Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 20216 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 101(@200wpm)___ 81(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 20216 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 101(@200wpm)___ 81(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
If I close my eyes, I can still see his stupid Greek god grin. The way he looked at me nearly caused my undies to melt right off my body.
I tell myself to just freaking forget Harrison Stafford and his intense brown eyes. But that’s not how it works and I know it.
I’m not even into hockey. I mean, I watch it. I have to since it’s on every screen in the bar, and the money in our tip pool rises and falls with every home team win. But I don’t go for athletes. Not in college, not ever. They come with too much drama, too much baggage. Too much everything I just don’t need in my life.
And yet, here I am, not five minutes after my run-in with Harrison Stafford, and my internal wiring is still crackling from the look on his face when he realized I wasn’t going to play along. I should be congratulating myself, but all I want to do is see if he’d look at me that way again.
God, I need help.
I pick at a hangnail, wishing it were the only thing irritating me right now. The real problem, the one I can’t totally ignore, is that Harrison Stafford is objectively, infuriatingly hot. And not just in the “he made a GQ list once” way, but in the way his entire face lights up when he’s with his teammates, in the way his voice got soft for half a second when he asked if I was going to give him a kiss. I hate that I noticed. I hate that my chest got tight, just for a second, like my heart had tripped over a power cable. I hate that every molecule of me is now intimately aware of him and his existence.
I should go back to the bar and ignore the rowdy hockey players in the back booth. Instead, I sit in the chair, counting the flecks of dust on the surface of the desk, trying to will myself into a new emotional state.
I close my eyes and count to ten. Then I count to fifteen. Then I stop because I can see Harrison’s face dancing behind my closed eyelids.
I turn on the computer and pull up tonight’s time sheets. Maybe a little work will clear my mind of the freaking hot hockey player.
But nothing is working. What the holy heck is wrong with me?
I lean forward and press my forehead to the cool wood of the desk, breathing deeply and slowly. I can do this. I can go the rest of the night without thinking about him.
This is just another night, and Harrison Stafford is just another spoiled athlete.
Why is he occupying so much of my mind? I let my head thunk against the desk one more time. The vibration reverberates all the way through my skull, but it doesn’t erase Harrison Stafford.
Marcy, the best bartender in Texas as well as my bestie since grade school, slips in the door and slams it shut.
“Why are you hiding out in here?” Marcy stares at me with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t tell me hockey boy really got to you.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you that,” I mutter.
She drops down into the chair across from my desk. “Oh, good Lord, Daisy Duke.” I used to hate that stupid nickname. Who am I kidding? I still do.
“You can say that again, Marcy Moo.” I thunk my head on the desk again just for good measure.
“Damn. You do have it bad. You only call me that when you’re really ticked off.” Marcy’s mouth twitches. “He came up to the bar to ask about you.” She leans in.
I have no doubt Marcy handled it for me. “What did you say?”
“I told him only immature idiots ask a stranger for a kiss in a crowded bar.” Nice. I’d laugh, but my stupid body isn’t cooperating right at this moment. “Then he asked me for your name. I hate to say it, but I felt sorry for him. He looked like a whipped little puppy dog, so I told him your name, and I told him you own the bar.”
I sit back in my chair and shrug. “I’m not in the mood to deal with hockey boy or his friends tonight. Can you get Lynette to take over their table?” I say, voice low. “I just… I don’t need the drama.”
Marcy arches an eyebrow. “It’s not like you to run from trouble.”
“This is different,” I say. “Don’t ask me how, but it just is.”
Marcy stands up and leans over to mess up my hair like she used to in grade school. “I got you.”
“I know you do.”
CHAPTER THREE
HARRISON
It’s 3 a.m. and sleep is a myth. I roll over and pound my fist into the pillow. Fucking hell. Every goddamn time I shut my eyes, I see Daisy Castille walking away from me. It was like pulling teeth, but I managed to get the bartender to tell me her name.