There, much better. Sort of.
“So…” She set the stack of posters on the countertop and tapped her fingertip against the top one. “I brought you a poster for your window.”
He studied her handiwork and flicked the end of a pen against his palm in time with the beat of the now turned-off music.
“Prom, huh? Fun.” He dropped the pen, rubbed his hands together, and locked his gaze to hers in a way that made her insides purr in anticipation.
What are “things you shouldn’t do” for five hundred, Alex.
No men for you, Heather. Eye on the…well, the poster, in this instance.
“This is at the retirement home up the street?” he asked.
“You know it?” Of course he knew it, it’s not like their street was that big.
“Yeah, I know it.” He lifted a corner of his lips, just the one corner. Damn, that was sexy. Elvis sexy.
“I volunteer there, and they’ve lost a lot of residents lately. Some passed away. Some moved. So I had this idea to help drum up new business. A way to showcase the place for new seniors.” Okay, she should get to the other reason she’d stopped by. “I was…ah…also hoping you might be willing to help out with flowers? It’ll be a fun opportunity for us to get to know each other better.”
He stilled when she mentioned getting to know each other better.
“I mean, not like that. You know. For everyone to get to know each other better. You as a business owner to get to know some of the residents. And they can get to know each other. Not for…”Us, she finished in her head.
“Dean said you’re single.” Jase squinted his espresso-colored eyes in that way guys tended to do right before they dropped a mammoth pickup-line bomb. He’d never looked at her like that before, but she’d witnessed his pick-up line game before. It was strong. “You and your guy broke up.”
Dean was her friend Claire’s husband. Jase was friends with the significant others of her two best friends. Which meant they ran in the same circle, saw each other regularly. She’d chatted with him. Danced with him at their friends’ weddings. All that time, she’d been seeing Logan, so she had ignored any of the chemistry between her and Jase.
Logan. Ugh. They had broken up. But that had nothing to do with anything.
The lies she told herself were sometimes mammoth.
She’d been 100 percent into Logan. Certain that they were heading to a chapel with a white dress and forever bells. She’d been epically wrong.
“Logan and I broke up a while ago, actually. Why?”
“You look hungry,” Jase announced.
“Don’t do it, Jase.” She shook her head.
Oh, he acted so innocent, but she knew better. Knew what was coming.
“Do what?” he asked.
“Give me whatever line you were about to throw at me.”
His eyes danced. “What line?”
“You know what line.”
“Fine. Your loss.” He didn’t wink. He didn’t have to. He paused a beat. “You want to hear it, don’t you?”
She tilted toward him, just a touch. “I already ate. I’m not hungry.”
An English-muffin-sandwich thing about twenty minutes ago.
He leaned forward, elbows on the counter, and flashed another grin. “I’m thinking you look hungry because you’re the girl I’m about to ask to dinner tonight.”
A sigh escaped her lungs. Cue the horrible pickup line. She’d called that one. Still, this was new. Jase had never asked her out before. He was a flirt, but he was an equal-opportunity flirt. She’d never read more into it.
