Page 7 of Sipping Seduction
Miller: I don’t know. Tall, black hair & blue eyes. A new teacher?
Whoever the hell he was, I knew one thing. He sure as fuck wasn’t her father. She’d lied to me. I didn’t know what hurt worse: knowing she was out with some random guy or that she lied to me about it.
Me: Doesn’t matter. Have a good night.
I sucked in a couple of breaths, trying to regulate my pulse. Frannie and I were just friends. She had the right to go on dates. Only, she never had.
I could remember back in high school when she got asked to senior prom. I’d wanted to ask her myself, but knew we’d both be leaving town right after graduation. She was headed to college, and I’d been so eager to get away from Beaver Bluff that I’d already enlisted in the Army. There wasn’t any point in starting something with Frannie knowing I’d never be able to see it through. Wasn’t worth risking our friendship. Sometimes I let myself imagine what my life might be like today if I’d had the balls to go for it back then.
Miller: You okay, bro?
Staring at the small screen on my phone, I wasn’t sure how to respond. My chest felt like someone had stomped on it with a steel-toed work boot. Then squashed my heart until the blood stopped flowing and dark spots muscled in at the edges of my vision. No, this wasn’t going to take me out. I’d survived two deployments to the Middle East. Survived playing football throughout high school and being taken down by linemen with biceps bigger than the hundred-year-old tree trunks lining my drive. I could get through this, too.
I fired off a reply to Miller that would put a stop to the questions.
Me: Why wouldn’t I be?
Then I pulled up Frannie’s number and sent her a text to check in on her dad and make sure he was okay. Now that I knew she’d lied, I wanted to see if she would own up to it. Maybe her dad decided he didn’t need her, so she was grabbing dinner with another teacher. I suppose she could have called or texted me instead, but she probably figured I’d already made other plans. I was more than willing to make excuses for her. Anything to save me from the thought that she might be involved with someone she really liked.
She replied a minute later.
Frannie: Thanks for checking! He’s good.
Clearly, she didn’t want me to know she was out with some mystery man tonight. We’d always told each other everything. Well, almost everything. I didn’t tell her every detail about my deployments. It wasn’t because I had anything to hide, though. I just wanted to protect her from the horrors I experienced firsthand. And I hadn’t been totally truthful about the extent of my injuries. But that was because I planned on working my way back to one-hundred percent so I could be the man she deserved and not someone else she had to fuss over.
I squeezed the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white. Jealousy swirled around in my belly, leaving a hollow ache that threatened to drag me down. Before I jumped to the worst-case scenario, I needed more information.
First, I had to figure out who the guy was. Then I could decide exactly how badly I wanted to rearrange his face.
CHAPTER4
Frannie
The awkward partof the evening had arrived. Andrew pulled into my driveway, then hopped out to walk around and open the car door for me. He’d been a gentleman all night… opened the door to the restaurant for me, held my chair out at dinner, and refused my offer to split the check. Everything about him was so… nice.
I wished there were a spark of something else between us, but talking to him was like chatting with a colleague. It didn’t make sense. The conversation flowed easily. He laughed at the right times, and his classic good looks had heads turning as we made our way to our table.
There wasn’t anything wrong with him, but there was no chemistry. At twenty-seven years old, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to give up hope of finding THE ONE. The older I got, the more things I crossed off my “must have” list. If I wanted to make my dad’s dream of being able to walk me down the aisle and meet his own grandchild before he died or no longer recognized me come true, I needed to take some big strides toward finding a potential partner.
Could Andrew be a contender?
I searched his face as he opened the passenger door and held out his hand.
“Thanks for a great evening.” He tucked my hand in the crook of his elbow and walked toward my front porch.
“Thank you. I had a good time, and that dessert was to die for. You were right about the tiramisu.”
His smiled widened at the compliment. “Best in Tennessee. Though, we’re not really known for amazing homemade tiramisu around here, are we?”
“After tasting that, I’m not sure why not. You might need to start a petition to change our state dessert to tiramisu. I’d sign it.” We reached the porch and moved up the short set of stairs.
Andrew chuckled. “Does Tennessee have a state dessert?”
“If they don’t, they should.” We stopped in front of the door. The steady beat of my pulse gave way to an erraticthump-pitter-thump. Part of me wished he’d kiss me, so I’d know if there was potential between us. A bigger part of me hoped he wouldn’t even try since I was way out of practice.
He stepped in front of me, then took both of my hands in his. “I’ll have to look into it. Can I get back to you? Maybe Saturday night if you’re not busy?”
My heart skipped a few beats. Did I want a second date? The conversation had come easily, and I’d enjoyed the evening. It wasn’t like I was entertaining other offers. Andrew was the first guy who’d asked me out in over a year. So what if we lacked a little chemistry? My mom used to tell me she didn’t even like my dad the first few times they met, and they’d had almost thirty years together before she passed away.
