My face flamed again. “Sorry. I mean ... obviously, I’m impressed.”
That sounded wrong. Groupie-ish, not bitchy. Oh man, which was better? “With your work, I mean.” I went on awkwardly, “You are very ... talented.”
He rolled his eyes. “Stop. Stop. Kill me now.” He held his hand dramatically to his heart.
I stared at him.
“I’m teasing you, Keri Ann.”
“Oh.” I took a deep breath.
He looked at me, unblinking for a few moments.
“What?”
“What do you drive?”
“A red truck, why?”
“Figures.” He smirked, but didn’t elaborate. “And given your ... bitchiness, I’m obviously making you nervous, so it’s my fault I guess. I’m sorry.”
Jack laughed again, a slow, easy sound that ran over my skin like too many soft caresses. It must be the humidity. That, or I had managed to avoid having an unrealistic crush on this heart-throb through all of his many movies designed to make girls swoon, including playing my favorite fictional hero, only to have him walk into my place of employment, in the flesh, and deploy the swoon-bomb that was rapidly detonating over all my good senses. Had I been singled out? Did the Devil look up and see one sensible girl left and decide on tactical warfare to bring me into line?
Jack was asking me a question.
“What? Sorry.”
“I said, can I stay a bit longer? I’m still on California time, and well ... as you heard,” he winced, “I have a lot going on in my personal life right now, and I don’t want to think about it tonight.”
No, no, no. This was a bad idea. I found myself shaking my head. I needed this bizarre incident to be over. On the other hand, I was developing a crush on someone I didn’t know, not really. All I needed was some more time in his self-absorbed sphere to come to my senses. If he really was self-absorbed. Maybe he was just used to getting his own way. Why was I making excuses for him? I mentally kicked myself.
“I’ll just stay til you finish up and walk you to your truck or whatever. It’s late ... and dark.”
He noticed my almost imperceptible negative head shake. “Please?”
Damn. The same ‘please’ that had gotten to me earlier. The one asking for me to keep his secret.
I sighed and nodded. “Okay.”
He looked relieved. “Oh and also, may I have another drink?”
“Bar’s closed,” I tried, predicting his cheeky smirk.
“I know.”
I rolled my eyes, and smiling, grabbed his glass to fill with ice. This was going to be the longest closedown ever.
T H R E E
“How old are you?” Jack was sweeping. Sweeping! Sometime during the last ten minutes of conversation while he asked me questions about Butler Cove, he must have started feeling guilty while I was sweeping around his feet. Tomorrow, I would wake up and this would all be a bizarre dream. I was sure he was thinking the same thing. Hoping more like.
“I’m turning twenty-two next month.”
He looked up, surprised. “You seem older.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Thanks? I think ... Why?”
He shrugged. “You don’t look old.” He stopped and perused me from head to toe. He was taking in my brown hair, my black regulation t-shirt tucked into jean shorts and my bare legs, which were thankfully, nice and tan, and my white Keds. Fashion parade I was not. Harried and tired waitress, yes.
My cheeks burned under his scrutiny. “Are you done?”
Jack cleared his throat, cutting his eyes away and resumed his sweeping. “You just act ... I don’t know, older than you are.”
“How old are you?” I asked, deflecting back to him after the self-conscious moment he’d given me.
“Don’t you know that already?”
I paused in the middle of lowering the blinds and crossed my arms at him. He really was annoyingly full of himself. “Contrary to what you may have seen earlier this evening with my friend Jazz and her tabloid magazine, I don’t follow gossip all that much. I’ve got too much to do, and I prefer reading books to magazines. Not that I begrudge Jazz her favorite pastime.”
Jack had the sense to look slightly conciliatory. “Sorry. I’m twenty-six.”
“What? Are you kidding? You look ... younger.” I walked back over to the bar and grabbed the beer he’d persuaded me to have. I took a gulp. “And you act younger, too,” I couldn’t help adding.
I saw his grin as he bent down to finish up with the dustpan. God, that dimple was going to be the death of me.
“Touché.”
Everything was done. The restaurant was as clean and put away as it could possibly get. I had zero excuses to continue hanging out with Jack Eversea. I had to head home. I also had to figure out how to stop referring to him by his full name in my head.