"Oh, believe me, it's not that I don't want to talk to you. I want to do many, many things wi—" Tiffany nearly swallowed her own tongue and glanced around herself to see if there was some kind of obvious mind-control ray gun being aimed at her, or something. She did not just go around telling hot guys there were whole lists of things she could think of to do with them. Especially hot guys she'd met roughly three and a half minutes ago.
Oliver Campbell had the most readable expression known to man. He'd switched from crestfallen to elated inside a heartbeat. Tiffany said, "You're really terrible at poker, aren't you?"
Now he went from elated to surprised, and then to a warm, rich laugh that Tiffany wanted to coat herself in like it was chocolate. "I'mextremelygood at poker, actually. Look, I'll give Steve and Charlee a bell and have them come over."
"You'll give them abell?"
Ollie blinked, then chuckled. "I'll ring them? What do Americans say?"
"I don't know! What does ring them mean?"
"On the phone?"
Tiffany stared at him. "You mean you'llcallthem?"
"Ah! Yes! I'll call them, and we'll get the wedding thing sorted out, but in the meantime, I'm parched, jet-lagged, and confused, and they're making me decorate a gazebo. Have pity on me, Ms. Wright. Let's have a lemonade."
The business part of her wanted to get the wedding conflict dealt with. The rest of her wanted to have lemonade, and then possibly sex, with Ollie. A lemonade was enough bonding to have sex over, right? Probably not when she was supposed to be working, though. "All right. Fifteen minutes." Even she couldn't have lemonadeandsex in fifteen minutes. Probably.
She was going to need a cold shower. Probably not one made of lemonade, though. In a desperate attempt to stop herself from thinking about sexy lemonade, she blurted, "It's a long flight?"
Ollie drew a long, slow breath, and sighed it out. "About two and a half days. I told Steve I was staying in the States for six months to justify the length of that flight."
Tiffany laughed. "That seems reasonable, yeah."
"I thought so, and then he pointed out I could only stay three months without a visa, so I guess that put me in my place." Ollie jogged up the steps to the cafe and held the door for her, which Tiffany thought was a rather charming gesture.
The whole front of the block was one long covered porch, with individual sets of steps rising up to the doors of each establishment. Kate's Cafe had a rather cheerful curlicue kind of font announcing the business's name, and a surprisingly small number posted as their opening hours. For a place that was only open for lunch, though, it was hopping: the interior, filled with two-and-three seat tables with a couple of larger ones tucked to the sides, was nearly full, even with only half an hour or so to go before closing. A sandwich and dessert bar was more or less straight on from the door, a register next to it and a handwritten chalkboard sign proclaiming the daily specials on the wall behind the small work area.
A short line stretched away from the counter, although someone's voice called, "Take a seat if you want, there are menus on the table," and someone else, carrying an armful of food-loaded trays, bustled out from behind a door leading into the unknown depths of the building. Ollie very,verylightly moved his hand to the small of Tiffany's back, more warmth than pressure. Apparently he'd learned his lesson by being thrown on the ground, which was good, because Tiffany reckoned throwing him across the cafe would cause some real problems.
She glanced up at him, and he nodded toward a table by the window, eyebrows elevated in question.
"Sure, that'll do." She went ahead of him, all too aware that the warmth of his hand had left her spine, and they sat for a quick glance over a menu that turned out to look incredibly good. Tiffany said, "Lemonade," dubiously. There were a lot of other things she suddenly wanted, too.
Things on themenu. She definitely meant things on themenu.
"You can have anything you want," Oliver promised in his soft voice.
Tiffany's gaze jolted up to his. A small, small smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, as if he'd heard her thoughts, and a wave of heat rushed over her.
This was absurd. He was just some guy! Some hot Australian guy determined to buy her lemonade, yes, but just some guy! And yet somehow, Tiffany couldn't remember how to talk. Instead her jaw kind of flapped for a few seconds while Ollie's smile grew wider, until he finally said, "The blueberry cheesecake, maybe? Blueberries go well with lemon."
The idea of the tart and sweet combination made the back of Tiffany's jaw ache to the point that she actually rubbed her fingers beneath her ears, trying to make the tiny Eustachian tubes stop contracting. "I think I'd better stick with the lemonade. Blueberry cheesecake later."
"That's a date," Oliver said happily, and a positive thrill went through Tiffany as she realized she'd walked right into that.
CHAPTER 4
If koalas could do fist-pumps, his koala would be doing a fist-pump.Scooooorrrre! We got a date! She wants us, mate! We're her dream come true!
Tiffany's expression, at the moment, did not suggest Ollie was her dream come true. It suggested that she realized she'd walked into a setup, and was trying to figure out how she felt about it. Ollie, embarrassed, said, "It doesn't have to be a date."
Are you nuts?She threw us on the ground! She's hot! You can't not take her on a date! Lemme talk to her, you're useless!
You,Ollie said steadily,are a belligerent little drop bear, and I am not letting you take over wooing our fated mate. Even if you could, I wouldn't.
"No," Tiffany said slowly, "I think a date sounds nice. Especially if it involves cheesecake. But you're not distracting me from the project!"
