Come As You Are

Too bad.

The word I’d pick would be vexed.

Like she doesn’t remember me. Her brow narrows and she studies me. It’s like the moment when a record scratches and all the good vibrations come to a halt. This wasn’t entirely the greeting I imagined—honestly, I was hoping she’d saunter over, wrap her arms around my neck, and kiss the hell out of me—but I tell myself to go with the moment.

I head to the bar.

“Hi,” I say, tapping the wooden sign on the taps. “I think I deserve a lollipop. Do you?”

Her lips part, but no sound comes. She blinks. Shit. She doesn’t like me in person. What the hell? I’m damn cute. I’m a hottie.

“I didn’t think we were meeting yet.” There it is, that voice from last night. Sexy and throaty, with honey notes.

But she’s talking nonsense. She’s supposed to say, “Hi, Duke. May I have another?”

Or something like that.

“You didn’t think we were getting together?” I rub my ear. Maybe I’m hearing things.

She narrows her brow. “I thought our meeting was tomorrow?”

Did I get the location wrong? The date wrong? I thought we were damn clear on both, but I’ve been preoccupied. “I thought it was tonight. Isn’t that what we agreed on?”

She shakes her head. “I’m pretty sure we’re meeting tomorrow. I just set it up.” She peers around me, looking for something, or someone. “I’m waiting for someone else now, but . . .”

My brain sputters, trying to make sense of her flummoxed face. Did she make another date tonight? “Who are you waiting for?”

She laughs, an embarrassed sound. “Just someone.” She waves a hand across her face. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be unprofessional. I’m really looking forward to interviewing you tomorrow.” She takes a beat and licks her lips. “And I can’t shake how much you look like someone else I know.” Standing up from the stool, she extends a hand and says, “I apologize for my confusion. I’m Sabrina Granger. Nice to meet you, Flynn. I can’t wait to chat with you for the story.”

My brain clicks and whirs, and for a nanosecond, I think—or hope—I mixed up the names. Sabrina is the reporter interviewing me, but Sabrina can’t possibly be . . .

Or can she?

Those lips, that hair, those hazel eyes . . .

The universe has just dropped an anvil on me, Acme-style, flattening my excitement. This is the whoopee cushion, the hand buzzer, the “kick me” sign on my back. That would be fitting, after all, in this gin joint. Perhaps the toy storefront was more of a promise of what’s to come for me—a game where I don’t win.

This can’t fucking be.

“You’re the reporter?” I ask heavily, still hoping against hope I’ve gotten it wrong somehow.

She nods. “I’m Sabrina Granger.”

All at once, awareness seems to dawn on her, and she gasps, “Oh, hell. You’re . . .” She points at me, like I have the plague. “You’re . . .” She gulps and doesn’t finish.

I laugh incredulously, sketching air quotes. “Yes, I’m just someone.”

Her eyes widen to moon pies. “I can’t believe,” she begins, her words coming out staccato. “I thought. My brain. Cognitive dissonance,” she says. She knew I was Flynn, but she also figured I couldn’t possibly be her mystery guy. Newsflash—I’m both the winner and the loser of the masquerade contest. “I thought you were . . . but I didn’t think you could be.”

I sigh so damn heavily it’s going to require its own weight class. “I didn’t think you’d be the reporter, Angel.”

She flaps her hands around. “I assumed I had the times wrong for my interview, rather than you were my . . .” She lets her voice trail off like she can’t bring herself to say what we are.

I pick up the dropped words. “Your duke? Your dirty Prince Charming? The guy who made you forget where you were?” I toss out, repeating her request from last night. One I followed to the O.

She drops her face in her hands, moaning in frustration. “I can’t believe this,” she mutters, shaking her head. Her shoulders rise and fall. She raises her face like a cat poking its ears out from beneath a blanket. “Say you’re kidding.”

“I wish I were. But nope, I’m Flynn Parker, the guy from last night. The guy from tomorrow. The guy who texted you. The guy who has your panties. And, evidently, the guy you’re interviewing.”

She shushes me then leans her head back and sighs, raising her eyes to the ceiling, talking to the roof. “I came here to meet the guy from the party—the guy I had this crazy-amazing connection with—and it turns out he’s the man I’m interviewing for my first big break at a magazine I’m dying to work for. The universe seriously loves to laugh at me.”

I nod, signaling the bartender for a drink. “And I can’t believe the first woman I had a crazy-amazing connection with is now off-limits since she’s writing a critical piece on my company during an important time in our market rollout.”

Her lips quirk up into a delicious grin, as pink splashes across her cheeks. Her blush is magnificently alluring. It reminds me of how her skin flushes when she comes, how the color crawls up her chest when she nears the edge.

The memory is like a serving of lust, and my response to it is instant and hard.

“What can I get you?” the goateed bartender asks as he arrives.

“Something strong,” I tell him, since I can’t very well ask for the drink I really need—The Boner Killer.

“Coming right up.”

“Do you want something?” I ask Sabrina.

She shakes her head and points to her cup.

When the bartender leaves, I gesture to Sabrina, unmasked. “If it’s any consolation, you’re even prettier like this.” My eyes roam her face, cataloging cheeks I held, eyes I stared into, lips I bruised.

Her expression softens. A faint smile tugs at her mouth. “You too,” she whispers, and for a moment, I can see how this night would have unspooled. A drink, a conversation, a laugh. The laughter would have led to kissing, the kissing would have led to stumbling out of here, hailing a cab, making out as the city blurred by, then a hot, sweaty night at my place that went by far too fast.

That can’t happen anymore, yet the promise of a night like that is powerful. I tap the bar, drumming my fingers as I soak in the ambiance of this quirky joint. “I’m not surprised you like this place. I bet you had a dollhouse when you were younger.”

A faint smile plays on her lips. Those lush, sweet lips. “That’s how I learned to sew. For dolls.”

I laugh, wishing this conversation was the prelude to our evening. “Yep. Pegged it.”

“The first time I took needle to thread, I made a terrible frock for a four-inch-high blond toy woman.” She dips her hand into her purse, and fishes around. She grabs a swath of fabric and holds out her hand to show me a green paisley triangle. “Here it is. I keep it with me, like a good-luck charm.”

“That is awful, and I say this as someone who made his first robot out of cardboard, so it was equally abysmal.”

Tucking the dress away, she asks, “Do you make better robots now?”

I shake my head. “I gave up the robot trade in high school. Decided to make radios instead.”