Page 32 of Dead Pretty

I sit back in my seat, hands curling around my coffee cup. “Crime books aren’t my thing. But I might have seen your name while I was filing books away. What’s your pen name?”

“Jack Canti.”

Jack Canti. Can a name be sexy? Yes. Yes, it can.

“Jack Canti,” I echo my thoughts. “So, is Jack Canti your real name or a pseudo name?”

I know that authors who have pseudo names will sometimes use them in real life with people they don’t know.

“Real,” he answers slowly.

“Then, nope, I haven’t heard of you.”

I smile, and he laughs.

I find myself loving the sound of it. I like being the one who made him laugh.

“But I am definitely going to look you up when I get back to the library.”

“You’re on your lunch break right now?” he asks me.

“Yep. And I should be heading back,” I say, glancing at the clock on the wall. I’ve hardly even touched the bagel. I pick it up and quickly finish it off before swigging down the rest of my coffee. “Sorry to rush off,” I tell him.

“No problem.”

He’s watching me with those intense eyes and smiling at me, and it makes me feel flustered again.

“And thanks again for the coffee and bagel,” I tell him, getting out of my seat.

He answers by way of a shrug.

“So, I guess I’ll see you …” I say, letting the words hang.

I’m hesitating. Stalling leaving. And I don’t know why.

Maybe it’s because you don’t know when you’ll see Jack next, whispers my subconscious.

Nope. I might find the guy hot, but I’m not hanging out, waiting to hear when I will see him next.

I don’t do people. I don’t do friends.

Yet isn’t that what Jack is to me now … a friend?

Ugh.

I really need to get out of here. Now.

“So, yeah … bye.”

“See you tomorrow, Audrey,” he says, his words catching my back, turning me around again.

“Tomorrow?” I question.

A smile lifts his eyes. “At the library.” He says this like I should have already known the answer.

And I hate that my heart is doing a happy dance in my chest right now.

So, I conceal my feelings and act casual and shrug. “Sure. See you tomorrow.”