Page 4 of The Trade Up

“It’ll come through when it comes through,” Jefferson says as he wipes his forearm across his forehead while standing over the hot griddle. “I know that’s not the answer you wanted, but just relax. It’s almost the holidays.”

“Yeah.” I sigh and reach out to rearrange an ornament hanging from the tinsel strung above the prep area beside me. “There’s nothing to do but wait.”

When I return to the front of the diner, only StarTrek Guy is left at table 3.

“If your friends stuck you with the bill,” I tease, “you need better friends.”

“Like you?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. With his pale eyes, sharp jawline, and sandy hair, not to mention all those muscles, he reminds me of exactly the type of guy I should be avoiding post-breakup with Colby.

“We’re not friends.”

“Not yet,” he says with an air of cocky confidence that should be a turnoff, but the boyish grin makes him endearing instead.

I don’t know why I’m flirting with him. I’m planning to move across the country for grad school, so there’s no reason to get involved with anyone here in Seattle. I don’t need those kinds of complications in my life. Leaving my uncle behind is already going to be hard enough.

“I told them to go,” he says. “We just flew in tonight and we have to be up early tomorrow for—” He glances around. “—work.”

“Oh, you’re not from here?” Suddenly he’s even more attractive.

“No. And this is my first time in Seattle. So tell me, if you only had tonight and tomorrow, what would you do?”

I tap my index finger on my chin as I think.

“Okay, so tonight the sky is really clear. You should head to Kerry Park in the Queen Anne neighborhood. It has the best views of downtown Seattle, and the ferries going across Elliot Bay look like little streaks of light across the water. It’s only about a mile from here.”

“And what do I do once I’m there?”

“There’s a viewing area, and you just admire the scenery. There are some really beautiful houses in Queen Anne that are all lit up right now for Christmas, and from Kerry Park you can see the lit Christmas tree on top of the Space Needle.”

“They put a tree on top of the Space Needle?” He sounds doubtful.

I laugh. “Not like an actual tree, it’s…you just have to go see it.”

“I feel like I need a tour guide. And the way your face lit up when you were talking about the Christmas lights and the view—you seem like the perfect person for the job.”

I roll my eyes. “Like I’d take a perfect stranger somewhere in my car.” He’s cute, but I don’t really know him.

“We can take an Uber. Or walk if it’s really only a mile.”

“Yeah,” I laugh. “It’s a mile uphill and it’s pretty cold out. You don’t appear to even have a jacket.”

“It’s above freezing. Trust me, I don’t need a jacket.”

“Hey, I value my appendages, but if you don’t…” I shrug. He looks so damn sure of himself that I almost want to keep him out on that viewing platform long enough that his balls shrivel up.

“So how soon are you off work?” he asks, glancing around the almost empty diner.

Am I agreeing to this? I think I am, even though I’m not sure why. A few weeks without a boyfriend, and suddenly a hot guy who likes Star Trek has me throwing caution to the wind?

“I just have to close out the tab at table 6,” I say, nodding my chin toward the table across the room.

He hands me the check presenter stuffed full of cash from his table, gently sets his big hands on my shoulders, and turns me toward table 6. A shiver of anticipation runs down my spine when he leans in and says, “Let’s get going, then.”

ChapterThree

ZACH

The sighs escaping Ashleigh’s parted lips as she glances at the Christmas lights of the 19th century homes have me trying to think of anythingexceptwhat kind of sounds she’d be making if we were naked.

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