Page 41 of Soulless Saint

“Go ahead, laugh it up.”

“Awe come on, let me poke fun. It’s like watching a baby take—”

“Don’t,” I warned her with all of the ire but none of the fire, trying to keep my lips from turning up in a smirk. “Don’t say it.”

She looked at me through her lashes mischievously. “Or what?”

“Or I’ll replace all the coffee in the house with decaf.”

Her mouth gaped open, eyes round as she wielded the dirty rag in her hand like a weapon, whipping it in my direction. “Death first!”

I chucked a to-go cup at her, and she whipped it out of the air with a ‘Ha!’ just as the bells over the door rang.

The pair of us dropped our makeshift weapons and straightened up, holding back laughter as a couple came in, going straight for the little nook near the very back, laptop bags slung over their shoulders. But if I’d learned anything in the last few days, it was that nook number nine was not for studying. Its placement, set off to the right of the main corridor, tucked away in a tight alcove, made it the perfect place for the covert spreading of something more vulgar than book pages.

“Not even going to buy something first,” I chided in a whisper once they were gone.

“Tsk, tsk,” Kate added between bouts of quieted laughter when the bells rang again, but this time signaling the entry of someone I recognized.

Aodhán pushed damp hair from his face as he entered, as if he’d just gotten out of the shower before arriving. He paused mid swipe of his fingers through the blond locks, eyes meeting mine.

Surprise lifted one of his brows as he slowly approached the counter and somehow I was there. A thin slip of counter and a cash register the only things between us.

“You work here?” he asked, his head tipping to one side as he considered me, taking in the black apron, the name tag, my slick dark ponytail.

“Last time I checked. You aren’t stalking me, are you?”

The question sprang from my grinning mouth as a joke, but once spoken, forced me to consider it myself.

Could it be total coincidence that I’d run into him not once, but three times in the last three days? A sinking feeling plummeted low in my gut, and suddenly it was a struggle to keep my expression even, the air rattling in my lungs.

Aodhán leaned against the counter with a wry smile that managed to both charm me and set me somehow back at ease. “You caught me. I just can’t seem to stay away from you.”

Behind me, Kate cleared her throat, and I jerked back from him, blinking rapidly. “Who’s your friend?” she asked innocently, and I remembered she’d requested an introduction with the mysterious Irishman.

“This is Aodhán,” I said, coughing before I could speak. “He, uh, he gave me a ride home from Kaleb’s the other night.”

“Such a gentleman,” Kate said with a beaming smile, bending forward against the counter in a way that afforded Aodhán a full view of her perky breasts, but he didn’t seem to notice. “I’m Kate,” she offered. “Becca’s my roommate.”

Aodhán’s green eyes gaze slid briefly to Kate before returning to me. “Could you make me a Red Eye, Kate? One sugar.”

Her smile grew as she rose from her ass-out perch on the counter, clearly not taking Aodhán’s request for what it was. A dismissal.

I swallowed. “That’ll be five fifty,” I told him, ringing up his drink. “Unless you want something else?”

“Is that a trick question?” he asked, and from the look he was giving me, I knew exactly what else he’d ask for if he thought I’d give it to him.

“Kate’s single,” I whispered, the whirr of the espresso grinder concealing her from being able to hear us. “You could ask her for whatever it is you want.”

He frowned, something sharp slashing across his features before that panty melting smirk was right back in place. My skin prickled with gooseflesh, and I worked to swallow, my throat suddenly dry.

“It isn’t her I want.”

“Oh?”

Aodhán slid a ten dollar bill across the counter at the same time Kate returned with his drink. He wrapped his fingers around it, the tattoo, PRAY, on full display across his knuckles as he sipped the piping hot liquid without so much as a flinch.

“Becca, are you going to give him his change? Sorry, she’s still learning.”

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