Lukas
“Moping over your missed connection?”
I open one eye and look at my sister, leaning against the doorframe of my office in her blue hospital scrubs. I keep my feet kicked up on my desk, blocking her eyes from my sketchbook, which I slip into my desk drawer before putting my hands behind my head.
“Are you going to use up my entire lunch break to annoy me?” I lean back a little farther, just to emphasize the fact that she’s chewing up my free time. Julia sits in the chair opposite mine and there’s a thunk as her shoes kick up on the other side of my desk. She gives me a sweetly sarcastic smile, clasping her hands in her lap. Yup. She’s definitely here to annoy me. I’m not taking the bait though, so I close my eyes and ignore her. She’ll get around to what she wants, eventually.
“So, book club was fun the other night,” she says lightly. A muscle twitches in my cheek before I can stop it. Old hawk-eye across the table doesn’t miss my tell, and I hear her chuckle.
Fuck.
She snags half of my sandwich off the desk, taking a monstrous bite out of it.
“Do you mind?” I ask my sister, pulling the rest of my food out of her reach. She may be a girl, but I’ll still smack her hand if she goes after my peanut butter cup.
“Not at all! This is surprisingly good. I feel like you’ve upped your sandwich game. Is that chipotle mayo?”
“What do you want, Jules?” I ask, staring up at the ceiling of my office.
“I couldn’t help noticing the way you and our sweet little Parker were eyeing each other last night. I’m almost surprised nobody caught a contact pregnancy with the way you were eye-fucking her.”
“Jesus, Julia—”
“Oh, don’t be a little bitch about it. You were both doing it. I think the sight of you might have made her forget her own name.”
“So, you came to warn me off?” I ask, sitting up and scowling at her. “Don’t bother. Lilah beat you to it.”
My stomach churns as I think about it. Not that she was wrong. I don’t have an outstanding track record with her friends. Or women in general. It’s not that I’m a bastard about it, I’m just not big on commitment. Why settle for one kind of cake when there are so many to try?
Although I have to admit, Parker looked like really good cake. And I didn’t miss the way she looked at me. To be fair, nobody missed it. People three counties over probably felt that intensity. She looked at me like I was the best thing she’d ever seen.
Most people still see me as the fuck-up of the Donovan family. We get a lot of tourists, but this is still a small town. Everyone here knows about the time Joey and I went joyriding in his dad’s Tacoma in the ninth grade. They all know I got arrested for drinking in high school.
Granted, the tattoos don’t help my public image. But I like tattoos; what’s the point of hiding it? Ink or not, I’ll always be the troublemaker, even though it’s been more than a decade since I went for a joyride or supposedly broke Sadie Jones’ heart. Even a degree in engineering and a thriving business hasn’t changed the way people in Sonoma look at me.
Except Parker didn’t look at me like that. Her big baby blues burned into me, all heat and admiration. I keep reminding myself that it’s only because she hasn’t been around long enough to know better. An hour with me would probably be enough to send her cute ass back to Omaha or whatever prairie town she came from.
Julia surprises me by saying, “Oh, I’m not here to warn you off.”
“You’re not?”
“Hell no! Lilah has a stick up her ass. You’d think Ben would have fixed that by now but—”
“Oh God, please stop.” I interrupt her, holding out a hand to stop the Julia train from scarring my brain tissue with mental images I don’t need. “I beg you.”
Julia rolls her eyes at me but drops her feet to the floor, leaning in conspiratorially.
“Listen, I’m going to tell you something. But if you let Parker know I told you this, I will kill you. Got it?” She looks at me, eyebrows raised, waiting.
I give her the Boy Scout salute. “Not a word, I promise,” I say sarcastically.
“Parker has a thing for bad boys and motorcycles, and between you and me, I know she’s lonely. She’s at the bookstore 24/7. She needs some fun.”
I blink at her for a moment, sure that I heard her wrong. “I’m sorry,” I say finally. “It sounds like you’re trying to pimp me out because your friend needs a date.”
“Don’t be a dick,” Julia says, pointing a warning finger at me. “I’m not pimping anyone out. Don’t think we missed the way you looked back at her. You can lie to Lilah all you want, but I think Parker is exactly your type. And you’re hers. So maybe don’t be a pussy about it and go ask her out before someone else gets there first. A curvy little cutie like Parker won’t stay on the market long, even if she stays locked in that bookstore forever.”
Julia stands to leave but pauses in the doorway, her eyes turned towards the ceiling, false innocence all over her face.