“It’s okay,” she says, lips curling. They’re full and plump, and my cock throbs at the idea of tasting them, of feeling them against my own. “Honestly, I wasn’t looking where I was going either. Came to buy bacon and was sinking in abject despair at discovering none.”
“Me too,” I say with a grin. “I had big plans for that bacon, and now…” I sigh with melodramatic dismay.
She lifts an eyebrow. “Oh, yes? What plans were those?”
“A five Michelin-star worthy BLT.”
“FiveMichelin stars?” A grin plays with her lips. “That’s impressive. I didn’t know they went up to five stars. Shame there’s no bacon left. I’d love to try it.”
A heavy beat throbs through my groin. An invisible vise bands around my chest. “There’s gotta be a butcher open, right?” I say.
Are we flirting? Surely not? She looks barely twenty-five.
Holding my gaze, she lifts her shoulders in a slight shrug. “We could go see? If you’re not?—”
The sound of cellos playing AC/DC’s Thunderstruck blasts out from her handbag, and she startles, letting out a little gasp.
“Sorry.” She gives me a smile that confuses the hell out of me as she digs out her phone. Is it sheepish? Is it disappointed? Is it save-me-from-this-call-oh-handsome-stranger?
Ha! My ego.
“Hello?” she says into the phone, her gaze holding mine.
Hmm, maybe my egoisn’tout of?—
An unreadable tension flickers over her face. She lowers her phone from her ear and shrugs, eyebrows knitting. “I hope you find some bacon.”
And with that, she turns away, mumbling softly into the phone.
With a wobbly chuckle, I shake my head. Okay, definitely my ego after all. Damn it.
Pub, here we come.
Chapter Two
Sami
I’m trying so hard not to look back over my shoulder that I almost walk into someone else.
Weaving around the older gentleman and his bright-red walking frame like a rookie F1 driver, I grip my phone tighter, give him an apologetic face, and hurry for the store exit. My first night in Hartley Ridge is not going the way I’d planned.
Falling in insta-lust with the hottest man I’ve ever met wasn’t on my bingo card.
Unable to stop myself, I toss a look at the deli counter, and disappointment shears through me.
He’s gone.
“Sams?”
Blinking at the exasperated voice in my ear, I let out a strained laugh. “Sorry, Allen. I almost committed octogenariacide in the grocery store.”
“Octowhataside? Is that even a word?” Allen asks. “I know you’re the writer and I’m the lowly house sitter, but I’m dubious that’s a word.”
“You’re far from being thelowlyanything, Al.” I smile, picturing my next-door neighbor. “For starters, you’re in my house because you’re tougher than me and not scared of anything.”
“Well, there is that,” Allen concedes with a laugh. Along with being the best next-door neighbor a girl could ask for, he’s also a math teacher in one of the roughest high schools in Sydney. Nothing fazes him.
“And no,” I continue, exiting the store onto the quiet dusk street, “it’snota word. But with how close I just came to colliding with some poor old guy and his walking frame in Hartley Ridge’s only grocery store, it probably should be.”
