Page 52 of Actually Yours

I hesitate, not wanting to tell him about my date with the electrician. “Sort of.”

He frowns and I look away from him, keeping my gaze forward. Not a bad idea on this busy Richmond sidewalk, where one has to dodge both pedestrians and cyclists at any moment.

“Sort of?”

“I have another date,” I blurt out.

We stop in front of my car, a red Mini Cooper I love more than almost anything in the world, and I wait for his response.

“Another date?” He sounds shocked.

And maybe, annoyed?

“Bella is convinced this guy is ‘the one’.” I roll my eyes, still regretting agreeing to this one.

Jake takes a step closer to me, forcing me to take a step back, my body now pressed against the side of my car.

“You’re still looking for the one?” He puts emphasis on ‘looking’, like he’s stuck on that word.

“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. “I’m a bit of a mess.”

He leans in even closer, his body now touching mine, and I hold my breath.What’s happening?

“I happen to like mess.” His words, in that husky tone, send a jolt through me and I can do nothing but gape up at him.

“W-hat?”

“Amelia,” he starts, then stops, staring up at the sky, his jaw clenching. “I think maybe you’ve been looking in the wrong places.”

This echoes what Bella had just said, and I tilt my head back to get a better look at him, my heart racing with anxiety and…anticipation?

I gulp in a painful breath. “Jake?”

He leans forward and in slow motion, his face inches closer to mine.

“Have fun on your date.” He whispers this, his lip tickling my lips as he does. Then he straightens up, runs his hand through his hair at the same time as he runs his eyes over me, and with a deep breath, he turns and walks away.

Did he just almost kiss me?My body sags against my car door, the metal frame absorbing my body weight as my knees buckle over what had almost just happened.

He definitely almost kissed me.

With shaky hands, I get into my car and drag in some much-needed air. My mind is a pickled mess and I need to sort through it all to figure out what I really want. Who I really want. I can’t keep tumbling around in this vortex of ‘what ifs’.

My heart is screaming at me that Jake is the one I want, but my head is firmly taking control, warning me that getting too close to this man is a recipe for getting hurt. And as is always the way, my head wins the battle and convinces me that dating the electrician is the way to go.

And I let it win. This time.

CHAPTER 11

Amelia

“So, he was…nice?” Andrea says the word ‘nice’ in the same way she’d say the word ‘evil’. Like it’s a bad thing.

“There’s nothing wrong with nice,” I defend Mike the electrician, half-heartedly though, because I’m not invested enough in him to care what my boss and mentor thinks of him.

“You’re young and beautiful. You’re in the prime of your life. Please don’t settle fornice.”

We’re sitting in the salon, taking advantage of the Saturday afternoon lull between appointments, discussing my date from the night before, which, as mentioned, had been…fine.

---