Page 4 of Wait With Me
Her eyes flash back to the door, and she begins gnawing on her lip. “Right. I, erm…was just…” She eyes the spare strand of licorice I have tucked behind my ear. “Coming out for a smoke!”
My brows lift. Smokers come in all shapes and sizes, but something tells me this luminous, ginger bombshell does not smoke.
“Great, can I bum one?” I ask, calling her bluff.
“Weren’t you just fake smoking with licorice?” she asks, pointing to the half-eaten piece that fell to the ground during the course of our collision.
My face heats. “You saw that?”
She laughs softly. “Before my triumphant fall, yes, I saw something that looked like a puff of make-believe cherry smoke floating all around you.”
I roll my eyes and jam a hand through my short, black hair. “It’s a thing I started doing when I quit smoking three months ago.”
“Does it help?”
I shrug. “Doesn’t hurt.”
“Maybe hurts the ego.” A dimple flashes in her right cheek as she fails to conceal a smirk. “How macho is it to fake smoke candy?”
Is she flirting with me? Or teasing me? I can’t tell, but I can definitely retaliate, and I must admit that her dimple is adorable. I lift my hand to grab the licorice behind my ear and flex and relax so my bicep tightens impressively. “My ego is never in danger, babe.” I pull down the candy and bite a piece off while shooting her a wink.
This makes her genuinely laugh. It’s a rich, full-bodied sound that projects all the way from her toes. “With book boyfriend arms like that, it’s no wonder.”
“Book boyfriend?” I ask curiously.
“Book boyfriend,” she repeats. “The leading male in a romance novel that readers claim ownership of because he doesn’t likely exist in the real world. Basically, the ideal man.”
“I’ve never heard this term before,” I admit, leaning back against the wall and eyeing her curiously. “I take it you’re into books or something?”
“Or something.” She smiles and runs her hand through her wild red waves. They have to be natural because no girl would touch hair that beautiful if it had been styled. “And it doesn’t surprise me you’ve never heard of it.” She leans in and whispers loudly, “You’re not my demo.”
I frown curiously, and with a parting wiggle of her eyebrows, she turns and resumes her walk down the alley toward wherever she was going. After staring at the globes of her ass for far longer than is appropriate, it dawns on me that I didn’t even get her name.
Cupping my hand to my mouth, I yell after her, “What if you’re my demo?”
She twirls on her heel to gaze at me, looking a hell of a lot more graceful than she did earlier. “We won’t know that untilThe End!”
“Fess up. Where have you been?” My neighbor and best friend since college, Lynsey’s voice snaps, nearly making me fall into my front door and drop my keys in surprise.
“Jesus!” I exclaim, turning toward my tiny brunette compadre who’s the scariest short person I know. “You’re like one of those annoying bouncing min pins that leap up into the air just to be eye level with humans.”
“Ha-ha, short joke, what a shocker coming from you. I’m serious, tell me where you’ve been.”
“The library! I told you in my text,” I reply, turning my back on her to resume my goal. Pushing the door of my townhouse open, I drop my mail, laptop bag, and keys on the entry table by the stairs right inside the door.
“Bullshit,” Lynsey barks, following me in like a little puppy. She reaches out to fist the hem of my shirt. She pulls it to her face and inhales deeply. “You smell like coffee and rubber.”
“Also known as freedom.” I sigh wistfully and yearn to be back there. I would have stayed longer if I could survive on coffee and cookies all day. But curses, I need some protein or I might die.
“You actually went back to Tire Depot?” Lynsey seethes. “Kate! They are going to call the cops on you.”
“For what?” I protest over my shoulder as I make my way through my living room and into the kitchen to grab a water bottle out of the fridge. “Stealing complimentary coffee and cookies? Come on. That’s not a thing.”
“But loitering is.”
My face freezes around the mouth of my water bottle. “You think they’d really do that?”
Lynsey looks slightly unsure. “I don’t know, but do you want the awkwardness of finding out?”
