Page 46 of Story of My Life
The other driver was, in a word, panty-meltingly gorgeous. Okay, that was more than one word. But that kind of male beauty deserves a proper description. In the shadows of the truck cab, he looked broader than Cam, with short cropped hair, a well-groomed beard, and tattoos on both forearms. Piercing green eyes landed on me before flicking back to Cam.
The damn inspiration was all over the damn place in this town. A “why choose” parking lot tryst with two unbelievably sexy blue-collar hotties popped into my head.
“Goin’ in?” the stranger asked Cam.
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
The man’s gaze skated my way again. His face didn’t change a single iota, but I swore I could see a hint of amusement. I wondered if he had somehow read my incredibly dirty thoughts.
“Split a pie and a pitcher?” he asked Cam.
Cam glanced at me, then blew out a noisy breath through his nose. “Yeah. Fine.”
“Come on, Haze,” Zoey pleaded from the sidewalk. “I’m starving.”
“Guess I’ll see you in there,” I chirped to Cam before slamming the door and following Zoey into the restaurant. Cam roared off to the far end of the parking lot. If the guy actually hated me, there was no way he’d have agreed to drive me around town, let me hang out behind his family store’s register, and then share the same dinner venue.
He definitely didn’t hate me. Maybe he just hated the fact that he didn’t hate me. That I could work with.
The second I walked through the door and the smell of garlic and fresh bread tickled my nose, all thoughts of grumpy hero inspiration disappeared.
“Oh my God. I haven’t eaten in days,” I groaned. Angelo’s was dark and cozy with an open kitchen where the staff shoved pizzas into and out of an oven. Booths lined the front and side of the dining room. No-nonsense tables and chairs filled in the space between them and the U-shaped bar. There was a basketball game on the lone TV above the bar.
“What about the lunch and snacks we had on the road?” Zoey reminded me.
“That was days ago,” I insisted. Or at least it was a bald eagle, a car accident, a weirdly endearing teenage mayor, and a bait-and-switch house ago.
“Help you?” rasped the voice of a lifelong smoker.
The woman behind the host stand had to be ninety if she was a day. She had a puff of gravity-defying white hair that contrasted with her all-black ensemble of bike shorts and an Angelo’s T-shirt. She wore glasses around her neck on a string of pearls that dangled over a name tag that readJessie. Her face was pinched into a frown of disapproval.
I was immediately transported back to the fourth grade, when my elementary school art teacher, Mrs. Crossinger, caught me passing a note from Debra Flower to Jacinta MacNamara. I had to spend the rest of class standing on a taped-off square on the floor while everyone else glued cotton balls to their snowman worksheets.
“Two for dinner, please,” Zoey said, slipping into protective-but-friendly-agent-who-must-feed-her-client mode.
With a harrumph that I personally felt was undeserved, our hostess pursed her frosty pink lips and then took her sweet time producing a pair of laminated menus and utensils rolled in paper napkins. My stomach growled audibly just as the door opened and closed behind us.
I felt a tingle go up my spine and knew it was Handsome Cam and the equally gorgeous stranger. Grouchy Jessie shifted gears into flirtatious grandma mode. Her lipstick spread into a thin, bright smile.
“Well, if it isn’t the Bishop brothers,” she said, sending them a wink over her half-moon glasses.
That explained the extraordinary sexiness of Cam’s companion. It was in the genes.
“Evenin’, Jessie,” Cam said, pointedly ignoring us.
The brother nodded a greeting and hooked his thumb toward the bar.
“Go on through,” Jessie said, finally marking an X over a booth on her seating chart.
The brother shot us another quiet look, but Cam was already heading toward a pair of empty barstools.
“Follow me,” Jessie barked at us.
“Was it something we said?” Zoey whispered as Jessie shuffled along ahead of us, checking in with diners as we went. About half the tables were occupied. All of our fellow diners aimed not-very-friendly looks in our direction.
Jessie thumped the menus down on the very last table in the corner and—slowly—stalked away.
“Thank you. Nice meeting you,” I called after her.
