CHAPTER ONE #2
“Casey Hart? What are you doing here?” Piper has me in a tight hug as soon as I’m within reach.
I smile so hard it fills my body, which was sorely needed.
There’s something about seeing old friends.
Piper was a year behind me in school but we’d always meet up at the playground after school and role play witchy princess stuff based on the books we checked out at the library.
“I came for a random visit and look at what great timing I had. Piper, this is incredible.” I gesture to the barn, to the people milling around us. “I’m so proud of you!”
“I didn’t do this alone,” Piper says, her grin widening.
“I want you to meet Kru.” She reaches for her partner and beams as she brings him to me.
I don’t think my ex ever presented me to someone else like Piper presents her six-foot treasure with a lobster tattoo.
“Kru, meet Casey. She’s a longtime Bayshore friend who’s been living in… ”
“Chicago,” I supply for her as I shake Kru’s rough hand. His fingers are scarred from what I can only surmise are kitchen accidents. “It’s so good to meet you.”
The three of us chat for a minute about the project, the marshmallow shop, and Kru’s first year in Bayshore with the restaurant. I’m so proud of them I could cry. And then conversation turns to Piper’s family.
“Is your mom here?” I ask, glancing around. “I heard about the fire at the bakery last year. I’m so glad she’s been rebuilding.”
“Oh yeah, she’s here.” Piper pushes up onto her tiptoes, looking around the barn. “She’s over there with Griffin. See?” She waves enthusiastically at them, then points to me.
Heat flares through me at the mention of his name. As soon as my eyes land on his hickory tresses, his broad, athletic shoulders, his easy grin as he turns and spots me, butterflies begin swarming my belly.
Griffin Keegan was hot in high school. But now, as a pro athlete?
He’s in the upper stratosphere of hotness. He took a one-way hot air balloon to Hotsville, location: the clouds. As he saunters our way, a champagne flute in one hand, his biceps are bulging like he’s mid-workout and I have to remember to scrape my jaw off the floor.
“Casey Hart? Is that you?” His jovial, booming voice wraps around me like a blanket and suddenly I’m squeezed into a big hug, my face mashed against his hard chest. Every nerve ending in my body is lit up and I’m too euphoric to even think.
Could I live here permanently? He smells like aftershave and the woods and something so deeply masculine and free.
I think my panties are literally wet. The hug ends too soon and I’m left gaping up at him, still unable to form words.
“Griff.” I laugh slightly, feeling my cheeks redden.
I am pure baffled ineloquence. At least he doesn’t know about what happened in my panties.
All I can think about is how Griffin would be the perfect star of his very own romance novel, since that’s been what I’ve been reading a lot of lately.
I need fictional happily-ever-afters to combat my own lack of them. “It’s so good to see you.”
“I haven’t seen you since…shit, right after college graduation?
” His handsome smile grows even wider, and I feel like I’m caught in the tractor beam of his attention, head tilted back and gobbling up his beautiful slate blue eyes.
I have no concept of time while looking at this man.
I just know that I don’t want to leave his presence.
“I don’t know,” I say on a sigh, my body buzzing. “It’s uh…it’s been a…time…”
“I’ll let you two catch up,” Piper says with a mysterious grin.
I can’t tell if it’s because I’m acting like a starstruck fan or because she’s got the entire town of Bayshore trying to snag a shred of her attention at the grand opening party around us.
Either way, she blows me a kiss and drifts off to chat with others, leaving me and Griffin grinning at each other like idiots.
Griffin nudges me with his shoulder, his gaze scraping up and down my body in a way that makes my knees threaten to go out. “What’s new, Case? How have you been?”
“Honestly, uh—” I can’t even fumble for my words before another partygoer drifts past us, munching happily on something and moaning.
“Oh my god, have you guys tried these yet?” It’s Mr. Truehart, a city commissioner.
“What are they?” Griffin asks.
“These cake balls,” he gushes.
“Oh, those are from Dee,” Griffin says. Mr. Truehart wanders off, and Griffin looks at me again, looking sheepish. “They’re Dee’s Balls.”
I tilt my head. “That sounds…inappropriate.”
“Dee Meadows makes them, my mom’s neighbor. They’re incredible, but she’s too old to understand the connotation,” Griffin explains. “She insists on labeling them Dee’s Balls.”
I laugh into my hand, but before I can say anything else, Claire butts in, waving at Griffin.
“Hello, Mr. Crusher,” she says in a singsong voice. Griffin signed with the Cleveland Crushers hockey team after college. He’s the beloved local pro athlete. “How was last season?”
His smile droops slightly. “For the team, it was good. For me, not so great. I was out on injury.”
“Oh no.” My sister pouts. “Are you all healed up?”
“Let’s hope,” Griffin says with a laugh. But there’s sadness tugging at the corners of his eyes. “I’ve got until August to prove myself.”