Nikki laughed. “You should see your face right now. Girl, you’re in so much trouble. It looks to me like you’re taking that warning as some kind of invitation. I told you I was the queen matchmaker, but I don’t think even I’m that good.”
Lillith almost rolled her eyes. “This from the girl who’s been trying to get Ollie to look her way for the last five years.”
“Hey! Sometimes these things take time. I’m a patient woman.”
Her attention jerked toward a man who came out from the back of the bar.
“He’s back. Look, there he is. That’s who I was telling you about. That’s my Ollie,” Nikki raved not so quietly as she slapped my thigh a bunch of times to get my attention.
With the way she shivered at the sight of him, I would say her patience was wearing thin. I understood her fascination.
Ollie was rough and hard and incredibly good-looking. As good-looking as the other straightlaced guy who sat on the other side of the table from Rex.
There had to be something in the water, because both of them were almost as beautiful as the man who’d taken my thoughts hostage.
Almost.
But there was something about Rex that completely set him apart. Something that made him shine in all his surly darkness. Something that twisted my belly into a mess of anxiousness, attraction, and intrigue.
This prodding force that insisted I get to know someone who seemed desperate to remain unseen.
Nikki sighed when Ollie grabbed a couple drinks from behind the bar and carried them to Rex’s table. “God, I love him.”
With a sip of her wine, Lillith shook her head. “I’m beginning to think you’re just infatuated with what you can’t have.”
Nikki blinked at her. “Isn’t that the same thing?”
A tumble of laughter rolled from Lillith. “Not even close.”
Nikki’s gaze trailed back after Ollie. Not even trying to hide her stare when he rounded back behind the bar to help the other bartender. “For real...love or not, I would eat up that man.”
I giggled quietly. On the drive over, I’d worried I had made the wrong choice. Worried I’d be continually looking over my shoulder. Wondering who might recognize me. If there would be rumbles and whispers and rumors.
But I hadn’t felt it. Not for a second. I loved that these two had invited me out. That they were happy to make me feel a part of their tight-knit world. That they seemed to have no qualms about welcoming me into it.
I startled when a tall figure suddenly cast a shadow over us. I looked up to find a man towering at my side, his brown eyes raking me up and down, a grin riding his full lips.
I would have shrank away if I hadn’t been one-hundred percent sure I’d never seen him before.
Apparently, there really was something in the water.
He was ridiculously attractive. Clearly, he’d discarded the jacket of his dark gray suit, the sleeves of his button-down rolled up his forearms. His stance was so casual and confident as he looked expectantly at me.
“I just noticed you sitting over here, and I thought I could buy you a drink,” he said, his attention fully trained on me. “Name’s Tim.”
Nikki cleared her throat, the words ripe with mock offense. “I do hope that drink buying includes the rest of us.”
He glanced at her. “If that’s what it takes.”
Tim was a little cocky for my taste.
And he wasn’t Rex Gunner.
I lifted my margarita toward him, the green yummy goodness swishing in the salt-rimmed bowl. “I think I’m just fine. But thank you.”
“You sure about that? You look awful lonely over here by yourself.”
Irritation bristled beneath my skin. I was sitting there with my friends. How the hell could I appear lonely? But I was used to these kinds of pick-up lines in San Francisco when Macy dragged me out with her.
