Page 20 of Airhead

Heat smacked her in the cheeks, and lower, as she imagined what a real date with Frank would be like. It was a bad idea. Very bad. And so damn good at the same time.

Girl. Save yourself before you become another one of Frank Hartigan’s groupies.

“Forget it,” she said, speeding up her pace.

Annoyingly, he didn’t have a problem keeping up with her.

“Action movies. Thrillers. Funny movies,” he said, not even breathing hard even though she was gasping to suck in extra oxygen. “Movies where things blow up, the hero defeats the bad guys, and he drives off into the sunset with the girl.”

She jolted to a stop with her hands on her hips, forcing him to brake. She was steaming—at herself—and he was just giving her the grin. He was either clueless that she was in mean mode, or utterly, sincerely unbothered. It sucked the wind right out of her temper tantrum sails.

“No romantic comedies?” she asked. “No musicals? No rip-your-heart-out dramas?”

“Not really,” he said, with a nonjudgmental shrug. “But I’d give them a chance if you share your popcorn.”

This man, he always seemed to know exactly what to say. In her experience, that was another red flag. Yet she ignored the crimson billowing in the wind and started toward her car again. Frank, not surprisingly, fell into step beside her.

“I love the movies,” Katie said. “I’d go every week if I could. It’s nice to just pretend for a few hours that this isn’t my reality.”

He knocked his shoulder against hers in commiseration as they walked. “Waterbury’s not that bad.”

Without meaning to, she looked over at the Harbor Bridge, and the lights twinkling in the skyscrapers on the other side of the water. Then her gaze moved over to the handful of lights dotting the downtown area on this side of the bridge. Most of the shops were already closed, and with the economy doing what it was doing, there wasn’t a reason for them to stay open any later. She looked down at their feet as they walked. Both of them wore scuffed shoes from the sale rack. It wasn’t the money part of it that made her gut twist, it was what that money represented. Freedom. Knowledge. The world being theirs for the taking. Well, not theirs, but someone’s. Those rich kids she’d gone to college with right after high school, they were riding that wave while she was sinking under the reality. It was something they’d clocked from the beginning, letting her know that she’d never fit in no matter her GPA.

What an idiot she’d been for ever thinking merit would be enough.

“No,” she said, her voice quiet. “It’s not that Waterbury is bad, but it’s not what my life was supposed to be.”

“You were gunning for the lives of the rich and famous?” Frank asked, imitating the guy from the local TV show who talked about champagne wishes and caviar dreams that was bound to go national eventually.

“Not really.” She shook her head and reached for her purse as they neared her car. “But I wanted adventure. I wanted to see everything, go everywhere, experience it all.”

He nodded, looking a little sad. but as if he understood. “And all of that for you is on the other side of the Harbor Bridge?”

“Yeah,” she said with a sigh as she pulled her keys out of her purse. “Not that it does any good being that close and knowing I’m just going to watch it all go by.”

“Just because you’re here doesn’t necessarily mean you’re missing out,” Frank said, gazing toward the lights twinkling at the top of the bridge. “I mean, look at me. Every day is an adventure. I’m teaching third graders to stop, drop, and roll one minute. and blocking Mike Myers gore from your view the next.”

Instead of putting her keys into the lock, she turned so her back was to her Pinto. There he was, saying the right thing again. It was like the grin he did. He didn’t have to force it, or fake it. “It was really nice of you to go to the movie with me. Thank you.”

“I had fun,” he said with a wink.

“Even if you hated the movie.”

“It was worth it,” he said, taking a step so they were now close enough to touch. “Because you were there.”

Her pulse kicked up. Her chest tightened with anticipation. “You are the worst flirt in the world, Frank Hartigan.”

He gave her the grin. “It’s not flirting if you mean it.”

“Then what is it?” she asked before she could stop herself. It was as if her brain was sending out one last SOS signal. A warning to get the hell out of there before her body won out over common sense.

A million answers to that single question flew across his face in quick succession, even as he didn’t utter a word. Frank was like that sometimes. Like that whole airhead, hot jock persona he’d had since high school was just that—a front. Of course, she was probably just feeling the after effects of getting four Harlequins a month delivered to her door. The men of Waterbury were who they were. They weren’t adventurers. They weren’t the kind of guys to make over the top, grand gestures. They didn’t promise multiple orgasms, and then deliver. They were just the guys next door.

It was mental to even think that Frank Hartigan could be more than the cocky ladies’ man everyone in town knew him to be.

Was it though? Like, really?

Yeah, yeah it was—and that was some freaky shit right there.