Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
“Oye, have you forgotten I’m here?” Ches hollered from the booth in the diner section.
“Shit,” I muttered, glancing over my shoulder. I held up my hand to signal, I’d heard him. “Can you join me?” I asked, wishing again that I hadn’t brought Ches with me.
She jerked her head, surprised by my request. “I’m supposed to be working.”
“Not sure about the server role, but you were definitely working that cute curvy ass of yours just now,” I said flirtatiously, complimenting her dance moves. “Besides, it doesn’t look like you’re exactly overrun with clientele in here, does it?”
“I’ll need to take your order, but I’ll ask Clay if I can sit with you. He’s easy going, but I don’t want to tick him off too much. Jobs ain’t falling from the trees around here,” she replied, sounding diplomatic.
“What exactly did I walk in on?” I asked, wagging a finger toward her phone as I pulled off my beanie and discarded my wet puffer coat.
She laughed. “I was making a TikTok. I’m trying to become an influencer.”
“Influencer?”
“Online, line dancing instructor,” she explained, turning beet red all the way down to her chest.
“I see,” I mused, pausing when my mind wandered to how she would look beneath me with that flush going on. “Well, you can give me private lessons any day of the week.”
“Flirtatious as ever, I see you never grew out of that,” she grumbled, but she flashed me a coy smile.
“Just being honest.”
“I wouldn’t imagine there’s much call for a line dancing chorographer or instructor for a band like Peep Toe Shoes.”
“True, but those lessons would be just me and you. And I’d want private, naked lessons of course.”
“Oh, I think you’ve gotten what I’m trying to achieve mixed up with an Only Fans account,” she tossed back. She smiled as she dropped her gaze to the floor.
It had been Jolie’s mixture of bold and more innocent exchanges in her communication that had initially caught my attention as a lad.
Back then, I was a sucker for a straight-talking girl that had no idea how attractive she was, and in no time at all, I’d been smitten.
Now, after seeing her again, I realized I was no less smitten the second time around.
“When you’ve finished gabbing over there, Jolie,” Clay prompted.
“Shit, I’d better take your friend’s order,” she mumbled, nodding toward Ches.
“Right,” I agreed. As Jolie began to walk past me, I fell into step beside her and slid a hand to the base of her spine. Her back stiffened before her body appeared to ripple and squirm a little from the shoulders all the way down, until it stilled and seemed to relax into my touch.
“Burger, fries, slaw and onion rings, since there’s no women here to mind my breath for,” Ches muttered.
“Same … minus the onion rings,” I suggested, lifting a brow. A smile quirked her lips as I reluctantly let go of her and slid back into the booth beside Ches.
“What’s the story?” Ches mumbled. “You two hooking up now?” he asked after Jolie had gone through the door to the kitchen.
“She’s a childhood sweetheart,” I admitted. “It got snuffed out before we had ever gotten the chance to be anything,” I confessed.
“And now?”
I shrugged and tossed back my whiskey. “I guess we’re reacquainting.”
“Great and there’s a fucking mountain of snow, a pull-out bed and a couch,” Ches muttered, implying I’d fuck her in the same room as him. We’d done that plenty of times in the past … but there was no way I’d have done that to Jolie … whether she had been up for that or not.
“Cool your jets, I’m not fucking her … and if I did, it wouldn’t be with you watching this time,” I said, eyeing Jolie walking back from the bar with a beer for herself. She slid into the booth beside me and blushed when her thigh accidentally brushed mine under the table.
“Sorry,” she mumbled then wiggled her ass to make a little space between us.
“Don’t be, it felt nice,” I teased, flirting again.
“Clay’s bark is worse than his bite, he’ll call me when the order is ready,” she muttered, sounding a little breathless when her eyes met mine.
Ches huffed out a breath, drawing my attention toward him. “Are there any people my age around here? If so, where would they hang out?”
“There’s a few,” Jolie informed him. “All women, I’m afraid,” Jolie replied in answer to his sarcastic question.
“It’s Thursday—movie night in the church hall.
Let me see, Tessa, Maureen and Stephanie all should be there.
And before you ask, every one of them is single, under forty and legal,” Jolie added.
“Alright, the night’s looking brighter,” Ches said, straightening up in his chair with renewed interest and clapping his hands. “Feed me and I’ll head over to the church and leave you two former lovebirds to reminisce.”