Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Mason’s smile turns placid. “Okay . . .”
Cole hands over his menu without even looking at it. “Hey, Mason, sorry to make it complicated. I’ll take the fillet to go. Medium rare. Have them add on a side of the lobster mac and a Caesar salad. Also, while these two decide what they’d like to eat, would you bring us a bottle of the house cabernet?”
“What if I prefer white wine?” I interject.
Cole arches a brow at me. “Do you?”
“No . . .”
Blaze laughs awkwardly. “Cabernet is okay with me.”
Mason nods and scrams, likely in a hurry to get away from me.
“So, Blaze, where are you from?” I ask, placing my elbow on the table at an angle that has my back turned to Cole, edging him out of the conversation altogether.
I’ve asked Blaze this question before, but hopefully tonight our wires don’t cross.
“Los Angeles, and before that, New York.”
“Big move. Are you happy here so far?”
“Yeah. I love it. I moved to Los Angeles for love, and it turns out that was a pretty dumb reason to haul my crap across the country. I got dumped a week after moving there.”
“Yikes. That’s hard. So why Turks and Caicos?”
He laughs. “It’s actually funny. I thought I’d booked a flight to Turkey.”
I blink really slowly, trying to process this.
He thought he . . .
“Wound up here by accident,” he continues. “I didn’t have enough money to get another flight.” He shrugs and laughs it off. “So here I am. It worked out, though.”
“I’m sorry.” It’s like my brain is fogged over, keeping me from understanding. “You wanted to go to Turkey, the country?”
“Yeah, I was supposed to go backpacking across Europe with a group of guys all summer.”
Slowly, I ask, “And you wound up here by mistake, stayed . . . and got a job?”
Cole wisely keeps his mouth shut. I don’t dare look at him.
Blaze laughs, but not hard enough, you know?
To him, it’s something that could happen to anyone. Like, okay, I meant to go to Paris, France, but I ended up in Portland, Oregon, because they’re both cities that happen to start with P. Whoops. Guess I live here permanently now.
The wine comes just in time.
Mason pours me a heaping glass, for which I’m incredibly grateful.
Blaze pushes back from the table. “Be right back. I need to use the little boy’s room.”
He leaves, and Cole and I don’t say a word. I’m not sure we breathe. It’s imperative that I don’t look at him right now, or I’ll break. I’m an SNL cast member midskit, trying to stay in character instead of losing it in a fit of giggles. I roll my lips between my teeth, press down, and keep a sharp focus on my wine. Cole clears his throat, only barely succeeding in stifling his laughter. My smile is fighting for its life, but I resist with everything I have.
“Turkey, huh?” he says, and I have to squeeze my eyes closed and think about sad things. A kitten stuck up in a tree, Bambi’s dead mom, my credit card bill.
When I think I have my composure, I feign a superior tone and lay it on him. “What you see as a lost idiot stumbling through the world, I see as a free spirit adapting to new environments. How rare!”
“Imagine if he accidentally booked a flight to Syria. He’d be bartending for ISIS right now . . .”
A laugh bursts out of me before I can help it. Then I have to turn away and cover my mouth with my hand to keep him from seeing how much I’m struggling here.
Damn it, Cole.
Do not be funny right now. Please.
I sound suddenly weary when I finally manage to speak again. “You’ve made your point. Now leave.”
“What point is that? I’m just here enjoying the company. Blaze is so . . .”
He swirls his wine in his glass with a slow taunt, and I nearly yank it out of his hand so I can dump it over his head. It’s more than a little tempting. The sight of that dark-burgundy cabernet slowly dripping down his forehead would keep me satisfied for months to come.
“Don’t,” I warn.
“. . . endearing.”
I shift so I’m fully facing him.
His gaze falls, and his jaw ticks. I look down and realize I’m nearly falling out of the top of this red dress. I’m a Victoria’s Secret model on a casting call. I refuse to care. In fact, I play it up by leaning even more toward Cole as I respond to his needling in a sultry tone.
“Blaze isn’t endearing. Blaze is just like his name, a raging fire. God, he looks at me and I just get so hot.” I let the word drip from my mouth, and as if it isn’t erotic enough, I bite my lip and run my hand up my thigh like I just need to be touched there. Now. Cole’s impenetrable force field splinters and cracks. His humor has burned away. Now he’s all man. His heady gaze, his shallow breaths. He wants to eat me alive. I should stop, but I’ve never been good at heeding warnings. “Cole, a.k.a. coal, is just a fire that’s gone out. Lukewarm ash . . .”