Page 40 of The Christmas Fix
“Noah, would you like to join us for dinner?” Kathy offered, a hand on each girl’s shoulder.
“Uh.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Thanks, but I’ve got some work to do tonight.” Still a little dazed, he watched them walk down the block to Jasper’s sedan. A tight little group made somehow brighter and more hopeful than they had been this morning.
He had a feeling that Cat was the orchestrator of that turnaround.
“You okay, man?” Drake asked. “You look like you could use a beer.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“So, you two are dating, right?” Noah asked for the third time.
Drake shook his head and grinned. His gleaming white teeth were blinding in the near dark of the Workshop, Merry’s one and only bar. It was always darker than midnight inside the bar, but that didn’t stop the dozen or so female patrons from sending admiring glances Drake’s way.
“No, man. Well, not now. I don’t know if we were before or not.” Drake shrugged his massive shoulders as if dating or not dating a gorgeous, fiery TV star didn’t really matter.
“Wait, how do you not know if you’re dating?” Noah was feeling a pleasant warmth from the third beer that had magically appeared in front of him.
Drake shrugged. “In our profession, you can not be dating a lot of people. It’s a busy lifestyle. Never in one place for very long and just when you get comfortable in the offseason, it’s time to start shooting the next season. Cat and I ‘dated’ very briefly a couple of years ago. But neither one of us was invested enough to start changing our work schedules around.”
“So, you’re exes, and you work together?” Noah was determined to figure this out. He’d assumed, from their greeting, that Drake and Cat were together and was surprised to find out that wasn’t the case. He wasn’t sure why it mattered so much. He was probably just trying to get to know his enemy better, he decided.
“I guess so. I think of us more as friends. She’s awesome. No one can out work her. This industry isn’t usually very friendly to women, but Cat demands better. There’s a lot more there than just a great face and sexy body, and she doesn’t let anyone forget it.”
“Well, which one of you two nobs do I have to blame for awakening the dragon?” Henry, Cat’s assistant, slid onto the unoccupied stool to Noah’s left. The sleeves of his Oxford were precisely rolled up to his elbows to show off the cuffs. He rested his head in his hands for the briefest of moments.
Guiltily, Noah raised his hand.
“Yeah, that’d be him,” Drake tattled. “I had nothing to do with it.”
Henry paused long enough to give the brunette next to him an appreciative glance before raising a finger to catch the bartender’s eye. “Long Island iced tea, strongest you’ve got.”
Drake whistled. “That bad, huh?”
“If you find a drink with more alcohol in it, I’ll order it.”
“She taking her mad out on you?” Noah asked sympathetically.
Henry gave him a rueful look. “No, man. Cat’s not like that. She just doubles down harder. You piss her off, and she’s going to work her ass off to make you look like a twat. Pardon my British. She’s going to run herself into the ground if I can’t get a decent meal in her and six or seven hours of sleep.”
The bartender set the tall glass in front of him, and Noah watched Henry down half of it. He felt every female eye in the bar was zeroed in on them.
“You set him straight yet?” Henry asked Drake.
“We haven’t gotten past the ‘are you dating’ portion of the evening.”
“Set me straight about what?”
“We’ve all picked up on the fact that you don’t like Cat,” Henry began.
“It’s not that I don’t like Cat,” Noah argued. But it was. He didn’t like what she stood for. And he didn’t like how often he found himself thinking of her. And hereallydidn’t like how every time he saw her, his focus zeroed in on her like she was the only colorful thing in a world of grayscale.
“Yes, it is,” Drake countered. “But the thing is, you don’t know her.”
“You got the wrong impression,” Henry joined in. “And you don’t like to be wrong so you’re ignoring all evidence to the contrary.”
“I like to think that I’m open-minded.”
Drake gave him a sideways glance. “You do realize that your nickname in town is Mr. No, right?”
