“I guess.” She shrugs again. “And maybe because I crave quiet. It’s so loud out there all night that I think I’m too drained to mingle and make friends the way my fa— ah, the way I probably should.” She clears her throat, her big blue eyes looking up at mine. I get this sudden image of her doing that in front of me on her knees and I have to look away. “Are you in here because you crave the quiet too?”
I smile. She’s so fucking adorable. “I’m in here because George ordered me to eat. I skipped the meal before shift and he doesn’t feel like he’s done his job if he sends one of us home without food in our gut.” I hold my half-eaten sandwich up like it's the proof I need.
“I didn’t think I saw you during the team meal. I guess that makes you Cillian, huh? Your name came up quite a bit in your absence.”
“Good things, I hope.”
“More, ‘Where’s Cillian? Why isn’t Cillian here? Cillian is always here!’ I guess that means you were missed.” She gives me a small smile that accentuates the pink in her cheeks. My fingers burn to touch her…whoever she is…
“I haven’t caught your name, lass.”
Her grin goes wider. “I actually like it when you call me ‘lass’, so let’s just go with that.”
I wipe a napkin across my mouth as I laugh, intrigued by her. “I can’t call you lass forever. It’s a generic term, and I don’t think you’re generic at all.”
She drops her eyes, but I can see the heat glowing off her cheeks. “What would you call me then?”
“Your name.” I smile. “That would be a start. Failing that, the term a stór comes to mind.”
Her eyes lift to mine. “What does ‘Uh Store’ mean?” she whispers.
“Google it,” I say, dropping my plate in the dishwasher. “Then maybe you can tell me when I pick you up Monday.”
She frowns. “What’s Monday?”
“It’s my night off.”
“Are you…are you asking me on a date?” she asks, seeming unable to control the smile spreading across her features.
“Seems that way,” I say, swiping a cloth across the counter. “I will need your name and address of course. But how does eight sound?”
“It sounds—”
“Hazel!” The booming voice of George cuts into our moment, startling us both when he bursts through the doors. “There you are,” he says, turning to who I’m assuming is Hazel. Hazel…Why do I know that name? My memory throws out the information just before it’s confirmed in front of my eyes. “Hiding in the kitchen from your old man? Are you ready to go home?” Hazel is George’s daughter. Shit.
Her eyes flick to mine, and the blush on her face is now a flush of embarrassment. I turn away as reality hits me square in the chest. Hazel is George’s eighteen-year-old daughter. And I, a thirty-three-year-old man, just asked her out. Fuck. I’m a dirty old man and I didn’t even know it.
“Would you mind locking up when you’re finished, Cillian?” George asks, and I nod, not willing to open my mouth or risk looking at Hazel right now or I’ll give myself away. I can’t believe I was just hitting on my boss’s practically-still-a-kid daughter. What the hell is wrong with me? “Good man. I’ll see you tomorrow at lunch.”
“Will do,” I manage, clearing my throat just as Hazel lifts her hand.
“Bye, Cillian,” she says. And as I risk a glance her way, I instantly regret it, because despite who she is, or how young she is, my body still jolts the same way. I want her. Too bad she’ll ruin me if I do anything about it.
Hazel
“What were you and Cillian talking about? That was twice I caught you hiding out in the kitchen with him,” Dad probes as we drive home through the lamplit streets. My father is my favorite person in the world. He is also the world’s most overprotective dad. And the last thing I’m going to do is tell him I’ve been swooning all over Cillian since the moment I spotted him in the kitchen tonight.
“Nothing really. We were just talking,” I reply, looking out the window and catching the neon ‘Kelly’s’ sign off in the distance. It makes my belly flutter. Cillian is tall and strong, and he’s so good-looking, I actually want to weep when I’m in his presence. Never in a million years did I think a man as beautiful and muscular—the guy has guns—as he is would want a short, curvy girl like me. A girl that no one has ever wanted before. But after two short conversations and a whole bunch of chemistry, he’s asked me out on a date. Can you believe it?
I’m so excited, I want to squeal and hug myself. But that would just make my dad get all suspicious and ask me about a thousand questions. Then he’d probably go and ask Cillian what his intentions are before this date even happens. I’m staying tight-lipped for now. There’s no need to scare the hottest guy I’ve ever been in the presence of away. I want to see where this goes.
“He’s too old for you,” he says suddenly, cutting into my thoughts like he was actually reading them.
“Who is?” I decide the best course of action is to play dumb.
“Don’t play dumb with me,” Dad says, glancing at me with his eyebrows raised. How on earth does he do that? Stop reading my mind!
“I’m not playing dumb. I just don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean that I saw the way you two were looking at each other, and it’s not happening. Cillian is a thirty-three-year-old man and you are an eighteen-year-old girl.”
“Woman, Dad. You may not want to think about it, but I am a woman now. Eighteen makes me an adult in the eyes of the law and everything.”
“I don’t care what the law says. In the eyes of your father you are still a girl. And when the eyes of your father see you making eyes at a thirty-three-year-old man, he gets concerned.”
“There’s nothing going on, Dad,” I lie, because I hope that at the end of the day, everything will be going on. I want Cillian to be my first. “We were just talking, and…he’s got big muscles and tattoos, so I was looking. Sue me. He probably isn’t interested in a girl who looks like me anyway, so calm your farm.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” he says, glancing at me momentarily, his tone calming. “Any man would be lucky to have you.”
“Any man but Cillian?”
“Cillian is fifteen years older than you, Hazel.” His voice raises again. “I’ll fire him if he touches you.”
I turn to him on a gasp. “You can’t do that.”
“Watch me. The restaurant is a family. Family doesn’t f—” He pauses. “Touch family like that.”
“Don’t you think you’re overreacting here?” I ask, frowning in his direction.
“No. I think I’m doing exactly what I have to do to protect my daughter. And if Cillian cares about his job as much as he says he does, he’ll agree.”
“And I don’t get a say in this?”
He raises his brow. “Why do you need a say? I thought nothing was going on.”