Page 7 of Airhead

What she wouldn’t give to tell her sister she was full of shit. The problem? She wasn’t. Oh yeah, she’d told herself it was all for a free beer last night. But it was hard to lie to yourself in the morning light—even when it was overcast. Not that she would admit this to her twin. Yeah, Connie knew. But knowing and having confirmation were two different things.

“Oh my God,” Katie said, turning away from the window and heading toward the front door. “Talking to Frank is better than trying to make sense of you.”

Ignoring her sister’s mumbled reply (which sounded suspiciously like a Shakespeare quote about protesting too much), she marched out the apartment door, down the three flights of stairs, and out into the cool, crisp November air to find a man she most definitely did not want to see again was… replacing her taillight?

Yeah, no. She couldn’t have him being helpful two days in a row. She would not, could not, be one more in the long line of Waterbury women trying to snag Frank. Really, even to imagine it was to admit that the snobs at the university had been right. She was just a working-class, Waterbury stereotype, because there wasn’t anything more Waterbury than falling for Frank Hartigan.

So she wouldn’t.

There.

Crisis averted.

Brain set straight, and libido back in check, she walked across the parking lot to her Pinto. Did she wish she’d taken the time to swipe on some sour grapes Bonnie Bell Lip Smackers? Yes, but only because her lips were chapped. It was nearly Thanksgiving. The air was dry.

Crossing her arms, she gave Frank her best I-don’t-like-you glare. “My sister called the cops.”

He scoffed and went back to screwing in the new taillight bulb. “No she didn’t.”

“What makes you say that?” Sure, she hadn’t but he didn’t know that. How could he?

“Because you’ve been watching me for the past five minutes and the precinct is on the corner.” He closed her trunk and dropped the burnt-out bulb she’d been meaning to replace into the Hazel’s Auto Parts bag. “Someone would have been here by now.”

How rude of him to use logic on her like that. “Why did you change my taillight?” she asked, because if there was one thing she’d learned growing up with a dozen siblings, it was to switch directions when your argument wasn’t getting the job done.

“It was out.” Frank rested his way-too-grabbable ass against her trunk and crossed his arms.

Yeah, he was probably mimicking her current stance, but it also drew her attention to his biceps and that just wasn’t fair. She’d spent way too much time thinking about his arms and how strong they were last night, after he’d carried Connie to the car.

“So,” she said, her smart mouth running on automatic since her brain was otherwise occupied in fantasy land. “I could have done that.”

“Never said you couldn’t.” He adjusted his black Ray-Bans and gave her a lazy smile that did things to her insides that she would not acknowledge. “And now that it’s done, I gotta get over to the firehouse.” He glanced down at his watch. “My shift starts in fifteen.”

Katie wet her lips with her tongue, trying to push down the realization that this little bit of news disappointed her. It shouldn’t. Why would she care that he had to go to work where he’d probably spend the next twenty-four hours rescuing the cats that Waterbury’s population of single women had left in trees in hopes he was on shift? “I’m not interested in going out with you.”

He pushed off her car and took a few steps forward, stopping right on the edge of being too close, and lowered his sunglasses just enough to see over the top. “Why not?”

“Because.” Okay, even with her heart beating like she’d just gotten done with the annual Waterbury Turkey Trot while carrying a Pyrex of her grandma’s scalloped potatoes, that sounded dumb.

“That’s it?” He took a step closer. “Just because?”

He wasn’t touching her, but somehow that made it even worse. Instead of feeling his hands on her suddenly overly stimulated skin, she had to imagine them. The heat of his touch. The weight of his fingers. The press of his palms against her waist, her ass, her breasts. Looking up at his face, because he was so damn tall, she could see the way the sun turned some strands of his red hair to gold, and notice the small pale scar on the underside of his chin. Worst of all, she couldn’t ignore the sizzle of attraction that made the little bit of air between them crackle. The urge to act on it had her pulse jackrabbiting as she struggled to remember what he’d asked her.

“Yes,” she said, the word coming out less than one hundred percent sure. “Just because.”

He pushed up his sunglasses and stepped back. “Interesting.”

No it wasn’t. It was boring—sorta like her life in Waterbury, which is all it ever could or would be.

Still, she couldn’t help but ask, “Why?”

“Because,” he said as he picked up the bag with a can of WD-40 and her old brake lightbulb inside. ‘I think you are interested.” He straightened and looked right at her. “You’re just scared because of the way that douchebag Adler cheats on your sister. You think that I’d do that to you.”

The Creep couldn’t keep his zipper shut if his life depended on it, but that didn’t mean Frank was right. In fact, he couldn’t be more wrong. If some idiot cheated on her, well, that was about him, not her and she could give a flying fuck about getting rid of a loser like that. No, she knew not all men were like The Creep.

She also knew that, no matter how much she fought it, her life was just going to be one boring day after another until she died. She wouldn’t get to travel the world. She wouldn’t get to have adventures. She wouldn’t wake up in the morning not knowing what wild pitch life would throw at her that day. She had sixty, maybe seventy, years of the absolutely expected ahead of her.

She knew what to expect with Frank Hartigan—if she told him she was interested, she’d become another name on his long list of conquests, and nothing more.