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“When areyou going to find a real boyfriend?”
My client had barely waited two minutes of me arriving at our seats to tease me. I elbowed Bill playfully in the side. He may have been a client, but there was an easy intimacy between us after years of regular rendezvous. “As soon as I find one as good as you. You’ve ruined me for other men.”
“The kid seemed interested,” he said without looking at me.
Of course he’d noticed. He was always trying to be nosy about my dating life and would’ve immediately clued in to the anomaly of me flirting with a cute guy.
“You are such a bastard for trying to make him jealous by the way. Since when do you call mebabe?” When he’d done it, I hadn’t known whether to cringe in shame or laugh at how ridiculous it was.
He roared with laughter. “This old dog’s gotta keep the young pups on their toes. Why don’t you give him a chance?”
I’d thought about what it would be like to see Zane again, but I hadn’t expected to run into him so soon after thinking it. I’d been accused of being a little woo-woo in the past, but how could anyone say that didn’t smack of fate?
You make your own fate and it doesn’t include twenty-one-year-old musicians.
“He moves on to another city tomorrow. He’s hardly looking for a relationship. Also, how is it not weird that my hot date is trying to set me up with someone else?”
He elbowed me back. “I want you to be happy. Even if I want him to have to work for it first.”
You deserve fireworks.
Fucking kid was somehow a voice in my head after one night together.
“And what about you?” I said, desperate to change the subject.
“I’ll find her one day…”
“Hopeless romantic.” Bill really was the sweetest man and I hoped he found love one day.
“You say it like it’s an insult,” he said.
“We can’t all afford to chase fairy tales, my darling patron.” It was so easy for people who’d always had money to ignore the harsh realities the rest of us faced. I didn’t have the luxury of being reckless.
“I’ve told you I’ll help you get started with a restaurant when you’re ready.”
I kissed him on the cheek, knowing he meant it. But I couldn’t count on anyone else, couldn’t trust someone to wave a wand and make my life easy. Maybe he’d follow through…but maybe he wouldn’t.
The lights came back up and Zane stood in the center of the stage, clutching a mic.
His band wasn’t the main act, but you wouldn’t have known it from the chorus of female screams.
I couldn’t blame them.
The lights of the stage highlighted his tall, muscled frame and long hair. He was magnetic and he hadn’t even moved yet.
When the screams abated, he drew a breath and belted the opening lines of the song.
And my whole world shifted.
There’s no other way to explain it. There was a moment before I’d heard him sing, a last breath I didn’t know I was letting out. And then an after. A moment where the breath I drew back into my lungs seemed to pull him in with it.
I’d been attracted to him before, that was part of the reason I’d shut him down. Attraction was a weakness as far as I was concerned. I’d found him funny and charming. I’d felt a spark with him I had no interest in feeling.
I’d been able to compartmentalize all of that, lock it away in the box in my mind where silly things like love belonged because a girl with ambition doesn’t have space for both.
