I swallowed. Hard.
“Yeah,” I said, voice rougher than it had any right to be. “Yeah, we can do that.”
Milo sneezed loudly between us and then flopped over with a groan, like he was already done for the day.
But me?
I was just getting started.
CHAPTER 6
Noelle
Maybe it wasDelilah’s weed, maybe it was the strangeness of the whole situation, or maybe it was Beau’s pecs—but I was steering dangerously close to hookup territory.
I’d spent the whole day with him under the pretense of recording a podcast episode. He was my friendly local guide, right? He had the inside scoop and all the connections, he could show me around…
…and he was hot.
Devastatingly hot.
Since last night, I’d been trying to deny it…but I wasn’t trying anymore. This man was hot, I got the feeling he was into me, and I was apparently in Wonderland.
Following the white rabbit right into Beau Ward’s bed.
The sun set as we walked back from the waterfall, Milo still just as jazzed as he was when we picked him up. My car was parked outside the shop, dead, with Beau’s truck beside it. Beau gave me a look, then swept his eyes toward town—where people were still swarming.
“You know,” he said, “I uh…wouldn’t mind cookin’ for you if you don’t mind somethin’ simple. I’ve got everything inside for mac and cheese. I’m no chef, but…”
“Yes,” I said before he could finish. “That sounds great.”
He grinned, then he opened the door—unlocked, of course—to let Milo in first.
“After you,” he said.
I stepped inside the auto shop, looking around as I wandered after Milo into the attached apartment. The place was…cute.Unreasonably, offensively cute. Old wood floors, warm paint on the walls, mismatched mugs hung on a rack on the kitchen wall. A blue dog bed sat in the corner, well worn from years of love, and a record player stood beside it with a collection of what mostly looked like outlaw country and a few indie records.
“This isn’t what I expected,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow. “What—no serial killer vibes?”
“Hey, serial killers come in all kinds of flavors,” I said. “But…no, I was more concerned about finding guns and confederate flags.”
Beau huffed. “Yeah…we don’t take kindly to that kinda thing around here.”
He moved into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge, rummaging around for ingredients while I moved over to the record player to sort through his collection. It was solid—some classics like Johnny Cash and Fleetwood Mac, a few newer bands like The Shins, some I didn’t recognize. This guy…he couldn’t be real, could he? It was all making the feeling of unreality worse, the sensation that I’d gone through the looking glass intensifying with every record I flipped through.
“Real cheese or fake?” he called over his shoulder.
“Real,” I said without looking. “If you gave me fake, I’d have to reevaluate everything I’ve learned about you.”
His laugh made my lips tingle. “That bad?”
“Worse. You’d be downgraded to ‘hot but untrustworthy.’”
He snorted. “So you think I’m hot.”
“It’s not an opinion; it’s an observation.”
