Chapter 16

ChapterSixteen

It was Sullivan’s Pub’s first-ever trivia night and Noah had insisted they go. His exact words were, ‘Come on, man. I need your big, beautiful brain to help me win!’ To which Logan replied that his brain was neither big nor beautiful and they definitely weren’t going to win, but here he was.

The problem was, he liked Noah. He especially liked that Noah hadn’t grown up here and didn’t really give a shit about Logan’s lost father or his dead mother, had missed the Christmas-tree lighting debacle entirely, and just treated Logan like a regular guy. Plus, he talked so much that Logan rarely needed to when they went out, which suited him just fine.

He took another swig of his beer and checked out the crowd. It was a pretty big turnout, but he wasn’t surprised. This town loved an event. Give them a festival, a club, a meeting, a class and they were on board.

Noah had snagged them a high-top table surrounded by three stools, one for each team member. He’d also recruited book club Jacob onto their team, but the man hadn’t arrived yet.

‘Hey, there’s Hazel and the new café owner. What’s her name? Jenny? June?’

‘It’s Jeanie,’ Logan said, forcing himself to turn his head at a reasonable speed instead of whipping it around to get a glance at Jeanie.

‘Jeanie, right,’ Noah said, but his gaze was locked on Hazel, who nervously pushed up her glasses and glanced away.

Logan didn’t have time to unpack the way his friend was staring at his other friend right now. He was too busy playing over the past few days in his mind. He’d only seen Jeanie briefly every morning, right in the middle of the morning commuter rush, when he came in for coffee. He was sure he’d been more awkward than ever, giving her his order and trying desperately not to make his feelings for her known to the whole town.

How did he stand normally? What did he usually do with his hands? Did he always talk this loudly? It had been a taxing few mornings, but Jeanie’s bright smile and dark eyes were worth it. And now she was just a few tables over and he was paralyzed.

What was the protocol here? It’d be weird if he didn’t go over, right? Why had he thought doing this, whatever this was, secretly would be easier than doing it out in the open?

He should have stayed home with his chickens.

This was why he didn’t do things like this. This was why he didn’t go to trivia nights or secretly date women (Date? Secretly make out with women?). He was a big, surly, awkward-as-hell guy who did better with animals than women. If Lucy hadn’t come up to him at the bar that fateful night, he never would have had the nerve to talk to her.

He took another swig of beer, letting the bitter liquid wash away Lucy’s name from his mind. He should have let Nana make him that dating profile, after all. He could be peacefully dating someone from Colorado or South Africa or the damn moon right now. Anyone other than the new girl in town that had captured everyone’s attention.

Attention was the last thing he wanted. And yet he couldn’t seem to stay away from her.

‘We should go say hello,’ Noah said, clapping Logan on the back and startling him out of his thoughts about dating moon women.

‘Uh ... I should probably keep the table.’

‘No worries about that.’ Noah flashed him a grin, slapping a laminated card with a big number 4 on it in the middle of the table. ‘It’s reserved for us now. Go Team Four! We should probably come up with a catchier name, but first let’s go say hello.’

Noah had already hopped down from his stool and was pleading with his eyes for Logan to join him. Was his loquacious friend nervous about talking to Hazel? Interesting.

Logan took one more gulp of beer for courage and followed Noah to Jeanie’s table.

‘Hello, ladies.’

‘Hey, Noah, you remember Jeanie,’ Hazel said, feigning casualness, but Logan watched her fidget in her chair.

‘Are you guys ready to lose?’ Jeanie asked with a grin, her eyes bright in the dim room.

‘Wow, Jeanie. Coming in hot,’ Noah laughed. ‘I like it. And no, we are definitely going to win.’

‘We’ll see,’ she said, crossing her arms over her chest. She let her gaze drift to Logan.

‘Hey,’ he said, his voice sticking in his throat.

‘Hey.’ Her gaze slipped to his mouth for just long enough to send heat through his body. She had ditched her usual sweater for a fitted tank top. In the heat of the crowded bar, the sight of all that bare skin short-circuited his brain. His thoughts were nothing more than static and the memory of how soft she’d been when he’d slipped his hand up her shirt.

‘Um, hi everyone.’ Annie’s voice tore through the tension as she tossed her bakery bag onto the table. ‘Weird energy here. What’s up?’

Jeanie broke their stare first. ‘Nothing’s weird. Everything’s great! Very excited to kick these guys’ butts.’

Noah laughed. ‘More fighting words. Okay, new café owner Jeanie. I like you.’

She beamed at the compliment and Logan wanted to punch Noah in the face for making her smile like that. He shook the irrational thought from his head.

‘We should get back. I think it’s starting soon,’ Logan said.

‘Good luck.’ Noah flashed Hazel another smile and Logan didn’t miss the flustered look on her face. He’d be sure to hassle her about that later. Especially after her ‘crush’ comments.

Jacob was waiting for them back at the table. ‘Who wants a muffin?’ he sang. ‘They’re from Annie’s class and I think they came out pretty good.’ He placed a misshapen muffin in front of Logan with a flourish. ‘Ta-da!’

‘Uh ... Is it supposed to be caved in like that?’ Noah asked, and Logan nearly choked on his beer.

‘Maybe I still need a little practice.’ Jacob frowned.

‘I don’t think muffins go great with beer,’ Logan added. Jacob’s face fell. ‘But I’ll take one home for the morning.’

‘Great! You’ll have to tell me how it is. I think maybe I undercooked them a bit.’

‘Alright, that’s enough muffin talk,’ Noah said, his attention fixed on Amber, the bartender and apparently the evening’s MC, as she stepped up to the mic they’d set up in front of the bar. ‘It’s starting!’

Logan groaned into his beer. Here we go.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, they lost.

By a lot. Like, it wasn’t even close. As it turned out, Hazel was a trivia master, which considering she spent her days surrounded by books, probably shouldn’t have surprised Logan as much as it did. Her team won, although Nancy, Linda, and Tammy came in a close second.

Noah ate the rest of Jacob’s muffins to console himself. Apparently, they weren’t that bad, after all.

But Logan didn’t really give a shit about muffins or trivia, or the fact that – drunk on either margaritas or victory – Annie had turned trivia night into a dance off. All he could think of was Jeanie’s flushed cheeks and her body in that tight tank top and her hair loose around her shoulders as she tipped her head back and laughed at something Hazel said.

Every once in a while, her gaze would snag on his and her smile would grow. His body tingled with awareness as he tracked her movements through the bar, so when she started gathering her things to leave, he didn’t even have time to think before he was also moving toward the door.

He pushed it open, and they both tumbled out into the crisp, night air.

‘Walk you home?’ he nearly growled the words into her ear. Dry leaves blew past them on the sidewalk.

She laughed a little, her voice breathy when she spoke. ‘Thanks, it’s such a long way,’ she teased. She smelled sweet like French vanilla spiked with vodka. He wanted to bury his face in her neck and get drunk on her.

He took her hand and nearly dragged her into the alley between the bar and the café. It was dark and he could barely make out the shape of her, but he could feel her, hear her surprised gasp when he took her face in his hands.

‘I haven’t stopped thinking about kissing you all week,’ he rasped.

He could just make out her lips tipping up before she pressed them against his, soft and sure. ‘Me, too,’ she murmured between kisses. ‘It’s all I think about.’

‘Damn,’ he groaned as he ran his hands up her sides, bunching the fabric of her tank top in his fists. The cardigan she’d thrown on against the fall chill hung open in the front and he ran his hands inside over the dip of her waist, brushing against the underside of her breasts. ‘I like this shirt.’

Jeanie giggled, burying her face in his neck. ‘You like this plain white tank top?’

‘So much,’ he groaned when her breath ghosted across his skin. ‘It’s my favorite plain white tank top in the whole world.’

Her breath caught as he tugged her closer, her body pressed against his. Then her hands were in his hair, her mouth on his again and he was lost. Lost to sensation, to the taste of her, the feel of her in his arms. Lost to anything that made sense. Lost to Jeanie.

He grabbed her ass and hoisted her into his arms. She wrapped her legs around his waist, deepening the kiss. God, she was perfect, soft and warm, and just as keyed up as he was, her kisses wild, like getting to him was more important than anything else.

‘I’ve wanted to do this since I met you,’ she gasped. ‘When I saw you carrying those big crates and your forearms were doing that sexy flex thing and I wondered if you could carry me.’ She spoke the words in between kisses along his mouth and neck and along the shell of his ear.

‘Sexy flex thing?’ His voice was strained, husky and deep.

‘Yeah, you know. The forearm thing.’

He didn’t know the forearm thing, but the fact that Jeanie had pictured this from the start made him harder than anything else. He backed her against the wall, and she groaned into his mouth.

‘Anytime you want to wrap these sweet thighs around me like this, I’d be happy to carry you,’ he rasped.

She laughed, the joyful sound of it filling the dark alley. Suddenly everything came into focus.

The dark alley. The brick wall he had her trapped against.

Jesus, he was groping her in a dark alley. What the hell was wrong with him?

He pulled away, putting her gently on the ground. ‘Sorry ... am I hurting you? This is ... we should...’

Jeanie blinked at him, desire still written across her beautiful face, clear even in the darkness. ‘Go up to my apartment?’

Logan’s heart stuttered.

Up to her apartment. Her apartment, where that tank top could end up on the floor, and that beautiful expanse of skin he’d gotten a peek at in the bar could grow until he saw everything, kissed everywhere.

Her apartment, where they’d wake up together tomorrow morning and he’d have to sneak out the back door like he was ashamed of her, when he definitely wasn’t, but isn’t that how it would seem?

Her apartment, as much as she seemed happy here, he still wasn’t convinced she’d stay in for long, and then he’d be heartbroken all over again.

Up to her apartment. The words were fraught, the whole idea of getting in deeper with Jeanie was still too big a risk to him. Wasn’t it?

The sudden crash from behind the buildings saved him from having to decide to follow his brain or other less helpful parts of his anatomy.

‘What was that?’ Jeanie’s eyes grew wide in the dark, her grip on his arms tightening.

Logan cleared his throat, shaking the feel of Jeanie’s body from his fingertips. ‘Probably just raccoons. I’ll go check.’

‘I’m coming with you.’ She grabbed his hand, letting him walk ahead as though she was afraid of what they might find.

They turned the corner to find the trash cans tipped, neatly tied garbage bags spilling out into the alley. Logan took out his phone and aimed the flashlight at the destruction. No raccoons.

‘Must have run off.’ He shrugged.

‘I don’t know...’

‘You don’t know what?’

Jeanie stepped around him, inspecting the trash bags. ‘This is the third night in a row they’ve been tipped.’

‘Okay, persistent raccoons.’

She shook her head. ‘But the bags are never torn open. Wouldn’t they tear open the bags to get to the food? Why would they just tip them over and then leave?’

Logan grabbed a bin and righted it. ‘That is strange. Could be neighborhood kids. Halloween mischief or something.’

‘It’s only the nineteenth. Kinda early for mischief, isn’t it?’

He tossed the garbage bags back in and slammed the lid. ‘Maybe it’s another ghost.’

Jeanie gave him a faint smile, but the worried crease lingered between her brows.

‘You don’t think Mac would do it, do you?’ she whispered the question like the man might hear them through the brick wall of the pub and the noise of the crowd inside.

‘Why the hell would Mac tip your trash bins?’

‘Annie thought—’

‘I’m gonna stop you right there. Any information about Mac from Annie is unreliable. Those two have had a weird vibe for years.’

‘She just thought maybe he was trying to scare me off. So he could buy the café and expand. It kinda makes sense.’ She looked small under the yellow light of the back door, defeated.

‘I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m pretty confident it’s not Mac. He wouldn’t do something like that.’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe not. I still just feel like...’ She let the thought trail off, forcing a smile onto her face again. ‘Never mind.’

‘You feel like what? What’s the matter?’ Let me fix it. Those dangerous, tempting words tore through him. Those words got him into so much trouble before. Let me fix it. Let me convince you to stay. Let me fool us both into thinking you belong here.

‘No, it’s nothing.’ She smiled bigger, faker. ‘You’re probably right about the raccoons.’

‘Right, okay.’ He shifted on his feet. The moment had passed, the moment that had him pressing Jeanie up against a brick wall, desperate to get closer; and now he didn’t know what to do.

‘I should probably get some sleep,’ Jeanie said after another strained moment between them. ‘Early day tomorrow.’

‘Sure, of course.’

She reached up and planted a kiss on his cheek. ‘Thanks for investigating the noise.’

‘You gonna be okay tonight?’ he asked, wanting to reach for her again, but not knowing if he should anymore. ‘We can get Officer Dee to drive by tonight and keep an eye on things.’

‘Not necessary.’ She waved his idea away. ‘I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me and some silly raccoons or teens or whatever. No big deal.’ Every word out of her mouth only served to convince him that she wasn’t okay at all, but what else could he do? Demand she let him spend the night? Wasn’t that the exact thing he’d just been trying to avoid?

‘Call if you need me, okay?’ His voice was gruffer than he planned, his frustration at himself coming out in his words.

Her gaze snagged on his, their dark-brown depths trapping him. ‘Okay.’

‘I’m serious, Jeanie. Weird noises, anything. Call.’

She nodded, her fake smile slowly transforming to genuine. ‘I will call. I promise.’

‘Okay. Good.’

‘Thanks, Logan.’

‘Goodnight, Jeanie.’