Chapter 3 A Devil with Seaglass Eyes
A Devil with Seaglass Eyes
As we leisurely alternate bites of cake, I take stock of the scene.
The bar is empty and as clean and shiny as it’s ever been, thanks to Luke.
My pink twinkle lights cast everything in a rosy glow that makes it look actually pretty in here.
There’s a slow love song playing on the jukebox, and I’m sharing red velvet cake with a handsome man who hasn’t taken his eyes off me.
Weirdly, this might be the most romantic Valentine’s Day evening I’ve ever had.
Unfortunately for me, it’s with the bouncer at my dad’s dive bar.
We get to chatting between bites. Turns out Luke’s from another town over, about an hour away.
Barely a town, he tells me, just one stoplight and endless expanses of land.
His parents own a farm that was doing well until last year’s floods wiped out their crops and insurance wasn’t enough to cover it.
Hence the bouncer gig he picked up here.
So he loves his mom and dad. Enough to take on another job so he can help them out. He’s a good son.
Doesn’t mean he’d be a good boyfriend.
Not that I’m thinking about that.
“So what’s the big life goal?” I ask. “Farm life, the white picket fence, Montana forever?”
He shrugs. “I like the sound of all those things. But I was two credits away from my MBA before I had to take a leave of absence to help my folks. I’m aiming to finish up. Get my degree. Help them scale their operations so one bad year doesn’t make for a catastrophe.”
I lean away, a little taken aback by his revelation.
I never went to college. Never had the money or opportunity. Dad needs me at the bar, and that’s all right. He’s taken care of me and loved me all my life. The least I can do is help him out too.
Sure, I always wanted to go to art school, but I knew from the start that was an impossible dream.
It makes me feel weirdly intimidated to know the guy sitting across from me is in grad school and about to get an MBA.
Guys like him end up with girls who went to college too. Who have good careers and nice moms who took them to dance recital and dads who bought their family vehicle based on its good safety ratings.
My mom ran off with her drug dealer when I was three years old. My dad rides a Harley and has been to prison because he wouldn’t snitch on his buddies, a couple of whom were sitting in these chairs an hour earlier.
I thought maybe Luke and I were a little alike.
Turns out, not even close.
The tip of Luke’s black leather cowboy boot nudges my own foot.
“Hey,” he says. “Where’d you go?”
I look up at him, startled. “Nowhere. Just thinking.”
“Yeah, I could tell that much. About what?”
“Didn’t know you were a fancy college boy, that’s all.”
“What about you?” he asks. “Are you going to school anywhere?”
Almost like a physical thing, I feel my defenses rising. I can visualize it in my head. The walls going up around my bruised and battered heart. The spiky armor I’m putting on over my soft and vulnerable underbelly.
This guy is not for me, and I’m not for him.
Best to keep things on strictly professional terms.
My chair scrapes loudly against the floor as I push away from the table. “It’s late,” I say. “I should get home. Let’s close up.”
While I put the forks in the dishwasher in the back, Luke sets the chairs to rights again and packs up the cake box.
He holds it out to me. “Why don’t you take the rest?”
I shake my head. “No. Take it to your mama. Hope she enjoys it.”
As I start to shrug into my heavy winter coat, the fabric catches at my elbow.
Luke steps in. He takes the lapel of my coat and lifts it, guiding my arm through. His knuckles brush the inside of my wrist. The contact is brief, barely there, but every time his skin touches mine it leaves a trail of fire in its wake.
He gets close enough that I catch another whiff of his warm and woodsy scent.
God, he smells good.
“Thanks,” I mumble.
“You’re welcome.”
He walks by my side through the parking lot, close enough that our shoulders almost brush. The moon is bright overhead, making the snowbanks beside the road seem to glow. Ice and gravel crunch beneath our boots, the sound loud in the quiet night.
“You’re good at your job,” Luke says out of nowhere.
I glance at him, surprised by the comment itself and that he’s choosing to say anything at all. His face is half-shadowed, expression unreadable.
But his attention is fixed on me.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist,” I say, a little embarrassed. “It’s not that important.”
“It’s not just the serving drinks part of it. It’s the listening. You give people your attention. Your sympathy. Might be the only place they get those things their whole day.”
Nobody’s ever said something that deep to me before about my job. Heat climbs up my neck despite the cold.
“I just try to be kind,” I say.
He tilts his head, studying me. “When you feel like it, you mean.”
“Well, obviously, when I feel like it,” I volley back. “I’m not gonna be kind when I don’t feel like it. I can’t fake that shit.”
“Clearly.” His lips quirk. “‘Bad hire,’ huh?”
Those seaglass eyes are glimmering in the moonlight, bright and intent. He doesn’t look offended. He looks amused—like he likes this version of me.
I huff. My breath clouds in the wintry Montana air, dissolving between us.
“I was ready to retract my statement,” I say, “up until this moment. Now that you’re getting all up in my business, I stand by it.”
We’re standing by my Jeep now. Luke’s got an arm braced on the window, leaning casually against it, his body angled towards mine. Looking entirely too handsome and at-ease. Like he’s enjoying himself. Enjoying riling me up.
Maybe I'm enjoying it too.
Not that he needs to know that.
I put a hand on my hip, tilting my chin up to meet his gaze.
Damn, he's tall.
“Listen,” I say, “I don’t need a job evaluation from someone who’s been working here for six hours. And if I wanted amateur psychoanalysis, I’d take another online personality quiz.”
He raises a dark eyebrow. “Another one? What did the first one say?”
“None of your concern.” I poke his chest. All muscle there. No give whatsoever. He's solid and warm even through his shirt. “You know, I liked you better when I thought you were the strong and silent type.”
A warm hand closes around my finger where it’s prodding his chest.
“So you’re saying you like me?” he asks.
The callused pad of his thumb skims slowly down my skin, sending a pleasurable shiver through me that has nothing to do with the cold.
“Liked,” I murmur. “Past tense.”
“That’s a shame.”
He hasn't let go of my finger, and I'm making no move to pull away.
“Not really,” I lie.
Luke lets go of my hand.
He reaches past me, his arm brushing against my shoulder as he tugs the car door and holds it open for me. His body is a warm barrier between me and the bitter cold.
I slip past him into the driver's seat, hyperaware of the scant inches between us, and fumble with my seatbelt. My fingers are clumsy, whether from the cold or his proximity, I'm not sure. The click of the buckle sounds too loud in the quiet.
“Good night,” he says softly. “Drive safe.”
He shuts the door, but his hand lingers on the frame for just a moment, fingers splayed against the cold metal.
I start the car. For a moment, I just watch him walk away.
My finger moves to the window button before I can think better of it. The glass rolls down with a squeak, letting in a gust of frigid air that does nothing to cool the heat in my cheeks.
“Hey, Pretty Boy,” I call out. “Thanks for helping me clean up today.”
Slowly, he saunters back towards me. My pulse picks up the closer he gets.
Bracing one hand on the roof of my truck, he leans down, close enough that I can see the flecks of lighter green in his eyes.
And then he smiles.
Holy hell, it’s a gorgeous smile.
Straight white teeth. A dimple creasing his cheek that I have the sudden, irrational urge to touch. It's a movie-star smile, but better, because it's not some actor turning on the charm for the camera. It's a smile just for me. Because of me.
My stomach does a free-fall.
From his back pocket, he takes his packet of candy hearts and holds it out to me.
“Happy Valentine's Day, Madison,” he says. His voice drops into something velvet and dangerous, wrapping around my name like a caress.
I shouldn’t take those hearts.
It feels like opening a door that I ought to keep firmly shut. Refusing would be the safer thing to do. The wise thing to do.
You can’t get hurt if you don’t open up your heart.
But I’ve never played it safe. And I’ve only been wise for about the past four days of my life.
I take the candy hearts from him.
As our fingers touch, I’m suddenly very aware of how close he is. How easily he could lean in, and then his lips would be on mine.
But he doesn’t lean in.
He pushes off the truck with a final tap of his knuckles against the metal. I track every movement as he walks away. The upright set of his strong shoulders, the easy confidence in his stride, the way he glances back at me as he heads to his own truck.
Then I peel out of the parking lot like the devil himself is on my heels.
A devil whose eyes just happen to be the color of the sea.