Page 22 of Good Girl's Guide to Love
Her blush deepens. “Yeah, I know.”
I swallow the frog in my throat, hoping that it’s not because she’s a fan of sports gossip. “I hope I wasn’t out of bounds before. It just looked like you needed help, and well, a lot of times I act without thinking.”
She smiles and shakes her head. “That’s how most of my family operates, so I’m used to it.”
“Not how you operate?”
She shakes her head and sends me a bashful smile. “Oh no. I’m the oddball in that sense. I overthink everything and then usually don’t do it because of the one thing that could go wrong, even if there’s a million things that could go right.”
“So you’re not a risk taker?”
“Absolutely not,” she says with a laugh that hits me square in the chest. It’s light and a little shy. And right now, I’m not as mad as I was that Wyatt dragged me out tonight. “Coming here tonight was as big of a risk as I’ve taken in…well…longer than I care to admit.”
“I mean, I get that,” I say as I look up at the stage and see two people singing a duet that sounds more like cats dying. “Karaoke can be intimidating if you don’t like putting yourself out there. Or, you know, risking your dignity.”
“Oh I could never get on stage. I meant just physically coming here. I’ll never actually sing. That’s way too much.”
I laugh and grab a beer out of one of the buckets in the VIP area the team secured for tonight. “Want one?”
She shakes her head. “No, thank you. I don’t drink.”
“Really?” I ask. “So you don’t drink. You don’t swear. And coming here was a risk?”
She nods, that blush coming back over her cheeks. Goddamn it, if she keeps doing that I’m going to keep wondering where else she’s blushing…
“That’s me. Your boring, good girl.”
“I don’t know about boring,” I say. “You did almost have two men fighting over you at a bar.”
She shakes her head. “And if that had happened, that would’ve been the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in, well, ever.”
Ainsley takes a sip of her drink, I’m guessing something with cranberry in it, as she starts looking around the bar. Which is fine. This gives me a chance to really look at her. Because if I thought she was beautiful when I ran into her in her scrubs and hair a little messy from a day’s work, she’s radiant tonight.
Her long blonde hair is slightly wavy and draping over both of her shoulders. She’s wearing a thin-strapped sundress—a garment that should be illegal—and sandals that have some lift to them.
Am I having thoughts of those legs and those sandals wrapped around my hips as I fuck her in that dress? Yes. But in my defense, I’m a man, and sundresses were made to drive us fucking crazy.
But I quickly push that thought out of my head. If Ainsley is the good girl she says she is, then she’s definitely out of my league.
She might be too good for me, but I can’t get over how effortlessly beautiful she is. I have a feeling she doesn’t realize how stunning she looks, and I bet you dollars to donuts shedoesn’t even try. Her makeup is light, her lipstick is subtle, and her scent is sweet and addicting.
It’s probably a good thing I know this is just for tonight. Because I have a feeling that this good girl would ruin me.
Or worse, I’d ruin her.
My eyes roam off of Ainsley for a second, which is when I see Dr. Dipshit staring at us from the bar, a look of anger covering his punchable face.
“Hey,” I say, leaning in to her. “We’re being watched. I’m going to hold your hand, but it would probably be good if you were looking at me. You know, since you’re my girlfriend and all.”
She nods and does her best to be nonchalant as she turns to face me. I take her hand in mine, threading out fingers through each other’s as I inch in a little closer to her.
“I’m sorry, because I know this is awkward as hell, putting on a show like this, but he can’t take his eyes off us.”
“I don’t understand him,” she says. “We’ve been broken up for three years. We haven’t talked since he moved. And now he’s stalker-staring. I just don’t get why.”
“I do.”
Her look clearly says she doesn’t believe me. “And why is that?”
