“Kara.”
“Right, Kara,” he says. “Is she the one you were with that night?”
My stomach drops remembering our first meeting. “The night we swore to forget and never mention again? Yes.” I hope my nervous laugh keeps him from delving further, but he’s persistent—another detail my brain decides to fixate on and tuck away.
“She seems like the best kind of person to have in your corner.”
“She’d had a lot to drink,” I say. “But yes. She’s always up for knocking the pricks down a few pegs.”
It takes a few moments for what I said to sink in before I’m pushing up from the wall and turning to face him with a horrified look.
“Oh my god, no. That’s not what I meant. I mean, it is, but not about you. I mean I guess technically, she was yelling at you, but what I meant wasn’t?—”
Noah’s head falls back as he laughs. “I suppose I walked into that, as we did agree to never speak of it. And I was sort of a prick. It was my first night out in far too long and unfortunately it was with some guys from back home who were in town for a bachelor’s weekend. Having to wait for the bathroom in that dump was sort of the last straw and you caught the brunt of it.”
“Excuse me, Blue Heron is one of my favorite spots, and I don’t appreciate you calling her a dump.”
Noah raises an eyebrow. “Apparently it’s not just your terrible taste in pizza we have to work on.”
I scoff and put my hands on my hips, ready to lecture him about how he sounds like a prick with opinions like that, but he reaches out and yanks my arm, pulling me square against him. I land with a grunt against his body, his juniper musk overwhelming my senses and extinguishing any bit of the lecture I was ready to unleash.
Moving my hands to push off his noticeably firm chest, I gasp as a trio of bicycles goes rushing by, their tires flicking mud and cold puddle water up the back of my stocking-clad legs. Noah, who still has his hands cupped around my elbows, looks down, his damp, and now wavy, hair hanging over his forehead.
“I’m determined to up your standards, Miss Wilde,” he says, his eyes tracing my face. Everything blurs, my only focus onthe way his iron wash gaze is still set on me. Without thinking, I inhale sharply, running my tongue along the inside of my bottom lip.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. The apology hits me like another splash of puddle water, yanking me out of the moment.
“What?”
Noah clears his throat and I step back, putting distance between our bodies. The cool evening air whips in and around every place he’d been touching, the sudden shift in temperature eliciting a shiver.
“For the way I treated you that night,” he clarifies. “My annoyances should not have become your problem. But they did. I felt badly about it, and even worse when I saw you the next morning at Flourish, but I figured it would be better for both of us and our working relationship if we ignored it. But you deserve better than that. You deserve an apology, so here it is. I’m sorry I was such a prick.”
His words are sincere, and I appreciate the sentiment. He’s all professionalism.This is good, I reason. This is what I need—boundaries. Still, the phantom of his hands on my body as he pulled me out of danger’s path leaves me with the distinct craving for his hands everywhere else.
“You’re forgiven. As you said, neither of us were on our best behavior and no one was more at fault than the other. I did call you an asshat after all.”
Noah fights a smile. “I think I blocked out that particular detail.”
“He bought you dinner and accompanied you home, but it wasn’t a date?”
Nan is looking at me as if I just told her I blew up Henrietta’s cat—the news of mynotkissing my boss after he took me home following dinner was, somehow, a more horrifying update.
“No, Nan. It wasn’t a date. There will be no dates between me and Noah Graves.”
“You sound awfully certain for someone who doesn’t like him.”
“And leaving myself open to the possibility would be more believable?”
“It certainly would. Who are you trying to convince?”
“You! I don’t need convincing. I am sure of it. There will be no dates.”
Nan lets out an exasperated sigh and takes another cookie from the tin on the table between us. Her gray locks are pinned at the base of her neck, and her light pink nails tell me she’s been to the salon this week. Rather than complimenting them and running the risk of her bringing up Naomi as another example of my clear need for her matchmaking, I try to change the subject.
“On a related note,” I start, “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to come the other night. Did Bud behave himself?”
Nan chuckles. “Kara kept him distracted while Henrietta, Babs and I swept the table.”
