Page 66 of The Moment You Know

“Fine,” she cut him off. “The entire time I was grinding against Jack, I was keeping an eye on you and Paige—”

“Why?”

“Because she’s the most important person in my life, that’s why,” Jules answered, her gaze direct and fierce. “That’s not hyperbole, by the way.”

For a moment, he was distracted by her use of the word ‘hyperbole’, which had been his Word-of-the-Day a few weeks ago and he almost missed what she said next.

“I would go to the mattresses for her.”

He blinked at her intensity, which was a complete turn-on, as was the fact that she was apparently a fan of The Godfather.

She snapped her fingers at him. “Are you listening to me?”

“Yes.”

“That means I won’t let anyone fuck around with her,” she continued, cheeks a little flushed due to her heated emotions and the touchy subject matter. “Especially a hot bartender who might want to just fuck around with her and then disappear, because she doesn’t need that.”

He put his hands on the bar and leaned forward, thankful that it kept her from seeing the hard-on she was giving him. “I’m going to be honest with you, too,” he said, keeping his voice low, as if soothing a wild animal. “I don’t want to fuck around with her. I steer clear of the nice ones and she’s off-the-charts nice.”

Jules pursed her lips, weighing his sincerity.

“But, even if I did want to fuck around with her, it wouldn’t matter, because she doesn’t want to fuck around with me—” he broke off as she raised her eyebrows. “It’s true. She and I talked a lot while you were grinding against Jack, so I know what she’s looking for and it looks a lot like her ex-husband and not a hook-up with a hot bartender. So … are we kosher?”

Her expression flattened a little—he assumed at the mention of the ex-husband—and she nodded, before picking up her phone.

In fascination, he gazed at her bent head, digging the way the red in her hair was even more pronounced under the dim lights in the bar and pictured it fisted in his hand … or draped across his thighs … or spread out over one of his pillows …

Jesus Christ. His hard-on was now a real problem.

With a quick shake of his head, he forced himself to look away just as Paige reappeared, coming from the direction of the bathrooms. To his amusement, she seemed slightly unsteady, as if the three recent shots she’d put away had all caught up with her.

“The Uber’s on its way,” Jules said, putting her phone down as Paige carefully climbed onto her barstool.

Evan set a fresh glass of water in front of her. “Drink up.”

As Paige drank, Jules took her credit card out of her purse to pay their bar tab, but when she tried to hand it to Evan, he shook his head. “Tonight’s on me.”

Slowly, Jules tucked the card back in her purse. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Evan then asked them if they had a business card. When they looked at him a little strangely, he pointed to a large glass bowl next to the cash register, which was half-full of business cards, with a sign above it that read, ‘Leave a business card and enter to win a free drink! Winners chosen on the 1st of every month’.

Paige immediately dug one out of her purse, while Jules took her time before finally getting one of her own and handing it over.

As he wrote his name on the backs of both cards and then put them in the bowl, he explained that he and his brother, Everett, and his sister, Evelyn, also used the give-away as a friendly ‘competition’ between the three of them. “We write our name on the back of each card we collect, and after we randomly pick a winner, whoever has their name written on the back, gets two extra days off the following month.”

“Well, good luck,” Paige said.

When their Uber arrived, Evan reached across the bar to shake their hands in farewell.

“Good night, Paige,” he said.

She smiled and gave his hand a friendly squeeze. “Good night, Evan.”

Then he turned to Jules. “Good night, Jules.”

She hesitated for a moment before taking his hand and shaking it. “Good night, Evan.”

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