Chapter 3
THREE
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JOHNNY
Turns out staring at someone from across a crowded tent is way easier than actually walking up to them and starting a conversation. Who knew?
I have no idea how long I stood there looking like an idiot as I waited for him to finish his phone call.
I should have left the moment I realised he had no idea I’d followed him.
He wasn’t waiting for me or leading me anywhere.
He was just a guy chatting on the phone while scoffing a meal and ignoring the world around him.
I was on the verge of walking away—for real this time, as opposed to the other twenty times I tried to leave but couldn’t get my feet to move. Then, he saw me.
Maybe if he’d looked away again, or appeared uncomfortable, or glared daggers in my direction, I could have brought myself to put a stop to my ridiculous behaviour.
But he didn’t. Instead, his gaze stayed locked on me, following my every move.
He seems transfixed by the sight of me, mesmerised even.
Of course, it’s also possible he’s refusing to take his eyes off me because he finds my stalker routine to be deeply creepy.
Damn it, this whole night is turning into a farce. I’m a twenty-six-year-old man, not some simpering teenager. So what if I haven’t been single since I was fifteen? Who cares if I’ve never approached a stranger with amorous intentions even once in my life? I can do this.
Swallowing my nerves, I wipe sweaty palms on my jeans and force myself to put one foot in front of the other. Please, please, please, don’t let him be creeped out by me.
He straightens at my approach, and a moment later he lowers the phone to the table, apparently having put an end to his conversation. That has to be a good sign.
I come to a stop on the far side of the picnic table from where he’s sitting. “Hey.”
He stares at me with wide eyes. They’re green, his eyes. A perfect, clear, sea-green. “How did you find me?”
Not the most welcoming of questions, but the delivery is more curious than accusatory, so I opt for honesty.
“I never lost you.” His eyebrows lift in surprise and I rush to explain.
“At first I thought you wanted me to follow you, but then you stopped here and I realised…” Stop talking, you arse, before the hole you’re digging buries you. “It was an honest mistake.”
“A mistake you clued in to… what,” he glances at the time on his phone’s lock screen, “fifteen minutes ago?” A languid smile spreads over his face. “But here you are, lurking in the shadows.”
My face burns at his teasing. Is this what flirting looks like nowadays? Embarrassing the shit out of the other person? “I, um, I didn’t want to interrupt your conversation.” It’s better than admitting it took every one of those fifteen minutes to work up the nerve to walk over here.
He seems to ponder my response for a moment. “What if I’d been on the phone for an hour? Would you have given up on me?”
This has to be a trick question. If I lie and say yes, I look like a fickle bastard. If I tell the truth, I’m an even bigger creep than I was before. “Maybe I would have become impatient,” I tell him. “I would have moved closer, grabbed a seat.”
He peers down the full length of the table, which is empty apart from us. It could easily fit ten with room to spare. “Where would you have sat?”
I point to the far end. “Down there.” He cants his head to one side and I nod solemnly. “But I would have butt-shuffled my way closer, slowly but surely. It would have been frightfully inconspicuous.”
He laughs out loud. “You would have been right about the frightful part.”
“Yeah, but then eventually I would have been in front of you.” Taking a chance, I step over the bench and sit opposite him. “Right here. Once you noticed me, you would have done one of two things.”
“Only two?” He pulls a face. “How uncreative of me. Please, inform me of my options.”
Taking a deep breath, I play my hand. “You would have paused your conversation long enough to tell me to get lost or…” I clasp my hands together under the table to try to stop them from shaking.
“You would have made your excuses so you could hang up and talk to me.” I glance at his phone before meeting his eyes once more.
“Kind of like you did then.” My mouth is dry and I can feel the thumping beat of my own heart, but my gaze is steady as I wait for his response.
He gives a noncommittal shrug. “She hung up on me, actually.”
My smile freezes. All my hopes nosedive into the well-trampled grass at my feet. “Oh.” Maybe this was a mistake after all. “Girlfriend?” I ask, because apparently self-torture is my new favourite pastime.
The teasing glint is back in his eyes. “Sister.”
A laugh falls out of me as my chin drops to my chest. “Right. Siblings. I’ve heard of those.”
“You don’t have any of your own?”
I shake my head. “Only child. It took my parents multiple rounds of fertility treatments to get me here. They opted out of further misery.” Why am I telling him this?
He doesn’t care about my parents’ reproductive issues.
“You’re sitting with a genuine miracle child,” I add, as if some false levity will make the information more interesting. Shut the fuck up, you twat.
His eyebrows lift, along with one corner of his mouth. “I’m impressed. I’ve never met a miracle before.”
I appreciate his attempt to save me from my own awkwardness, but it does nothing to dampen the inferno erupting on my cheeks. Clearing my throat, I try again. “How about you? Do you have brothers, more sisters?”
“It’s just me and Hannah versus the world.” Every word is warm with affection and I can’t stop staring. The love inside him, the loyalty he wears so openly—they attract parts of me his good looks and the charm of his smile could never reach.
“I get the feeling knowing your sister’s name before I know yours tells me a lot about you.”
He laughs out loud, his eyes crinkling at the corners exactly as I thought they would. “Very astute.” He holds his hand out over the scarred surface of the table. “Calum Ellis.”
We shake, our fingers wrapped tight and our palms pressed together. A jolt of awareness shocks me, all the way from my fingertips down to my dick, and my lips part on a soundless gasp. “Johnny,” I rasp, embarrassed by my overreaction to a simple handshake. “Johnny Durant.”
Releasing my hand, he gives me a wary look. “I need to ask you something, Johnny.”
Uh-oh. This could be bad, considering my recent actions, but there’s no avoiding it. “Shoot.”
Calum takes a deep breath, as if bracing himself for the answer. “Are you a musician?”
The yes jumps to the tip of my tongue, despite feeling like a misnomer.
I am performing tomorrow. Not in some tiny beer garden in the back of a pub, but at a real, live music festival.
After growing up in a household where musician was a dirty word, I’m finally in a place where music is celebrated.
I want to shout my accomplishment from the rooftops while I have the chance.
But now, seeing the look on Calum’s face, I get the impression he’s hoping for a no.
“Why? Do you have a problem with musicians? Because if you do,” I glance around us before continuing in a whisper, “you’re in the wrong place.”
Smirking, Calum runs a hand over his face. “It’s quite the opposite. I’m a music manager, at least I’m training to be one. Mixing business and stalkers is a big no-no in my workplace.”
His phrasing hits, and my mouth falls open. “I was not stalking you, I was—”
“Lurking in the shadows and waiting for your chance to hit on me.”
Damn that sounds shady, but the gleam in Calum’s eye implies he doesn’t mind. “All right, yes,” I admit, throwing my arms wide. “That is exactly what I was doing.” I attempt a contrite expression. “Is it working?”
With a laugh, Calum rakes his gaze over me. “That depends on your answer to my question.”
If I say yes, it will be the end of… whatever this is. Calum is the first man—the first person—I’ve responded to in over a year. Even if nothing more happens between us than talking and flirting, I don’t want it to stop. Not yet.
“I know my way around a guitar.” Not a lie. “But I’m a pharmacist by trade.” Also not a lie. Come Tuesday morning, this fantasy I’m living will have run its course and I’ll be back behind a counter, dressed in my pristine white coat and dispensing cold and flu tablets to the snot-nosed masses.
Each conveniently chosen truth broadens the smile on Calum’s face until he releases a pent-up breath. “That’s good news.”
Guilt twinges in my gut, but I push it aside. We’re only talking. He can’t get into trouble for talking to me.
“I never would have pegged you as a pharmacist,” he says.
I snort a laugh. “Funny, that’s what my parents said. They could have sworn they ticked the Doctor box on the paperwork but,” I shrug, “no such luck.”
“Yeah, I get that,” he says with a nod. “I mean look at you, all gorgeous and intelligent. Working in some dodgy front line health profession where you care for the sick and the elderly.” He winces dramatically, shaking his head. “What a disappointment.”
I smile, as if his joke is funny. It should be funny. Except my parents don’t see me the way Calum does. When they look at me, they see a divorced, not-a-doctor who’s ruining his life with a worthless distraction. Some miracle I turned out to be.
“Personally,” Calum continues, “I’m delighted by your occupation.”
A genuine smile pulls at my cheeks this time. “I’m delighted by the fact you called me gorgeous.” I waggle my eyebrows at him.
“Like it’s a secret,” he mutters, a blush creeping up his cheeks.
Leaning closer, I rest my elbows on the table. “Does that mean I can go back to hitting on you now?”
He chuckles, all low and sexy, before giving me a nod. “Please do.”
I’m reaching out to brush trembling fingertips along the back of Calum’s hand, eager for a hit of warm skin, when his phone starts vibrating on the table between us. We both jump. I snatch my hand back; he grabs for his phone. He dismisses the alarm and the buzzing cuts off.
We stare at each other, our sexy as sin hand grope aborted before it could even begin, and dissolve into laughter.
Calum stands and begins collecting his rubbish. “I’m heading over to one of the smaller stages to check out a band I’ve had my eye on. They start in ten minutes. Join me?”
I’m on my feet before he finishes asking. “I’d love to.”