3. Kelsey
three
Kelsey
“H e’s baaaack,” Sloane sing-songs in my ear while dancing around me with a platter piled high with freshly iced maple pecan cinnamon rolls.
“I kno-ow,” I whisper-sing back and steal a glance at Scott settled into the old, worn leather chair tucked away in the far corner of the Brewbirds Coffeeshop.
In his big hands, he holds a pen and a reporter-style notebook full of scribbles. At his side, against the exposed brickwork of our back wall, an acoustic guitar rests, untouched over the last three days he’s wandered in here to do exactly what he’s doing now.
Sitting. Staring. Sipping.
Every now and again, he taps the pen on his paper pad and jots something down.
“You think if we asked him to show up at one of our community open mics, he would?” Mel asks, absently rubbing her belly and wincing as one of the twins she’s carrying somersaults inside of her like they do every day around this time of day. I tell her it’s the hot chocolate she’s been sipping waking them up, but she only waves me off. I think she secretly likes knowing those babies are strong and active in her womb.
“You can ask him,” I say. “You’re in charge of all the events around here.”
She raises a brow at me. “ You can ask him. He’s your friend.”
“He’s my brother’s friend.”
“And supposedly your perfect match.” Sloane grins and dodges my glare by focusing on arranging the pastries.
I’m not proud of the ten minute voice note I dropped on them following our accidental reunion, but there’s nothing I can do to take back all the raw emotions I poured into that monologue.
Seeing him again, up close and personal, had been a discombobulating experience. The only way I could try to process it was by ranting into my phone the whole way home. I told them all how Scotty effing Hunter’s back in town just to rile me right up, like he’s always done.
At the register, Mel whirls around to face me and hikes a thumb over her shoulder. “To me, that man is a global celebrity and I’m not going to be intruding on his peace when he’s obviously here to work.”
“She’s right. He might not want to draw that much attention to himself,” Dani quips from her perch at the nearby breakfast bar, where she sits sketching alongside Sloane’s five year old daughter, Lily.
“I don’t mean he’d have to perform in the show, though that’d be cool,” Mel muses. “I just thought since he judges that Talented show, you know? Maybe he’d be willing to give other performers feedback. He is a professional, after all. Famous, too. I know the locals don’t want an outsider coming in to critique them for anything, but Hunter’s not an outsider. He’s local and respected.”
“He’s also not actually called Hunter. That’s just a stage name he made up by swapping his names around when he got told at the county talent show he won one year that his name, Scott Tate Hunter, wasn’t memorable enough or country enough to make it in Music City.” I watch as he drains the last of his cafe americano, green eyes burning straight through me. “So now the world knows him as Hunter Tate, but I can’t switch my brain into thinking of him as anything other than Scott or Scotty.”
“You know, for someone who claims not to listen to country and not be his friend, you sure know a lot about him.” Sloane looks back and forth between me and Scott.
“He didn’t always get on my nerves,” I admit.
“Oh, I get it,” Dani says. “You were sweet on him once.”
I grab a dish rag and scrub at the already clean espresso machine. “Maybe.”
“Oh, please. The way you stare that man?” Mel smirks. “It’s like you could eat him whole. I haven’t seen you stare that hard at anyone since you first laid eyes on Colby Cutter our second year of university.”
“I’m not staring. He’s staring,” I snap, lifting my chin and sending him the most grating, fake smile I can muster.
He responds with a flirtatious wink and a grin that sparks a curl of unwanted desire low in my belly. I frown back at him.
Dani purses her lips together. “Oh, I remember Colby. So good with his pen.”
“The walls have ears!” Mel chirps, gesturing toward Lily.
“What? He’s an artist with words. What did you think I meant?”
“Exactly what you said. Good at what he does.” Sloane digs her elbow into Mel’s side while nodding at her daughter who pretends not to be listening.
I shake my head. Colby was eons ago… Had it really been that long since I’d found someone I was interested in? Even just a tiny bit?
And if so, how unfair is it that the first man who catches my eye in years turns out to be that guy?
“There’s nothing between us.”
“Riiight. Whatever you say, boss.” Dani’s eyebrows arch high as she rolls her lips over her teeth and clamps her mouth shut.
“Maybe there could’ve been. Once. I don’t know,” I mutter. “But his personality and the corny jokes leave a lot to be desired.”
“You ever hear him sing, though? Ugh, my heart.” Sloane’s eyes drift shut and she clasps her hands to her chest in a near swoon.
I snicker.
“Which brings me back to my original point. Can you please ask him to come to open mic night?” Mel gives me a pleading look.
“No.”
“She’ll do it,” Dani says with confidence. “You know Kelsey’s actually a big softie under all her barbs.”
“Big Sis just likes making everybody work for it,” Mel grins. “And that man there? He looks like he’s ready and willing to work . You should let him.”
I clear my throat and shoot her a look. “Are we still talking about open mic night?”
Sloane and Dani laugh, and Mel only shakes her head. Then we all disperse to our usual Saturday morning stations. My mind replays much of our conversation from that night at the bar, turning over the things he said and evaluating them for truth.
What if I was checking you out, and I just thought you’d weren’t interested in me like that?
I’m curious to know why they’ve matched us. And I’m willing to find out if you are.
Did Scott see more of me than I thought he had? Did he have any idea that once upon a time, I harbored the world’s biggest crush on him? But that was just a schoolgirl attraction to a boy who made her laugh. At least, it had been that… until I’d gotten dumped by my friendship group and became some kind of ostracized outsider seemingly overnight.
And for what? I still don’t really know.
The mean girls who fucked up my teen years had once been friends. But things changed around twelve or thirteen, and suddenly, I wasn’t good enough for them. I didn’t have the right look, or like the right things, or fit into the same clothes. Their cutting remarks left deep, invisible wounds that made me sensitive to the things Scott would say and do in good natured, innocent fun.
But the pain of that time bled through, poisoned so many of my relationships with loved ones all around me for a long time. Made me isolate myself so that I kept my head down and my focus turned up to the max so that eventually, I became what everyone knows me as today—the single-minded, ambitious, snarky and independent woman I am.
So, maybe in the end, those mean girls did me a favor.
But maybe they cost me something too. Something that could’ve been the start of something… interesting.
Glancing up, I see Scott pick up his guitar and fiddle with a tune. There’s too much going on for me to make out the melody, but he must feel my gaze on him because he looks directly at me. My breath catches, and I feel exposed even though I’m fully dressed and looking like nothing special in my barista garb.
Still, it’s like I’m open to his gaze. The heat of it. The intensity of it.
Inside, something warm and wanting swirls and I wonder if there’s a part of me that enjoys the attention. His pokes and his prods.
Might certainly enjoy myself if he chose to poke and prod me with something else…
I immediately reject the wayward thought. There’s no way that can be true. Scott Hunter just so happened to re-enter my life at a time when I’m experiencing the longest dry spell ever.
These ridiculous, out-of-control urges and thoughts are because Scott has grown into a man with a body type I find appealing. What with that full beard my fingers itch to touch, a barrel chest I wonder about pressing up against, and even a full, bottom-lip heavy mouth I’ve thought about nibbling on.
They’re nothing to do with the man himself.
I’m sure of it…
The memory of Scotty leaning over and checking out my ass with an expression of unrepentant appreciation flashes through my mind, making my cheeks heat.
For the record, if you had been offering sex earlier? I would’ve said hell yes.
But he was teasing. Like always.
I should know better than to take anything Scotty says seriously. He will say and do anything to ruffle my feathers because that’s just what he likes to do.
It’s best if I remember that this business about dating me is another one of his jokes. Something else for him to needle me about until I snap.
There’s a small voice inside me that wonders if stubbornly holding onto all my control is why I’ve found it so hard to find a match.
Would it be such a bad thing to give him a shot and see what if… ?
Hours later, I emerge from the back office of the Brewbirds Coffeeshop and march up to the hulking man smiling wolfishly at me from his lazy perch in the old leather chair.
“I kept it casual, like you asked,” I say, lifting my arms and spinning in a small circle to show him.
He lifts his hat in greeting and grins. “Good girl.”
The words are spoken with in a low rumble, and damn if it doesn’t immediately turn up my body temperature by a couple of degrees.
“See something you like, then, Scotty?”
“Oh, very much so. I love watching a gorgeous woman saunter on up to me. And honey, you make a damn pretty picture.” Scott lays a hand over his heart and makes a show of looking me over, head to toe. Long and slow, like he’s committing the sight of me in jeans and a tied-up plaid shirt to memory.
My core clenches and I wonder if clothes can melt off a body.
“I never know if I should take you seriously or not, but I’ll take the compliment.”
He stands and I take a step back, suddenly aware of how much space he takes up. When he leans around me to grab hold of his guitar, I’m about to move out of the way when I feel his hand curl around my hip. For the briefest of seconds, his roughened fingertips stroke the sensitive, exposed skin above my jeans and the sheer pleasure it sparks runs through me like a lightning strike.
Heat pulses between my legs, hammering in time with my beating heart.
His breath coasts over my flushed neck. “In all seriousness, I promise I can give you a helluva lot more than just compliments if you’d let me.”
I fight to ignore the way his smooth, silky voice holds the suggestion of whiskey and sex. It’s just the sort of thing cowboys and country singers are made of—what makes them dangerous and deadly to a woman’s sense and sensibility, and for God’s sake, I’m not falling for it. Not for Scott Hunter, anyway.
Clearing my throat, I step out of his grasp and run my fingers through my curls.
“Oh, I bet you say that to all the girls that chase you round and call your name.”
A slow, sensual smile spreads over his face as he straightens up, guitar case in hand. “Here I thought I was the one doing the chasing. But if you really want to know, there’s very little I wouldn’t do to hear you call my name. Bet it’d sound better if you screamed it.”
Then he heads for the door, hauling his guitar and tipping his hat to the rest of the team behind the counter as he goes. My eyes stay glued on that spectacular ass of his even as the shock and fire of his words burn through me like brandy.
God. Why did such a sinful voice and amazing ass belong to Scott Hunter? What woman on earth wouldn’t want to climb a man who looks like that?
I give myself a mental shake when he pulls open the door and waits for me to glide past him. If he wants to play this silly little game of shock and awe, let him. I don’t have to give in or show him that it affects me.
That he affects me.
“Where are we headed? You said it was a surprise.”
Those green eyes of his dance in the golden afternoon light. “You know the definition of surprise?”
Well, I walked right into that one.
“I do better with plans. You know that.”
“That I do. So, I’m taking this opportunity to teach you a few things.”
My mouth tightens. “You remember I’ve got two parents and three brothers, right? All of them taught me plenty. Chief among their lessons? That I don’t need a man for anything I can do myself.”
He chuckles and nudges me along the path toward his truck with a hand low on my back.
“You’re misunderstanding me, as usual.” He shoots me a look and tucks his guitar into the back of his truck’s cab, then he holds the passenger door open for me.
“Then what exactly is it you’re planning on teaching me?” I stand on my tiptoes to reach for the grab handles, and I still come up a little short.
Then, without warning, his hands land on my hips. Behind me, his chest feels strong, warm, and sturdy, and fuck , I think my traitorous body leans back the tiniest bit as he brings his mouth to my ear.
“That you don’t have to do all the planning. That sometimes, you can loosen up the reigns a bit. It’s okay to let yourself run wild and free. It’s okay to let somebody else do things for you. Treat you. Pay for you. Surprise you.”
“I don’t do all the planning. Mel plans all my events. She’s planning a whole mom and baby event at the shop soon.”
He chuckles low in my ear, and it makes me want to do something crazy. Like rub my face, my body against his like a cat in heat.
“There you go misunderstanding my meaning again, Kels. I’m saying that you are a woman who likes control. But tonight, I wanted to take just an ounce of that control from you. I want to surprise you and show you I know you better than you think. I want to teach you that you shouldn’t write people off so fast and so easy.”
His fingers drift higher up my hips, over my skin and it takes every cell in my body not to press my ass against him, feel if he’s affected the way I am.
“People can surprise you, you know? They grow, change, mature. And maybe I can show you the boy that left town to chase a dream came back a man that could make you a perfectly good match, if you give him half a chance.”
Then he hoists me into the truck, hands firm but gentle on my body. They linger for a second, skimming the soft flesh at my sides in a way that makes me want to give him what he’s asking for.
But doing so would be the ultimate disaster because Scott Hunter is the one man who could break my heart.