Page 11 of Chasing You

I nod. “Yeah, a little town about an hour from here. I moved to get some experience in bar management before I…” My voice trails off. Not many people know I want to open my own place, but something about Miles makes me feel like I can just say it like it’s fine. Maybe it’s because he’s a hotshot pilot with a big important job, or maybe it’s simply because of the way he’s looking at me in this moment, like he’s hanging off every syllable that falls from my tongue.

“Before you what?” he asks.

“Before I try to open a place of my own.”

Miles smiles like that’s the best news he’s ever heard. He looks around the space we are sitting in. “Please make it less sticky than this place.”

I bark out a laugh. “I try my best with that rag, I swear, but I think it’s a bit too far gone.”

“The smell is revolting.”

“The smell?” I ask, my lips perking up in a smile.

“Of the stickiness. Can’t you smell it?” he says, his eyes widening.

I look around as if for the answer. “I guess I got used to it?” I shrug.

He shakes his head. “That’s horrible.” And he’s so serious that I can’t stop another laugh from escaping my lips.

He should be offended, I’m laughing in his face. But he just looks at me like he can’t quite figure me out. Either that, or he’s completely figured me out in the whole twenty minutes we’ve been talking.

“What do you want it to be like then? I feel like you’re the type of woman to have it all mapped out in your head.”

I tip my head. “What makes you think that?”

He frowns. “I don’t know, I just do.” Just like how I just knew he wasn’t a rookie pilot. “Am I wrong?”

I just shake my head without taking my eyes from his. “No.”

“Tell me, what is Marina’s bar going to look like?”

Again, I don’t know what it is about him that makes me hop up on the bar, swing my legs over to his side, and begin telling him about the image in my head.

“Well, there has to be red.”

“favorite color?” he asks, twisting in his seat to face where I’m sitting next to his beer on the bar top.

I nod. “You?”

“Green,” he says. “I always liked forest green, but now I think I’m leaning toward more of a hazel.”

I feel heat crawl up my chest at his words. My eyes are hazel.

I clear my throat. “Red,” I repeat. “And dark, but not dingy. More like sultry. I want it to feel sophisticated but also relaxing. Somewhere you could go for a casual drink, but also where you could go for a night out. I want to have mismatched lamps and booths against the wall. I love a good booth. I don’t know.” I slow down as I realize that I’m now rambling. “I just want it to be perfect.”

“I have no doubt you’ll make it happen,” he says, leaning his elbow on the bar close to my thigh.

“How could you know, hotshot? You don’t know anything about me.”

He frowns. “That’s not true. You’re Marina, you’re working in thisstickybar until you have the experience to open up your ownsophisticatedbar, I’m assuming, back in the small town you came from. Your favorite color is red, and you are easily the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life.”

Red is my body’s favorite color too, because I can feel it crawling up my chest and onto my cheeks. He’s a charmer, alright.

Miles stands up and walks in the opposite direction, scrubbing a hand over his face. “God I can imagine you get guys saying that kind of shit to you on the daily, I’m sorry. I’m coming off like a real creep.” He turns around. “This is exactly what creeps do as well, they come into bars and harass women?—“

“You’re not harassing me, Miles,” I say, letting him hear the smile in my voice, because his rambling is adorable. It makes me less self-conscious about my own. “You have nothing to apologise for. Me essentially asking you to take your shirt off is probablycloser to harassment than anything you’ve said.” I laugh, and it brings a smile to his face as he starts walking back to where I’m still sitting on the bar.

“I don’t suppose there’s a boyfriend back in that small town, is there?”

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