Amazing.
Now I’m coming off like an awkward librarian that I try so hard to pretend not to be.
Mistletoe_Reader:Maybe I should just stop talking before I make this worse.
RedBarnRhett:No.
Please continue.
This is the highlight of my morning.
I choke on a laugh—actually choke—before glancing around to make sure no patrons heard me.
He’s impossible.
Absolutely impossible.
Mistletoe_Reader:You really don’t need to encourage me.
RedBarnRhett:Pretty sure I do.
Otherwise, you might disappear and claim it was a “beta test mishap.”
I roll my eyes so hard it almost hurts.
Mistletoe_Reader:I wouldn’t disappear.
RedBarnRhett:Good. Because I was planning to message you again later.
My breath catches. Just a little. Just enough to annoy me.
I don’t want tolikethis version of Rhett.
But, I already do.
Before I can respond, my phone buzzes again.
RedBarnRhett:Ah. Duty calls. A customer just walked in. We’ll chat again later, Bristol.
The warmth that spirals up my chest is absolutely not something I should be feeling. Not this early on.
Not from a match on a dating app that I didn’t mean to take seriously.
Not from Rhett.
I swallow hard, fighting a smile I really, really shouldn’t have on my face right now.
I close out of the app, but the smile stays—stubborn, traitorous, impossible to wrestle off my face.
God, no. Absolutely not. I amnotdoing this again.
It’s barely been ten minutes and I’m already acting like some wide-eyed teenager who’s never been burned by a charming man with good banter and better timing. I know better. I’velearnedbetter. The universe practically branded that lesson onto my forehead in my twenties.
And Rhett?
He’s exactly the kind of person I avoid catching feelings for.
Local. Well-liked.
