“Looks like the party started without me,” Celeste remarked, raising an eyebrow. Gwen was the party animal of the trio. By the looks of it, she hadn’t waited for Celeste to start having a good time.
The dark-skinned man chuckled and stuck out his hand. “I’m Lucas. Lucas Baylor. This is my buddy, Xander Dixon.”
Xander was shorter than Lucas, with lighter skin. He was lean and wiry in contrast to Lucas’s thicker, more muscular build. Celeste took notice of Xander’s wedding ring when she shook both men’s hands.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Xander said, “but your friends were nice enough to invite us to share the table with them. Happy birthday, by the way.”
“You don’t mind, do you, Celeste?” Janet asked, still grinning from ear to ear.
“No, not at all.”
That wasn’t entirely true. Normally she wouldn’t mind, but it was her birthday, and she had hoped to spend it with her girlfriends. Instead, they’d invited two men to join them, and she felt like the third wheel at her own celebration.
“Oh!” Xander exclaimed, looking past Celeste. “Look who finally showed up. Dr. Roarke Hawthorne!”
“Tenured professor at UGA!” Lucas added.
“Booyah!” both men said in unison.
Celeste turned her head to see what all the excitement was about and looked right into the dark brown eyes of the least professorial-looking man she’d ever seen. The man with The Voice. For six years she’d taken classes part-time, working toward a bachelor’s degree. If he’d been one of her professors, she would have never gotten any work done in class.
He nodded as he stepped past her, and the sleeve of his purple long-sleeved shirt brushed her forearm, raising the hairs and making her skin tingle. She tried not to stare, but it was hard not to because of his smooth skin and the heart-stopping smile stretched across his full lips.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “I hope my no-good friends have been treating you ladies well?” His words indicated he was speaking to all three of them, but his gaze remained on her. “And I sort of met you a second ago, didn’t I?”
The nervous fluttering in her stomach made it almost impossible for her to get out the simple words, “Yes, we bumped into each other.”
“We were about to order another round of drinks,” Lucas said, gesturing for the waitress to come over.
Introductions were made, drinks ordered, and then Xander clapped his friend on the back. “Well, how does it feel?” he asked.
Roarke seemed to lapse into deep thought and stared down at the small round table they were all crowded around like sardines in a can. “It feels . . . amazing. I can finally relax. There’s nothing like job security.”
“What do you teach?” Gwen asked.
When his attention shifted to address her friend, Celeste studied him. She figured him to be a couple of inches over six feet. Attractive, with skin the color of a chocolate Hershey kiss, a man like Roarke didn’t go unnoticed, not even in a crowd. A charcoal gray vest stretched over his broad torso and a multicolored tie with a predominant shade of purple.
“I teach physics at the University of Georgia in Athens. This week I received my tenure confirmation, so I drove all the way from Athens to come celebrate with my buddies.”
“It’s not that far. It’s barely an hour,” Lucas said. “And you should frame the letter.”
“Don’t be modest,” Xander chimed, patting his buddy on the back. “Dr. Hawthorne is an astrophysicist. He wrote a popular article for the Journal of Applied Physics about . . . What was it again?”
“The statistical anomaly—”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Don’t show off. You know that science mumbo jumbo is over our heads.”
“You asked!” Roarke laughed. “Don’t be modest; don’t show off. I can’t win with these guys.” He gestured with his thumb and returned his eyes to Celeste. She felt as if he spoke only to her. An invisible cord pulled her deeper under his spell.