Except I can’t get excited about seeing him. We agreed to one night. No strings. I eye the muffin and coffee. These aren’t strings. Any friend would have organized a delivery like?—
Oh, who am I trying to convince?
We aren’t even friends. He’s the brother of my best friend’s boyfriend. A guy I’d never met before last night. A one-night hookup like any other guy I might have gone home with after a date.
Except I’ve never had a one-night stand in my life, and what happened last night didn’t feel like I thought a hookup would. And didn’t I break the cardinal rule by staying over? Isn’t that an implied promise of one night?
Would it really be breaking the rules if I picked up some takeaway after work and took it to Garrett’s? We have to talk about my car anyway. It wouldn’t hurt to do that over a meal. And I owe him for the cost of the tow.
No, it would be just two semi-friends who once had sex eating food together while discussing the repairs to a vehicle that’s older than either of us.
Nothing wrong with that.
Except for the fact that just the thought of seeing Garrett again has my insides clenching and my pulse racing. I might want to lie to myself about what’s going on, but it’s hard to deny the way my body reacts when I think about him.
God help me when we’re actually in the same room again.
12
GARRETT
Closing out the delivery app, I grin. Coffee and a muffin were one thing, but a three-course meal for lunch? Yeah, if this morning’s delivery didn’t get her attention, this one will.
Slipping my phone into my pocket, I head over to the Jag. I was right last night; it’s a simple fix. New battery and leads, new spark plugs, and the car is good to go. Of course I’ve decided to be a little sneaky and not connect the new battery yet. Or replace the plugs.
As far as Lexi is concerned, they’re on order and not expected to arrive until next week.
It’s a fucked-up move for sure, but she admitted she didn’t need the car so it’s not like my deceit will put her out. What it will do is give me a valid reason to see or talk to her.
I’ve never resorted to such tactics when it comes to a woman. Fuck, I’ve never done anything like this at all. Except I can’t let her just walk away without at least seeing if I can convince her I’m the guy she wasn’t looking for.
I did some snooping while looking for today’s surprises. I’m not sure why I thought to do it or why I hadn’t done it before. After hitting up the search engine for cafés near the ExclusivelyYours office, I punched in Alexandria Carmichael and hit a goldmine of information.
I’d like to say I’m ashamed of myself for digging into her past like I did, except I’m not. Because what I found was not just her date of birth and marital status. Nope. She’s the last in a line of lawyers who formed the nationally known Carmichael, Bertram, and Lennard law firm.
She no longer works there, and if one gossip site article is to be believed, that’s because when her ex-husband joined the firm and they started to date, she quit to allow him to continue working with the firm. That was over a decade ago. But she didn’t get married and have kids. No. She joined forces with Olivia Wexworth to open a dating service and a chain of women’s boutiques.
Besides all that, it revealed a possible reason for her turning skittish this morning. If she loved her ex, and she was married to him for years so I can only assume she did, his betrayal would have made her guarded. And if she thought for one second she was feeling more than the one night, no strings she insisted last night was, she would have run for the hills.
Fuck. She did run.
And in spite of this morning’s gift, she’s still running. I can only hope lunch does more than have her remembering me. I hope it has her thinking, and thinking hard, about why I’d send her breakfast and lunch. I want her looking deeper than the surface to the reason I’m taking care of her in such a simple way.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I fumble the spanner in my hand, barely catch it before it hits the top of my unprotected foot. “Fuck.” Putting the tool in its place, I wait until both hands are free and I’m steady on my feet to pull the still buzzing phone out.
Carter’s name is on the screen.
“Motherfucker.”
I haven’t had to deal with anyone in my family yet, and I can’t deny I’m nervous about talking to either of my brothers with this secret hanging over my head. Not that I don’t want to shout about being with Lexi from the rooftop, but with my cold bed looking to stay that way for the foreseeable future, there’s nothing to shout about.
By the time I decide to answer, the phone stops ringing and I can’t hold in a burst of laughter.
I’m such an idiot over Lexi.
Should have known it when I spent months rubbing it out to the memory of her walking through Boyd’s. The phone vibrates in my hand and the little icon for my voicemail pops up on the screen. I’m not supposed to be working at the bar today, and if it was important, Carter would call back.
Which is why I pocket my phone again and head upstairs to take a shower. There’s nothing more I will do for the Jag today and I’m not feeling any of the other cars currently in various states of disassembly in the shop.
