She couldn’t ask them to stay, nor could she leave without it looking obvious, which it was. So instead, she sipped her soda and watched the beautiful Geldermans leave.
“Hey.”
She turned to look at Newman. “Hey.”
“How are you, Hope?” He leaned toward her, big hands braced on his thighs.
“Good, but I have to go now. I need to help my mother with some stuff.”
“Hope, we need to talk.”
“No,” she shook her head, “we don’t. It was a moment of madness, now we can forget it.”
“Hell of a moment, it has to be said.”
Hope swallowed her smile.
Newman pushed back the sleeves of his long-sleeved T-shirt, and she saw the gold watch.
“That really would feed a starving village in Africa.”
“Possibly, but as I got this on sale too, I’m sure it would only be half a village. Now these sneakers,” he pointed to his feet, where he wore black leather with white stripes. “They’d change the global deficit.”
“You have no shame,” Hope snapped.
“None. You eating those?” He pointed to the fries she’d been nibbling, but not enjoying. She’d lost her appetite lately.
He hummed a small tune as he ate.
“Why do you do that?”
“What?”
“Hum while you eat. I mean, it’s embarrassing, surely?”
He hummed a few more bars.
“You have the cheek to talk to me about embarrassing myself, when you get about dressed in my mother’s old gardening clothes?”
“I happen to think vanity is a sin.”
“Obviously,” he drawled, making Hope’s temper spike.
“You,” she jabbed a finger at his chest. “Are far too arrogant, opinionated, and… and—”
“Handsome?”
“Asshole,” she muttered, getting to her feet and storming by him, out the door and into the cool night air.
She walked several paces down the street from the Howler and inhaled through her nose. Annoying bastard. The problem, of course, was that she was so attracted to him, every time they spoke she overreacted.
“Hope?”
No, no, no!
She turned, and there stood Jay Herald. Wind ruffled his hair, and his clothes were casual, but she knew there was nothing casual about him. Everything he did was for effect.
“Excuse me, I have no wish to speak to you.”
