Complicated Girl (Baker Street Romance #2)(14)
Author: Mimi Strong

I keep scanning the murky darkness of the pub, until I spot my Friday night date. She’s sitting in the corner, her back to the wall. Her golden brown eyes are fixed on the flickering votive candle before her. She’s wearing her curly dark hair loose around her shoulders. Rory has beautiful hair, dark auburn, with a natural streak of white. She’s always threatening to shave her head, because she goes nuts over the idea of getting a hair in her food. When her hair is down like this, I know she’s in a good mood, which puts me in a good mood.

I trot over to the table. “Nobody puts Baby in the corner!”

Rory’s eye twitches. “Are you going to behave, or are you in one of your weird moods?”

“No and yes, but I’m paying for your dinner, so suck it up.” I pick up the menu that’s already on the table and check the specials insert. “How was your day? You had that snooty auction job, right? Where the rich ladies bid on paintings they don’t like, for charity? They buy some abstract thing that doesn’t match the sofa, and they act like they’re personally curing the world’s hunger crisis, right?”

Rory’s face lights up. “They loved the tea cakes. We got booked for three more jobs, right on the spot. I couldn’t be happier. That’s why I’m paying for your dinner tonight, not the other way around.”

“We’ll see about that.” We look over the menus and place our order with the waitress. Rory’s not sure if she wants a drink or not, so I take the liberty of getting a bottle of pinot grigio, largely because I love saying, “Pinot grigio.”

We get our food, and we talk some more about Rory’s catering, plus a few things about life at the flower shop, and updates on my mother’s Eat-Pray-Love adventures in Europe.

I’m intentionally holding back on mentioning Drew until she’s got some wine in her system, and is weighted down with post-linguini-eating inertia.

Funny thing about Rory: she can’t say linguini because the word reminds her of cunnilingus. So, she orders “these noodles” and points to the menu. That Rory. She can’t say it, but she’ll eat it.

Anyway, I’m about to open my mouth and tell her about my new crush on Mr. GQ with the good smells, when the universe decides to play a hilarious trick on me.

I look up at the group of guys playing pool at the nearby pool table. My eyeballs wander over a guy’s butt, as eyeballs often do.

I’m admiring the nice butt—which is wearing dark jeans—when the butt turns around suddenly. I am a lady, which means I cannot openly stare at crotches, so I jerk my eyes up, over a shirt that’s packed with all the right kind of muscles, and up to a handsome face. This guy has a superhero jaw, great skin, lickable cheeks, and sexy dark hair. He could be a twin of my crush from self-help group. Or a clone.

He waves over at me. Hot guys in pubs don’t usually wave at me, therefore I must conclude that Rory has forced me to drink too much wine, and I am drunk.

He says a few words to the guys he’s playing pool with, and saunters over to our table.

“Drew! I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.” My words come out pretty clear, considering how much wine Rory made me drink. On a scale of one to ten on the slurr-o-meter, I’d say I’m at a three.

He grabs a chair from a nearby table and joins us without being invited. His sexy brown eyes are on me the whole time, which is good, because now Rory is pinned in the corner, and if Drew focused his magnificent, magnetic, majestic attention directly at her, Rory’s head would pop right off like a Barbie doll head and roll away.

“You mean you didn’t recognize me without my suit,” Drew says, his perfectly kissable lips curled back in a grin. “A man is not his suit, Meenie.”

He starts to turn toward Rory to introduce himself. I let out a tiny shriek and grab his shoulder to pull him toward me. I whisper in his ear, “My friend is very shy, so do me a solid and dial your sex magic down about three notches, will ya?”

He gives me an amused look, then shuffles his chair closer to mine, to give her space. Without looking directly at Rory, he says, “Sorry to barge in on your meal.”

I introduce them. “Rory, this is Drew. I met him at the community center.” I give her two winks, to let her know that by community center, I mean my self-help group. “I’ll get rid of him, if you want.”

Rory’s body language is stiff, but she doesn’t seem too horrified. “Don’t be silly. Of course your friend can join us.” Her voice is pitched high and thin, like she’s making an effort, but it’s okay. Rory isn’t afraid of men, just intimacy stuff.

That means this situation is okay, because Drew and I are just friends. His knee is touching mine. We’re just friends. He gets more relaxed in his chair, waves for the waitress to bring another bottle of wine, and then his hand moves down from the air to land on my knee. We’re just friends. But his hand is on my knee.

I give Rory a wide-eyed look, but she’s not even paying attention to me. Drew is telling her about the guys he’s here playing pool with. They used to be on a rugby team together, back in college, and they still get together sometimes for a few drinks. Now Rory’s asking him about rugby, and is it as violent as it seems on TV? Now he’s telling her about men’s bodies slamming together. I would expect her to run screaming any second, but she seems to be enjoying every word he’s saying.

Meanwhile, his big, masculine palm remains on my knee. The heat is radiating into me, making my whole body warm and tingly. The waitress brings a fresh bottle and pours me some much-needed refreshment.

Drew’s hand doesn’t stray from my leg. It doesn’t move up, or down. His hand reminds me of those orange traffic cones people put in parking spots to reserve them for later. This is mine. Find another parking spot, because I’ve claimed this one, and I’m going to do exciting, adventurous, intimate things in this parking spot. Not now, but later, under the cover of night.

Rory says, “What do you think, Meenie?”

“About what?” I think my ni**les are turning into orange parking spot cones, but you don’t want to hear about that, Rory.

She laughs, seemingly even more comfortable with this situation than I am. “What’s more manly, guys slamming into each other on a rugby field, or grunting over each other in a wrestling ring?” She looks over at Drew and explains, “Meenie was on the wrestling team in high school.”