Page 84 of The Matchmaker
“You’re having one too?” he asks, as I set out two glasses.
“We closed thirty minutes ago,” I tell him. “I’m off the clock.” I pour our drinks, and slide Callum’s toward him before toasting it with mine.
“Cheers,” he mutters, and we knock them back.
I keep my eyes open and on him the entire time, enjoying the sight of him, the way his throat moves when he swallows, the sound of the empty glass when he sets it down, the swipe of his tongue when he licks his lips.
“Another?” I ask, and he laughs again.
“I feel like you’re trying to get me drunk.”
“I’m just really good at my job.” I hold up the bottle, and he shakes his head.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. You go ahead though. You deserve it.”
I do, don’t I?
And though I’d have much preferred to watch him again, I still enjoy the warmth of the liquid moving through me as I set the bottle back on the shelf. When I turn back, it’s to find Callum watching me,
“Yes?” I ask, and he grins.
“I forgot. I’m not allowed to look at you.”
“You can look at me now,” I tease. “Men who make grand gestures can look at me all they want.”
“Good to know,” he murmurs, as I join him back at the bar. “You really love this place,” he says. “Don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I mean, it’s hard work. Weird hours. But I don’t want to do anything else. I rarely want to be anywhere else. Even when I’m not on the clock, I’m here.” I tense a bit as soon as I say the words, remembering the conversation I had with Gemma and Nush that first day at the barn. Although, it felt more like an interrogation at the time. “I guess that makes me kind of boring, huh?”
He gives me a strange look. “Why would that make you boring?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug, feigning nonchalance, even as self-consciousness chips away at me. “Small town girl. Small town dreams. It’s not a lot, I know.”
“Being passionate about something doesn’t make you boring,” he says. “It makes you the complete opposite.”
He holds my gaze far too seriously for me not to believe him, and I fight the urge to squirm under his attention.
“What if I was passionate about laundry,” I hedge.
“Is this a ‘would you still love me if I was a worm’ conversation?” he asks, and before I can evenbeginto react to the casual L word drop, he continues on. “Katie, you could tell me that your sole interest in life is snail migration, and I’d listen to every word you say so long as your eyes light up like that.”
Okay, well, that’s weirdly sweet. “What are you passionate about?” I ask.
He doesn’t even think about it. “Concrete.”
“Concrete? As in the gray stuff?”
“The gray stuff that built the modern world? That was born in the bowels of volcanoes? Forged by the eruptions of earth? Used for thousands of years by—”
“Okay,” I interrupt, but I’m smiling as I say it. “You’re a concrete guy.”
“The biggest,” he says solemnly. “We exist and we matter.”
My smile widens, and his eyes drop to it, and all I can think about is how I basically mauled the guy in the forest the other day. And how much I want to do it again.
Danny was my last customer, and he left over an hour ago. Adam left soon after that when I told him I’d close up. And I need to close up. I need to mop and take the trash out and go home to my bed. I need to. But I don’t want to. Not yet.
