My urges were fine. He was wrong about that, too.
Jamie opened the door, but he didn’t step through it, keeping his hand on the knob instead. He looked back at me over his shoulder.
“That thing you were wonderin’ about,” he began, and I felt my insides turn into liquid.
Oh, no …
Please don’t …
He smiled, promising, “You’re gonna fuckin’ love it.”
My tell-all body reacted again, this time with my lips parting. It was a subtle reaction. One that could go unnoticed.
Too bad it didn’t.
Jamie’s gaze lowered to my lips the second they parted. “Take that back. Thinkin’ those urges just tripled,” he guessed with all the confidence in the world.
I narrowed my eyes.
His sparkled like moonlight on the water.
Then he looked ahead and stepped out of my house with his delicious bag of leftovers, calling out before the door closed, “Later, babe. Have fun dreamin’ about my dick.”
I stared, mouth agape, at my door for a solid minute. And then I went to bed, where I absolutely did not have fun dreaming about his dick.
Not for one second.
I also did not have fun thinking about it the following day when I avoided any chance of contact with Jamie by spending my day off at my parents’ house. And when I finally got home close to one a.m., that not-so-fun feeling only continued throughout the night and carried over into today, bringing us to right now.
I was standing at the kitchen window at Whitecaps, fingers curving under the edges of two plates that were ready to be taken to the tables waiting for their food, but instead of delivering those plates, I was staring at the curved barbell in Stitch’s bottom lip.
Never gave it a second glance before.
Now? You’d think I was witnessing a unicorn being born or something with the way I was engrossed by it.
“You got a problem?”
Stitch’s hard, grating voice jolted me into consciousness.
I blinked up at him, saw he was paused in his vegetable chopping and glaring at me like I’d personally done him wrong, then decided I didn’t much care for his growing attitude today and went ahead and shared that feeling.
“Catch more flies with honey. Ever hear that?” I asked, sliding the plates off the metal lip of the window and holding them in front of me. “Sure she’d forgive you a lot sooner if you started acting a little nicer.”
I was referring to Shay and the grudge she was holding against Stitch for blowing off their first official date a while back, and I knew Stitch was following me.
The wrinkle between his eyebrows deepened. Stitch was scary looking without the added hostility. Tall and built in the shoulders, wide chest, limbs covered in ink. Intimidating swagger.
Total badass biker vibe.
“You and Red need to stay the fuck out of it,” he bit out. “Ain’t your business.”
Red was Syd apparently.
It fit her. She did have wild red hair.
“I’m gonna let you think that since we’re slammed and I don’t have time to argue it,” I told him, turning sideways and leaning closer to the window. “Just know, you chose the wrong profession if you want to keep personal stuff personal. You work with a bunch of women, Stitch. We get high off gossip.”
Stitch had gone back to chopping up the vegetables, but when I informed him of this, he stopped again.
“Leave it alone,” he ordered, eyes coming up.
“Ask nicely and maybe I will.”
“This is me askin’ nicely,” he growled.
I straightened up, hearing the seriousness in his voice and the threat of an even angrier Stitch, something I couldn’t imagine, so I decided to let him think I’d be leaving this alone for the sake of Whitecaps. Pissing off the cook could lead to him up and quitting, and I really didn’t want that. So I nodded once and let Stitch see it, knowing he’d read that as my surrender, then I turned and walked away with my hot plates of food and delivered them to table eight.
“I hate being this busy, but I kinda love it, too,” Shay said, meeting me at the hostess podium, where we were both putting menus away. “Keeps my mind off things.” She gave me a weak smile.
I put my hand on her arm and gave it a squeeze. “He’s an idiot.”
“I know.” Her eyes moved over my shoulder toward the kitchen. She sighed. “I just wish he’d realize that and fix it. I miss talking to him.”
I started immediately regretting backing down and faking surrender with Stitch. But I couldn’t do anything about that now, for two reasons. One, it was lunch rush and I had a billion tables. And two, my phone started ringing from the back pocket of my shorts.
Normally, I wouldn’t take calls during work hours because it was unprofessional, but seeing as my tables were all happy at the moment and not needing anything from me, and also considering it was my mother calling, I decided to make an exception.
Typically, her calls were short. And this one should be extra short. I’d just spent all day with her yesterday.
“Two seconds,” I told Shay, not wanting her to feel like I was ducking out of our conversation.
She waved me off, shaking her head and conveying what we were discussing wasn’t important. But it was. And we’d be getting back to it.
I heard the door chime from behind me as I made my way toward the employee lounge, phone pressing to my ear.
More customers. I really needed to make this quick.
“Hey, I’m at work. What’s up?” I answered.