Page 51 of David

The things he did to her stir a trickle of excitement in those parts of me that haven’t been touched in a while.

I better leave.

He is no boyfriend material.

And not even hookup material.

I need to stay away from him.

I like my soul whole.

There have been enough inept men who have stepped onto my heart and crushed it. I don’t need a real man to do that to me unless I want to never be able to recover.

“Good night,” I say and step away from him.

8

LIZ

When I leave, his suit swishes as if he moves, yet his shoes don’t make the slightest noise against the floor.

He only pivots slightly.

“How were the cookies?” he tosses behind me.

I pull to an abrupt stop.

Now, that was flirting.

Slowly, I spin around.

“Good,” I say, smiling. “Did they get your coffee right the second time around?”

A grin flashes across his lips, his hard–to-trust eyes evading mine again, so maybe I was right.

He used his coffee as a pretext to interact with me in the shop.

Although, it seems too much of a stretch.

“Yes, they did,” he says, bringing his eyes back to me.

“Are you always such an… uh… so difficult?” I ask, biting back ‘asshole’ at the last moment.

“Only when they put sugar in my coffee,” he says with a charming smile.

How precious of him.

I’d like to remind him he took quite a few sips of coffee before deciding his drink wasn’t good enough and stepping into the cafe to give the barista a hard time.

But he’d know I stared at him.

And frankly, he doesn’t need more validation than he’s already received this evening from other people, especially the woman in a short dress.

“You don’t like sweet things,” I say.

“Not in my coffee,” he retorts, his dimple surfacing as he gives me a flirting grin.

Smiling, I bite my lip, and his eyes dip to my mouth.

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