Page 58 of Your Place or Mine

Chapter Fifteen

Callum

I didn’t mean to stop walking.

One second I was minding my business, hauling two crates of bottled beer from the back of my truck, thinking about how the bar's fridge was rattling again, and the next?

I was rooted on the sidewalk like an idiot.

Because I sawher.

Through the front window ofBean There, Done That, Lydia was inside the coffee shop—laughing, bent slightly at the waist, hair falling into her face as she helped Riley drag a table across the floor. The table legs scraped loudly against the wood, but she didn’t seem to care. She was all grin and hustle, waving a paint swatch in the air like it was a flag in some kind of adorable war.

And she was wearing shorts.

Tiny, cuffed, denim things that showed off miles of smooth legs and a pair of beat-up sneakers with splattered paint on the toes. Her T-shirt clung to her like it had known her for years, and there was a faint sheen of sweat at her temples, like she’d been at it for a while.

My brain short-circuited. Fully, completely.

I wasn’t a fool. I’d noticed Lydia was attractive. That was obvious the minute she’d blown into town and tried to raze the Stag with her smile and stubborn will. But this?

This was something else.

She looked like sunshine and trouble and something I didn’t have the defenses for.

And she looked happy.

Real, unfiltered,alivekind of happy.

I should’ve kept walking.

I should’ve loaded the bar stock and stayed in my lane.

But my feet stayed planted, my hands tight around the crate of beer, my eyes tracking her every move through the glass like I was watching something sacred and confusing and a little too tempting.

She taped a paint sample up near the counter, leaned back to assess it, then turned to grab another… and tripped.

Her sneaker caught on the leg of a stool that Riley must’ve pushed half out of the way, and Lydia went down in a scramble of limbs and a high-pitched, “Oh crap—!” echoed onto the sidewalk.

The crate hit the sidewalk before I even realized I’d dropped it.

I was already moving, heart punching hard into my ribs like I’d been yanked by a string straight through the chest as I darted through the door.

“Lydia?”

She was already sitting up, tangled in her own legs, one hand braced on the floor, the other still gripping a paint swatch like it might defend her honor.

Riley stood nearby, wide-eyed but trying not to laugh. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Lydia muttered, cheeks flushed, brushing her hair out of her face. “I was just testing the durability of the floor. It passed.”

I cleared my throat.

Lydia looked up.

And blinked.

“Callum?”

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