“Whoa! Whoa! I’m not hitting on your girlfriend.” The guy lifted both hands in surrender.
Jess peered around Piers. “He’s not my boyfriend, cutie. I’m very single.” She collapsed onto the table—Piers and whoever winced.
“I just wanted to make sure she’s okay. Really.” Look in the dictionary under ‘ordinary’, and you’d likely find this guy’s picture. Average height, average build, medium brown hair and eyes, somewhere between twenty and thirty. Nothing remarkable at all. Like he deliberately tried to fly under people’s radar.Move along, folks, nothing to see here.“Can’t have anyone falling in my shop.”
The words paused Piers’ deep inhale in preparation for a major telling-off. “Your shop?”
The guy grinned. “Yes. I’m the owner. I don’t recognize you two and couldn’t let a potential regular fall over now, could I? Would be bad for business.”
The owner. Just the owner. Not some predator.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to the kitchen.” The guy didn’t even say his name.
Piers retrieved the coffees and plopped down on the other side of the booth, placing two cups in front of Jess. “You gotta drink at least half of one before I even consider lugging you back to the apartment. One footfall on black ice could send us both to urgent care.”
Jess dutifully took a drink, then made a “blech” face. “Black, no sugar. How could you?”
“It’s what you need.” What Piers needed too.
“Where’s the cutie?” she asked, looking around.
“If you mean the guy you were flirting with, he’s the owner. He went back to work.” Piers scowled. “I thought you’d given up on men.” Again. For about the tenth time.
Jess giggled. “Doesn’t hurt to sharpen my claws on occasion.” She bent over the table, coming eye-to-eye with Piers, hooking her fingers. “Mrrroooow!” She dissolved into giggles. Like hitting a light switch, she sobered. “Speaking of, you really should’ve poured me into an Uber and left with that Wicked guy. I mean, what if he believed in truth in advertising? Wicked, get it?”
Not again. Besides, Piers would never trust Jess’s safety to a stranger. “Drink your coffee, then let’s go home.”
He caught glimpses of the owner several times, who seemed to keep close tabs on Jess, but never returned to the table. Well, made sense. Drunks coming from the clubs likely caused trouble from time to time.
Piers couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer, tugged them both into their coats, and got them home. Thanks to everything wonderful in the universe, climbing stairs to their apartment was a thing of the past. Elevators were the greatest things ever.
He propped Jess against the wall outside their apartment to unlock the door.
“You should’ve brought home the gorgeous white-haired guy,” Jess slurred as Piers helped her inside. She collapsed onto the couch, waving him away when he reached for her. “Go. Save yourself. It’s too late for me. But really. That scorching hot man could’ve been yours tonight.”
Piers folded his arms over his chest, staying close in case gravity suddenly put his very wasted roomie on the floor. “The walls are thin. You’d have had to listen to us all night.”
“The things I do for you.” Jess giggled, failing twice before finally convincing both legs to join her on the cushions. “I mean, having two sexy guys banging each other through the mattress in the next room? Yeah, big hardship there. Did you see his ass?”
Nothing Jess said should’ve shocked at this point in their relationship. But how’d she seen the man’s ass? She’d been passed out on the bar most of the time.
Somehow, the image of the stranger straining above him appeared in Piers’ mind. Again. Heat rushed to his cheeks. “He was easy on the eyes, wasn’t he?”
Something about him, the oddness of his nearly golden eyes and pale hair, the way he carried himself with confidence. No, not confidence. He’d passed confidence a few miles back.
“Oh, hell, yeah! I don’t understand,” Jess whined, “I evenapprovedof him. How could you not bring home a man named Wicked?” The best friend who’d tried to play wingman rolled, grabbing onto the back of the couch to keep from tumbling into the floor.
Piers shifted her away from the couch edge, lifted her legs, and sat, placing her feet in his lap. Talking gave him an excuse to stick around long enough to ensure she’d be okay or whisk her to the bathroom at the first sign of retching. “Because he came to the club looking for a good time. Anyone would do.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’d have done nicely.” A strand of hair fell across Jess’s face. She blew. The tuft lifted and fell back into place, her eyes crossing as she followed the movement.
Piers leaned over, tucking the wayward lock behind her ear. “I don’t want to be a convenience.” Besides, there was the whole dream come to life thing. White blond hair… Uncle Lee had white hair, kept short. But Uncle Lee had been in his sixties, at least, when he passed. This guy appeared much too young for his hair to have gone white. Until tonight, Piers had considered his dream guy just a dream.
Lightning strikes, snow, boxes that mysteriously grew lighter…
Could Piers somehow summon people too?
Jess fixed him with a far too sharp gaze for someone who’d consumed enough alcohol to stock the average home bar. “In what year did you last get laid?”
