“I’m a hermit-in-training.”
She gestures around the open-air bar. “Clearly, that’s working out well for you.”
“This is me being the bigger person andnotburdening you with gossip aboutmylife.”
She studies me as though she’s trying to decide which of those statements I’m serious about.
Both.
I might’ve given her a fake name, but I would absolutely be a hermit, and I had no intention of being the bigger person at any point today, so it’s quite remarkable, really.
“You didn’t need a save, did you?” She drops her head in her hands and groans. “I can’t even do good deeds right today.”
“No, no, I did. And lucky me, my savior is fascinating.”
The bartender returns with her credit card and a glass of water. She glances back at the kombucha flirt while she tucks her card away before I can get a glimpse of the name on it, clearly trying to decide if her good deed is done or not.
“You like fried calamari?” I ask her.
“No,” she says, “but thank you.”
“Shrimp cocktail? Poke? Sashimi? She’s still watching us, by the way.”
Apparently one laugh is all I’m getting. Her smile has ghosted her once again. “You’re entirely too good for me tonight. Please. Drink your drinks. I’m not here. Thank you, stranger in a bar who’s being far kinder than I deserve—”
“I’mDuke,” I interrupt. “We’re not strangers anymore.”
She has incredibly expressive eyes.
They’re emeralds in a sea green bay simultaneously telling me she knows I’m lying about my name, that if I wasDukeI’d pull out my driver’s license and prove it, and also that exchanging even fake names is too much of a relationship for her.
“Truly, you don’t want anything to do with me,” she insists again.
“I’m failing to understand what someone who saves dogs from awful futures and relationships from splitting over potato salad could have done that’s so terrible that you have to decline the best of what Hawaii has to offer in appetizers.”
Her gaze wavers. “Do you have siblings?”
I grimace, then grab my phone—which is still vibrating with text messages—and shut the damn thing off before shoving it in my pocket.
“Siblings of yourheartthen?” she presses, obviously not missing what’s going on with my phone. “Someone you love so much that you’d do anything for them?”
Zen springs to mind immediately. My brother’s eldest child doesn’t fit the family mold. Mimi, my grandmother, is such a close second that she might not have been second at all.
How a woman as fascinating and kind as Mimi birthed such an ungrateful and unpleasant man as my father is beyond me.
I tend to blame my grandfather.
And I used to include Vince, my business partner, as my family, but he launched himself firmly into theformerfriend category when he lied to me about what I was signing. He’s single-handedly responsible for sending me into my villain era and no longer deserves my time.
“Thought so,” Duchess says softly. “Have you ever hurt them so badly you weren’t sure they’d forgive you, or that you could forgive yourself, because you forgot the rules?”
Dangerous question. “Is there a person on Earth who doesn’t have regrets?”
“I just—I don’t want to know what I know anymore. I want it all gone. Permanently erased from my brain.”
“You know where they keep the bodies?” I stage-whisper.
“No. But I know where they water down the drinks and who’s running the fake ID scam for seniors who want anelderly discountbefore they honestly qualify and why you should never, ever, ever get a muffin from the bake sale at Winter Fest.”
