Page 4 of Peaches

Hold the press, I have to go take care of all things self-gratifying if it means he’s the one making me heavily sigh later on.

“You start, only to stop and take a moment, wishing, wanting, yearning for something, anything, to give you what you’re afraid to give yourself.”

He takes a sip of his coffee and gives me time to sit with his last words. I’m not afraid of anything, except maybe the writer’s block that won’t lift when I need it to most. I go to speak, to enlighten him on how fearless I am, but he cuts me off.

“You’re so busy focusing on your lane, your path, that even if it did come,your distraction, you’d be too fixated on what you’re not getting to ever see what’s right in front of you.”

“And let me guess,” I blurt out, “this is the part where you feed me the bullshit line that what’s sitting right in front of me, what I’m missing out on, isyou?”

His laugh fills my ears, and I can’t help but blush from the insecurity it brings me. Masking my doubt the best I can, I look to the table in front of us and wait, wishing he’d just disappear like the dream I thought he was all of five minutes ago so I don’t have to listen to the answer I might not want to hear to my bold question.

“I like that,” he suggests, making me lift my eyes and give him a questioning look. “You call people on their bullshit. That’s a gift, don’t let anyone tell you any different.”

Didn’t plan on it, Mr. Suave. But remind me again just when I said it was okay that you sit at my table?

I’m about to speak, to ask him just that, when he looks up, catches the eye of someone at the door and gives them a quick nod. Rising, his body sexily lifts out of the chair, my heart feels the void of him leaving, and dare I say it stings a little knowing this brief, unexpected, yet fun as hell encounter, will soon be over.

My mouth hangs open as he looks into my eyes and I instinctively close it to not seem like a gaping fish out of water. I go to speak again, opening my stupid big mouth, and then slam it shut as my eyes nervously dart around him and avoid his stare.

“Tell me,” he says, bringing my stare back to his as I wait again, just once more before he leaves, to hear his gorgeous, too sexy to be true, voice speak. I need to memorize his voice, just one more time. God the pleasure that alone brings me. I can only imagine the rest. And I will, oh Lord how I will. Later, remember?

“Did you get it?” he asks.

“Get what?”

“What you crave, Peaches.”

Peaches? We’re on the level of nicknames already? Who is this guy and how did he just so happen to fall out of the sky and land at my table?

I look at him dumbfounded. A little from his question, and a lot from his use of the nickname Peaches. After all, we are in Georgia, but…

“Your distraction,” his voice says, pulling me to him once again.

It clicks, and my lips smash together as I feel my cheeks blush and my eyes glimmer with only one thing.

Thanks.

“Sure did,” I tease, as I let my eyes shamelessly roam his physique one last time before his chuckle fills the space between us.

“Good,” he says, leaning in with one hand on the table so he’s close enough that I can feel his breath feather against my lips. “Now get back to work before you make me ditch my friend and show you just how much your smile helped turn my day around, too.”

He gives me a wink, making me absolutely speechless again for what seems like the millionth damn time in his presence, and then starts to walk away.

“Besides,” he shouts, making my attention snap to him and his friend at the door. “We both know that’s the way you’d prefer it any ways. For now, at least. The best self-gratifying pleasure comes to those who wait, who are patient, wouldn’t you agree?”

Smug bastard, I think, as I smile to myself and he pushes out the main doors.

And just like that, Mr. Too Good To Be True walks out of the coffee shop and out of my life leaving me too distracted to work and oddly refreshed enough to feel the brain fog start lifting.

What are the odds I’d ever see his handsome face again? Twenty billion to one. Something like that, I’m sure. It doesn’t matter though, he’s right. I don’t need distractions. I’m glad he walked out the door and out of my life. At least, that’s what I decide I will keep telling myself.

A sinking premonition settles at the base of my spine and I find myself staring at the door wishing he’d walk back through. Show me all the distractions I’ve been missing in each and every self-gratifying way. My head shakes, attempting to loosen the hold he had on me as I ready myself to work and lift my fingers above the keyboard.

An hour or so passes and I promise myself if we ever do cross paths, me and Mr. Too Hot ForMyOwn Damn Good, I’ll find a way to thank him, because just like magic, my hands start typing and I’m more than five thousand words into my next novel when I finally realize - I never even asked his name!

I stop abruptly and look out into space, in to nowhere in the middle of the coffee shop, with wide eyes and wonder just how all of that just happened.

Peaches.

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