“Ice?”Grady asks, sinking into the booth across from me as if he hadn’t slammed the door shut in my face less than ten minutes earlier.
“By all means,” I huff, waving a hand across the table.“Do have a seat.”
“Sorry,” he says sheepishly.
I frown.“For what?Slamming the door in my face or sitting down without being asked?”
His broad shoulders give an endearing little shrug.Probably meaningless, mind you, but sexy just the same.“Both, I guess?”
“Fine, well...”I bring my hand back across the table, cross my arms over my chest, and regard him coolly.“This is a surprise.”
“Is it though?”he asks, turning his pretty little face into a question mark.
“I mean, obviously.”
He taps the rustic, earthen coffee mug.The one with the cute little cracked egg all over the bottom and the puffy, balloon letterCracked Egg Cafélogo along the top.“Then who’s this for?”
Before I can stop myself, I blurt, “Jesus, I thought cowboys were supposed to be stupid!”
He snorts easily, breezily, a sound that sends a jolt straight to my crotch.I know I said I wasn’t here to get railed by some lonely cowpoke while I was in town, but Jesus, that laugh?I think I came a little just hearing it!
“Hear you go, Grady,” Trixie announces, saving me from wedging my foot any deeper in my mouth as she sets a plastic cup full of ice next to his lukewarm coffee.
“Thanks, but ...this is?”
Trixie spies a trio of new guests coming into the café and hustles away, casting a quick “Your friend there will explain it to you” over her burly shoulder.
“It’s ice,” I explain redundantly.
“Yeah, Chet, I know.I can see that, but ...what’s it for?”
“Your coffee, obviously.”
“Come again?”
I sigh, glancing at my own plastic cup full of creamy iced coffee.“When I first came in, all I wanted was an iced coffee.Obviously, this dive doesn’t sell any, so Trixie told me she’d bring me a cup of ice and ...Wala.”
“Iced coffee,” Grady finishes for me.“I get it now.But ...it’s not a dive.”
His stern tone braces me.I glance around the café, as charming as it is busy, and concede on that point at least.“Fine, not entirely a dive but...”I wave the menu at him.“Have you seen this?”
Grady sighs and wriggles as if to get more comfortable on his side of the booth.“Only about a million times, Chet.Why?Not up to your usual Beverly Hills standards?”
“It’s not that,” I bluff because if this guy could see my one-bedroom studio apartment back home, he’d laugh me out of the state itself.“I just...”
“Are you a vegetarian?”he asks as if he already knows the answer.
“No.”
“Vegan then?”
“No.”
“Gluten-free?”
“No, Grady, I just ...don’t want to consume three thousand calories at the moment, that’s all.”
He beams.“So you’re watching your figure then?”
