I returned his handshake. “Nice to meet you. I’m Willow.”
“Willow,” he repeated, his smile widening, revealing two rows of nice straight white teeth. “Beautiful name. It’s fitting.”
Oh my.
“So, Willow, can I buy you a cup of coffee?”
“Oh, um . . . I’m actually buying for me and my co-worker—my friend,” I quickly amended. It felt wrong to call Lark my coworker, especially after this past weekend. She and Aurora had cemented themselves as more than acquaintances, and I was thrilled about that.
He smiled again. “Then can I buy you and your friend a cup of coffee?”
My instincts were screaming for me to slink away and hide from Alex’s attention. I wasn’t used to having a man who looked like him focus so intently on me, and it was throwing me completely off balance. But instead of caving to my instincts, I pushed them to the back of my mind and grinned. “Sure. Thank you.”
He moved in beside me at the register, giving me the lead to tell the girl behind the counter what I wanted. Once he paid and I had my coffees in hand, I turned back to thank him again.
“Not a problem. It was nice meeting you, Willow. Hopefully I’ll see you around soon.”
I couldn’t remember what I said in return, but I was pretty sure it included a lot of blushing and stumbling over my words, as was my style. I moved out of the coffee shop feeling like I was floating on a cloud, and that sensation lasted all the way to the office.
Lark was waiting for me at my desk when I walked through the door and did a little hop dance the moment she saw me. “Oh my God, you look so hot!” she squealed, pulling her phone out of her back pocket. “Let me take a picture of you real quick to send to Rora. She’s gonna flip!”
I stood there awkwardly as the shutter on her phone’s camera sounded in rapid-fire succession. Once she finally lowered it, I walked the rest of the way to her and extended my arm holding her coffee. “Here you go.”
“Ah, you’re a lifesaver, hon. Thank you for this.”
“Actually . . .” I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth and widened my eyes. “I didn’t pay for it.”
Her head quirked to the side in confusion. “Then who did?”
“The guy standing in line behind me.” A smile slowly parted my lips until it got so big my cheeks hurt. “I think—I think maybe he was flirting with me.”
“Holy shit!” she enthused. “That’s awesome! Was he cute? And he paid for both coffees?”
“First, yes, he was cute. Like, seriously cute. And he bought both coffees. He said my name was beautiful and fit me perfectly, and the way he said ‘hopefully I’ll see you around soon’ made it sound like he actually did hope he’d see me around soon.”
“Oh yeah, babe, he was definitely hitting on you. Did you give him your number?”
I bit down on my bottom lip. “Well, no.”
“Why not?” Lark asked a little too loudly as her entire face drooped with disappointment. “If a hot guy flirts with you and buys your coffee, you’re supposed to give him your number.”
“But he didn’t ask,” I defended. Even if he had, I wasn’t sure I’d have wanted to give it to him. “And I’m not—that is, I don’t really—he wasn’t . . .”
“He wasn’t a certain scary-hot dude with tattoos and a motorcycle,” she provided, plucking the words straight from my head.
I deflated a bit, plopping down in my chair, and slumped my shoulders. “That’s pathetic, isn’t it? It’s not like he’s given me any indication he’d be into me. I mean, he’s been really nice lately, and he’s helped me out of a few serious jams, and he taught me how to drive a stick last week, but that’s all friend stuff.”
“Hey,” she started gently, coming around the front of my desk so she could lean her arms on the ledge, “you aren’t pathetic. There’s nothing to say that something won’t happen between you and Stone. Sometimes friendship is the best building block for a relationship. And I know for a fact that he’d be lucky as hell to be with you.”
“You’re kind of awesome. You know that?”
“Pfft. Believe me, I know. I tell Clay every morning he should be thanking his lucky stars.”
The door opened, and a second later a whistle sounded through the reception area, drawing Lark’s and my attention to the door Laeth and Gage had just walked through.
“Damn, Will. You’re lookin’ nice today,” Laeth said, his words setting my cheeks on fire.
I forced my head to stay up instead of bending my neck to hide behind the curtain of my loose hair.
“Thanks.”
“That’s more than we can say about you,” Lark returned, looking the man up and down. “You look like shit run over.”
She wasn’t wrong about that. He was still wearing his sunglasses, which I assumed were hiding bloodshot eyes. His skin was sallow like he was sick, his hair was in disarray, and the stubble on his face was a good week past needing a shave. He looked rough, and not in the way I thought was hot on Stone.
“Partied a bit too hard last night,” he said, spreading his lips into a cocky smile that more than likely got him laid regularly. Because even as wrecked as he looked just then, there was no denying that he was hot.
“Just like every night,” Gage grunted next to him.
I didn’t know exactly what was happening between my bosses, but being a quiet observer, it was clear that Gage and Jensen both had a problem with how often Laeth was going out drinking and carousing. They weren’t mad, though. The more I watched, the more I realized they were worried.
I wasn’t sure what he was trying to escape night after night through the bottle and willing women, but I hoped he’d eventually let his friends pull him out of that darkness.
“Don’t be jealous,” Laeth teased. How he managed to still have swagger with a hangover was beyond me, but he sure as hell did.
“Not jealous,” Gage grunted, shoving Laeth away from him. “You smell like a goddamn distillery. It’s turning my stomach.” He cast a look back over his shoulder, telling me, “You really do look nice today, Willow,” before the two of them continued to bicker their way down the hall.
And I’d be lying if I said that didn’t feel pretty incredible to hear from them.
Chapter Twelve
Willow
It had been a good day.
Actually, that was an understatement. It had been a great day. At least until I got to my dad’s house to go through his kitchen and see what all he needed, only to discover that Elaina had seriously downplayed the need for food in his house.
I’d played it off that I was totally fine for my father’s benefit as I stewed in my anger while making a grocery list that took up the front and back of the page.
By the time I got to the store, I was in serious need of an outlet, so I cued up the Pissed Chick playlist on my phone, stuffed earbuds in my ears, and got to work. I was halfway through shopping, Alanis Morissette wailing about how you oughta know in my ears, when I rounded the corner and my cart crashed into someone else’s.