Page 23 of Sins of the Father

Piper elbows him.

“Ow. What was that for?”

“I do not want to hear about the ass you got from being on that list.”

“It was before you.”

“Don’t care.”

“I’m shooting the men on that list in a few weeks. Maybe I’ll be able to photograph you, Steven.” Cindy wiggles her eyebrows.

“No. I would never agree to be on that list.”

“Why?”

“Can we change the subject?” he asks.

Silence.

He looks so stressed out.

He doesn’t like the attention.

What guy who looks like him wouldn’t like it?

I put my hand on his thigh under the table, which only makes him freeze again. So I quickly remove it and take another sip of my cabernet.

Crap. Why did you touch him?

How the heck do you get thighs like that?

I wonder how many women have spent hours licking them?

Oh my God. He would put Spartacus to shame.

I somehow make it through dinner without spilling anything on myself, even though my insides are a bowl of quivering Jell-O.

Anytime I say anything, I end up blabbing and making an idiot of myself. Meanwhile, Mr. I Have It Together only speaks when he has something intelligent to say and thinks before he talks.

He must think I’m a complete moron.

My mom comes over and leans over my shoulders while squeezing them. “Harper, I heard you might be moving? I’ll feel so much better knowing you aren’t living in that dangerous neighborhood anymore.”

I wipe my mouth and put my napkin on my plate. “Excuse me. I need to use the restroom.”

My mom steps aside, and I scoot my chair out and beeline to the bathroom and lock myself in the small stall.

“Did you see it?” a familiar woman’s voice says in the stall next to me, but I can’t place who it is.

Another familiar voice says, “No, I was in surgery. What did they say?”

Vivian and Charlotte.I should tell them I’m here, but something makes me keep my mouth shut.

“He was emotionally unavailable.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. But everyone is going crazy online because of what they said next.”

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