I’d never had a barber fetish before. I didn’t even know if that was a legitimate fetish. But watching those tattooed forearms, those dexterous hands work, I felt an annoying pulse of desire spark to life under the pizza I’d inhaled.
His gaze met mine, and for a second, it felt like the glass wasn’t there. It felt like I was being dragged into his gravity against my will. It felt like it was just the two of us sharing some kind of secret.
I knew what I’d be thinking about and hating myself for when I laid down in bed tonight.
FOURTEEN
THE DINNER PARTY
Knox
“Beer and catch a game? Beer and shoot the shit on the deck?” I asked Jeremiah as he and Waylon followed me up the steps to my cabin. Once every two weeks or so, I’d take an early night, and we’d get together outside of work.
“I wanna find out what’s got your beard so droopy. You were fine a couple of days ago. Your usual grumpy self. Now you’re pouting.”
“I don’t pout. I ponder. In a manly way.”
Jeremiah snickered behind me.
I unlocked the door and, despite my best efforts, glanced in the direction of the cottage.
There were cars parked in front of the cottage, music playing. Great. The woman was a socializer. Another reason to stay far the hell away from her.
Not that I had to, seeing as how she’d been avoiding me like I was the problem. The past week had been a struggle. An annoying one. Naomi Witt, I’d discovered, was a warm, friendly person. And when she wasn’t feeling warm and friendly toward you, you definitely felt the cold. She refused to make eye contact with me. Her smiles and “Sure thing, boss” responses were perfunctory. Even when I drove her home and we were alone in the truck, the frostiness didn’t thaw a degree.
Every time I thought I’d gotten a handle on it, she popped up. Either in her backyard or at my grandmother’s. In my own bar. Hell, a few days ago, she’d floated up to the window at Whiskey Clipper like a goddamn vision.
She was driving me fucking nuts.
“See? That right there,” Jer said, pointing a finger in my face. “Pouting. What’s going on with you, man?”
“Nothing.” I noticed my brother’s department vehicle parked at the cottage. “Fuck.”
“There a reason you don’t like seeing your brother’s car parked at Not Tina’s?”
“Is it the bisexual part of you that wants to talk about fucking feelings all the time?” I asked. “Or is it the ‘I come from a big, Lebanese family that knows everything about everybody’ part that I can blame?”
“Why not both?” he said with a quick grin.
A particularly loud burst of laughter caught our attention, as did the scent of grilled meat.
Waylon’s nose twitched. The white tip of his tail froze in the air.
“No,” I said sternly.
I might as well have said, “Sure, bud. Go get yourself a hot dog.” Because my dog took off like a streak.
“Looks like we’re joining the party,” Jeremiah observed.
“Fuck. I’m getting a beer first.”
A minute later, cold beers in hand, we wandered around the back of the cottage to find half of Knockemout on Naomi’s porch.
Sloane, the pretty librarian, was there with her niece, Chloe, who was wading knee-deep in the creek with Waylay and my grandmother’s dogs. Liza J was sitting next to Tallulah while Justice manned the grill and my pain in the ass brother flirted with Naomi.
She looked like summer.
Considering I’d had two sips of beer, I couldn’t blame alcohol on my mental prose. My mouth went dry as my gaze started at her bare feet, then moved up the long, tan legs to where they disappeared under the flirty, lemon yellow sundress.