
Harper hesitated. Any other woman, she’d have reached out with a hug or sympathetic words. But this was Shay. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked cautiously.
“No.” But more tears fell.
Harper grimaced, then waded in. “Is this about Mace?”
“We’re not talking about him.”
“Okaaaay. So why are you still standing in the rain with me?”
“I’m not with you.” Shay turned back to the bar. “I’m trying to build up the courage to go back inside.”
“I know the feeling.”
“Oh, do you really?” Shay asked, angrily swiping at her tears. “Were you stupid enough to pick a fight with the man you love, acting like a total asshole, leaving him no choice but to walk away from you?”
Harper’s laugh was mirthless. “Well, actually, the man I loved turned out to be the asshole and he walked away from me, so . . .”
Shay tipped her head back and stared up at the sky. She let out a softly muttered “dammit” and then looked at Harper again. “I’m sorry that happened to you.” She pulled out a flask. “It’s Abuela’s, and if you tell her I have it, I’ll put her favorite curse on you.”
“What does the curse do?”
Shay shrugged. “She’s a bit vague on that. And I can’t believe you hired her.”
“Hey, she scared me into it. But she’s great in the kitchen.”
Shay snorted and took a long pull from the flask before offering it to Harper, who took a sip, swallowed, then proceeded to nearly cough up a lung. Eyes streaming, she swiped her mouth. It took her a full two minutes to be able to do anything other than wheeze. “Dear God, what is that?”
“Moonshine. Abuela’s brother and uncle make it for their cronies in the old folks’ home. They claim it’s better than any depression or anxiety med.” Shay held the flask up in a mock toast. “To . . . all the men we love to hate and hate to love.” She took a shot and then gasped, eyes watering as she pounded her own chest. “Okay, so this batch is a bit stronger than most.”
“You picked a fight with Mace, the king of easygoing, laid-back, effortless charm? That must’ve been difficult to even do,” Harper said, knowing she was taking her own life into her hands for wanting to know.
“I had my reasons.”
Harper studied her. “Is he a closeted dickwad? Was he mean to you? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“No, nothing like that.” Shay sighed. “The Campbell guys . . . they’re exactly what they seem, no hidden agenda, not a mean bone in their bodies. I mean, they can be badass, Bodie especially, but they’re good men to the bone. It’s me who’s got the mean bones.” She eyed Harper. “You were engaged to an asshole?”
“Not quite, but close.”
“What made him an asshole?”
“Well, he wasn’t always one,” Harper said.
“More words,” Shay said.
Harper gave her a look. “Goes both ways.”
“You first.”
“Fine. We met freshman year in college. I was young, shy, lonely, and pretty much on my own. Daniel came from a large, prominent family that loved him. He was confident, funny, and had a lot of friends, and drew me out of my shell with embarrassing ease. But when we got serious, his parents started to get in his head. I wasn’t good enough, I was a nobody who worked at a bakery, I was using him . . . And then he suddenly started not including me in things, telling me I was the one pulling away from him, saying I was difficult to care about because I was insecure about him and his family, stuff like that.”
Shay looked pissed-off. “He gaslit you.”
Harper shrugged.
“No, he gaslit you,” Shay repeated. “Because believe me, I’ve tried not to care about you, and I’ve tried really hard too, but here’s the thing, Harper—you are very easy to care about. Which, for the record, I hate.”
“Um, thanks?”
Shay sighed. “Look at it this way: you dodged a bullet. Not all men are created equal.”
“Okay, so if Mace is your person, why did you let him walk away?”
Shay lifted a shoulder. “I panicked.”
“More words,” Harper said dryly.
Shay sighed. “Look, I came from a shitty upbringing. My parents separated when I was young, and neither wanted to keep me. So my abuela took me in. You probably haven’t noticed, but it left me with some serious trust issues.”
“Hmm,” Harper said.
Shay tossed up her hands. “Mace came out of nowhere and . . . just loved me, which was ridiculous of him. I’ve told him a million times relationships never work in the long run. So then what does he do? He asks me to marry him.”
“Wow, what an asshole,” Harper said.
“No, you don’t get it. When we were in high school, we agreed to just be and have fun. No marriage, no white picket fence. He knew how I felt about . . . love, and where I’d come from. And now he wants to change the rules and label it? No.” She shook her head. “It’s a foul on the play. And when I told him so, he tried to talk to me about it. And that’s when I picked a fight, and he proved me right by walking.” She looked away. “Once people put a label on things, it ruins everything.”
“Maybe,” Harper said. “But what I know for sure is that relationships scared the hell out of me too.”
Shay nodded. “Did you really drive away from everything just to come to a place that made you happy when you were a kid?”
“I know it sounds dumb.” Harper shook her head. “But everything just added up. I felt . . . broken. I finally took a good look at my life and realized I wasn’t happy.”
“So you got in the car and drove until you felt happy?”
“Sort of. I drove to the last place that I remembered being happy. My family used to camp at Sugar Pine Point when I was little, back when my mom was still alive.”
Shay sighed and knocked the back of her head against the wall of the bar a few times.
“What?”
“I’m not nearly as good a person as you. You realized your life wasn’t what you wanted, so you made changes. When I realized my life wasn’t what I wanted, I detonated it.” She took another sip from the flask and offered it to Harper again.
“So are we drinking buddies now?” Harper asked.
“Look, I’m not a good friend. You should know that by now.”
Harper shrugged. “You seem pretty solid to me. You shared your alcohol, your abuela—”
“Uh, she should probably go in the negative column.”
“You’re honest,” Harper said. “That’s extremely valuable to me.” Ignoring Shay’s surprise, she gestured to the door. “Ready to do this?”
She grimaced.
“Am I missing something?”
“I sort of accidentally on purpose dumped a drink on the woman Mace was flirting with.”
Harper gaped at her. “You do realize he’s a bartender. He’s being nice to the patrons, not necessarily flirting.”
“The man was born to flirt.” Shay shrugged. “But I probably should apologize to Carrie.”
“Carrie?”
“My cousin. The one Mace’s flirting with.”
A laugh escaped Harper. “You dumped a drink on your own cousin?”
“Yeah,” Shay said, and smiled. “It was very satisfying.”
“Look,” Harper said. “I’m not going home until I do this, until I walk in there and be social like a normal person. And you, my wingwoman, are coming with me.”
“I’m a terrible wingwoman.”
“We’re both going to do better at human-ing starting now, right?”
Shay wrinkled her nose.
“Right?”
“Fine. Right.”
“Good,” Harper said. “So follow me.” And with that command, she walked in the door and toward the bar. Her sure footsteps faltered a bit when she saw Bodie.
His gaze locked on her, and she tripped over her own feet.
“Okay, so I was wrong,” she whispered out the side of her mouth. “I can’t do this.” She paused, waiting for Shay to scoff and make fun of her, but Shay said nothing.
Harper whipped around.
Shay said nothing because she was gone, the front door swaying shut in her wake.
Damn. She really was a rotten wingwoman.
Bodie crooked a finger at her in the age old “come here” gesture. After all these days of watching him paint, fix, and repair whatever she’d needed, as well as help unload all her furniture with that hard body moving so effortlessly and efficiently, she was melting down. Or maybe that had been courtesy of Shay’s abuela’s flask. In any case, she hardly needed another drink, unless it was a glass of ice water.
Or an ice-water shower . . .
Concentrate. You’ve got three options. One, pretend you accidentally wandered in. Two, go sit in the corner and hope he joins you. Or three, be bold and make it look like this was the purposeful decision it was and you’re totally in control.
Her feet made the decision for her, and she headed his way. Only the moment she slid her ass onto a barstool in front of him and he smiled that sexy smile, the one that said he knew one of her favorite places to be kissed was that spot just beneath her ear and that he intended to find more of those places, she knew she wasn’t in control at all.
Mace called down from the other end of the bar. “Hey, man, I need two IPAs, a red ale, and a pitcher of Stella ASAP.”
Completely ignoring him, Bodie leaned into Harper, his elbows braced on the bar. “What can I get you?” he murmured.
“I’m not sure. I just had a few sips from Abuela’s flask and now I feel all . . . discombobulated.”
Bodie laughed softly. “That flask is lethal.” He paused, holding her gaze. “Trust me?”
She bit her lower lip, her body saying YES, her mind saying the exact opposite. “TBD?”
“Fair,” he said, not looking insulted in the least. “Can I come up with a drink for you? It’s one of my superpowers.”
“One of? What are your other superpowers?”
He flashed a bad-boy grin, and she felt herself flush. Okay, so they were flirting. Isn’t that what she’d come for?
“How about something with . . .” Tilting his head, he studied her. “. . . an elegant glass, something a little different, fun, playful . . . with a spectacular finish.”
She got a hot flash. “Are we still talking about a drink?”
He just smiled, then turned around and grabbed a martini glass. She could see his hands moving and the muscles in his shoulders shifting and bunching very pleasantly beneath his shirt. He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Decision time. Alcohol or no?”
“No,” she said, knowing her limits. She’d made enough poor decisions in her life. Tonight wouldn’t be one of them.
Two minutes later he turned back to her with a martini glass that seemed to be filled with liquid chocolate, rimmed in graham crackers, with a skewer across it holding a big marshmallow. Wielding a mini blowtorch, he lit the marshmallow on fire. It went up in a single flame, and when the smoke cleared, it was a perfectly toasted marshmallow. A virgin smor’tini, be still her heart.
“It used to be I had all the moves,” Mace muttered, walking by with a tray.
Harper took a sip and sighed in genuine pleasure. “Amazing. How did you know?”
The woman next to her leaned in. “No one knows how he does it, but he always seems to know what a woman wants, even before she does.”
Hmm. That was more sobering than thrilling. She’d been with a man who’d known how to please any woman, but she’d also been duped and cruelly dumped.
Bodie was watching her think too hard. “It’s hardly a secret,” he said quietly. “You love chocolate, and I’ve seen you drink hot cocoa with marshmallows. And one of the pictures you put up in the balcony is of you and your mom roasting marshmallows on an open fire at Sugar Pine Point.”
True. She drew a deep breath. She’d promised herself to not fall into bad habits, and she wasn’t. She was using her head and her instincts, not her heart. Even if when it came to Bodie Campbell, her body also had an opinion, she was in control.
Mostly.
Still, she played it safe, and when Bodie was called into the back for something, she finished her drink, dropped money to cover it onto the bar, and slid off the stool and out the door.
Thankfully the rain had stopped.
She headed around the back, to the alley that ran behind the buildings, because it was quicker. Except while turning the corner, she ran smack into . . . Bodie, holding a trash bag.
Steadying her with his free hand, he tossed the trash into the dumpster with his other and then looked at her. “You okay?”
“Sure.”
He studied her. “Really okay, or not-ready-to-talk-about-it okay?”
She grimaced. “Maybe the second one.”
That appeared to pain him, but he didn’t push, for which she was eternally grateful. “I’m just heading home,” she said, hitching a thumb toward her building, like he didn’t know where she lived. “I don’t want to leave Ivy alone too long.”
“That kid is more capable than most people I know.”
She was having a hard time keeping her eyes off his mouth. Clearly, the combo of alcohol and sugar had gone to her head. That, or this was what she’d come for, another taste of him, another chance to feel his body against hers. Just the thought made her shiver, in the very best way. Dammit.
“Here.” He pulled off his plaid shirt, the one that had been opened over a navy blue T-shirt, and wrapped it around her. “Not that I don’t love what you’re wearing,” he said, “because . . .” His eyes warmed. “I do.”
“Ivy’s idea,” she muttered.
He pulled her in for a hug that held warmth and strength and something she wasn’t often on the receiving end of—comfort. “I’m not sure what I’m doing,” she said to his chest, then slowly lifted her head and stared at his mouth some more.
The one she wanted back on hers.
“Harper.”
“Hmm?”
Letting out a very sexy male sound, he gently cupped her face, tilting it to his so he could study her. He didn’t kiss her. Instead, he smiled at her in his sexy way. “On a scale of a sip of booze to drunk, where are you?”
She thought about it. “Tipsy enough to want this. But sober enough to know that it’s still a stupid idea.” Fisting her hands in his T-shirt, she nudged him back a few steps and up against the brick wall.
His eyes went dark and dilated. “How stupid?”
“Very stupid.” She rubbed her jaw to his.
He let out a breath. “Harper—”
“Let’s not talk.” Instead, she danced her lips along his rough jaw before grazing it with her teeth.
Hands tightening on hers, he groaned low and masculine in his throat. “Talking is important.”
“It’s overrated.” She kissed him, nibbling at his lips. With another groan, he pulled her closer and kissed her long and deep, one hand holding her tight to him, the other burying itself in the hair at the back of her neck.
And kept kissing her. Her toes curled, and some other reactions were setting off charges along her entire body, but then he broke off to stare into her eyes, as if making sure she was as in it as he was. Though how he could doubt her when she’d wrapped herself around him like a pretzel, she had no idea. “Why are you stopping?”
“Temp check,” he said. “Where’s your head at?”
“I don’t know, but my body’s at hot-and-bothered.”
He let out a half laugh, half groan and smiled at her in a way that made her ache for more. “Same,” he said.
She uncurled her fingers, smoothing his shirt out before letting her hands do as they’d wanted since she’d first walked into the bar, run up his chest. And the south . . .
Covering her hands with his, he kissed one palm and then the other before meeting her gaze. “While I’d really, really like to take this further . . .”
“Oh boy,” she whispered. “The brush-off.”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “No. Not even close. But we’re outside, in an alley, and I not only want better for our first time, I’d like to actually take you out first.”
“I’m not dating right now.” Or ever.
He gave her that smile that never failed to fry her brain cells. “If this is your idea of not dating, I’m not going to complain.” He squeezed her hand. “Just hoping to get to know you a little better. Is that okay?”
Feeling a little pouty that he wasn’t just giving in to her, she said, “You know everything you need to know about me.”
“I’ve got the feeling I’ve barely scraped the surface.” His free hand came up, his thumb gently gliding over the base of her throat where she knew her pulse was racing. “But I’ll make you a promise. We go at your speed.”
She liked the idea of that. A lot.
“Can you make me a promise in return?” he asked.
She hesitated.
His mouth curved like her suspicion amused him—she was so glad it amused someone—and he cupped her face. “Maybe you could just promise to let whatever this thing is between us have its way for a bit. Just a bit.”
“Maybe.” She drew a deep breath and stared up into his eyes, those light brown eyes streaked with gold that were at once warm and unfathomable. And something else.
Familiar?
Dear God, she thought. It wasn’t just the color, it was the shape of them, and the prominence of his cheekbones. And . . . the dimple. “Um . . . I gotta go,” she whispered, and took off.
She ran straight to the back door of her shop and up the stairs. Out of breath, she opened the office door and looked at Ivy, sitting on the futon with her phone.
Ham was asleep next to her, his head on the teen’s lap, mouth open, lips flapping with each exhale.
“What’s up?” Ivy asked.
“That dad you’re looking for. You find him yet?”
“Uh . . .”
“It’s Bodie, isn’t it?”