Page 6 of A Novel Love Story

Just mostly. Probably.

I think I would rather eat my own shoe than take his hospitality. “I’ll be fine, really,” I said to Gail.

“Nonsense! Where will you sleep otherwise?”

“My car—”

“You willnotsleep in your car!” she said, positively scandalized by the thought. “Bears can open car doors.”

“I’ll lock them.” Though, to be honest, it didn’t fill me with excitement imagining waking up beside Smokey Bear.Only you can prevent forest fires, nom-nom.I’m sure it was someone’s fantasy, but not mine. “Or something.”

“Anders, tell her she can sleep in your loft,” Gail went on, not taking no for an answer as she brought him a plate of food that had been sitting on the pass-through window since I’d gotten there. I guess he came to the bar often for dinner. “Andie?”

He popped an onion ring into his mouth. “I mean, if she’d rather take a chance in her car with a bear, who am I to intervene?”

“Anderson!”Gail threw her bar rag at him.

He caught it, cracking a grin for the first time. So hewasn’tjust a good-looking, moody lump. Who knew. “I’m joking! I’m joking,” he said, and then angled his head toward me. “Unless you wouldrathertake a chance with the bears?”

Tricky, tricky, I thought, as he tossed the ball into my court. I obviously didn’twantto sleep in my car,but staying in the loft of someone I’d almost run over …

I hated him, I realized. Not vehemently, but just a light hate. A casual dusting of hate. Enough hate that, if he were standing at the edge of a cliff, I’d seriously debate pushing him over. Iwouldn’t, but the temptation would be there.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’ll take the loft. Thank you,” I said forcefully.

The edges of his lips twitched—just slightly—as if he were fighting a smirk. “Then you’re welcome to it for the night, as long as you don’t mind the starlings in the eaves.”

Starlings. Like the tattoo tucked behind Prudence’s and my left ears.To remind us that like a starling’s song, all stories are different, Pru had said as she held my hand, the tattoo feeling like an ice pick going straight through my skull.Also, they’re cute as shit, yeah?

Absently, I rubbed at the tattoo. It was faded now, always covered by my mess of copper hair.

I studied him.

He looked to be about my age—early thirties—though no wedding ring on his finger. His white-blond hair curled gently around his ears, giving him a boyish charm under all the Darcian bravado he exuded. His nose was slightly crooked, and his cheekbones were high, his lips full, eyelashes long and fair.

He definitely wasn’t my type, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him, either, like my brain was trying to place him. Did he look familiar? Had I met him before? No, that was impossible. I was just tired, starved of any sort of human interaction in the last twenty-four hours, and suddenly more aware than ever that my Fleetwood Mac T-shirt was too threadbare, and my pink sports bra was too bright, and my tennis shoes were too wet, and—I’m sure my face still looked flushed and melty from the hot sauce,my hair a damp and tangled rat’s nest that I hadn’t washed in … three days? Was it three? Or four? I wished I knew as I tugged on the end of my ponytail, trying not to sink underneath the counter and disappear forever.

“I don’t mind starlings,” I said finally.

“Excellent!” Gail crowed. “It’s settled.”

He turned back to her and said, “How could I say no to you, Gail? I’d starve without you and your brother.” He waved at the cook through the small window into the kitchen, and the chef back there—a bigger guy with dark brown skin, bushy gray eyebrows, and an even more impressive mustache—silently waved back.

Gail patted the top of Anders’s hand like a doting grandmother. “Oh, trust me on this, you two will get along like peas and carrots, I can tell.”

Yeah, well, I wasn’t sure how long it took peas to look carrots in the eyes, but I certainly was avoiding it like it was an Olympic sport and I was gunning for gold.

Gail, proud of herself, left to close out the soccer fans at the end of the bar.

I drained my glass of wine, my lips still numb from the hot sauce, and wondered if maybe Smokey Bear would’ve been the better option after all.

3

Signatures

ANDERS HELD THE DOORopen for me as we left the bar and hovered beneath the awning. The rain hadn’t let up any, and however dry I’d gotten inside, I was immediately very much damp again the second I left. The night was so humid, the air itself felt like I was swimming in it. He pulled up the hood of his raincoat, and I kicked myself for not having an umbrella—until he pulled one out of his pocket and popped it open.

“I assume you have an overnight bag?” he asked, and motioned to my car.

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