I stopped at a couple of tables and dropped off drinks, grabbed the order from a group of younger women who had pulled two tables together to accommodate their party, and let my gaze wander to see if I’d missed anyone who needed attention in my section. It got stuck on the lone figure hidden away in the farthest corner booth who hadn’t been sitting there the last time I made my rounds.
Weaving through the crowd, I edged toward him. Somehow my footsteps grew slower the closer I got. He wore a black beanie, his head down and his attention trained on his phone lit up in the backdrop of darkness. My eyes were drawn to his hands that held the expensive device, all big and strong, seeming to be just as powerful as this guy’s presence. He wore a long-sleeved button-up shirt, the cuffs rolled up his forearms in a careless fashion, revealing intricate ink scrolled along his skin.
A knot of intrigue formed somewhere in my chest.
I was suddenly wishing to be closer, just so I could make out the design.
Even though people came here from all walks of life, young and old, country and rocker, bikers and businessmen, he still seemed to stick out, too vibrant to belong within the confines of these walls. And I hadn’t even seen his face.
Inwardly, I rolled my eyes at myself. Get a grip, Shea.
Sucking in a breath, I pulled myself together and inched closer to the edge of the horse-shoe booth he was tucked behind. In a voice loud enough to cut through the music and jumble of voices, I gave him my standard greeting. “Hey there, welcome to Charlie’s.”
His hands gripped tighter on the phone when my words hit him, and it seemed to take him an eternity to lift his head, as if he were contemplating whether he really wanted to reveal himself.
And when he did, I kind of wished he hadn’t.
For one rapturous second, time stood still as I got lost in a face that had to be the most beautiful I’d ever seen. It wasn’t perfect, and maybe that was the problem. His full, full lips were a little crooked on one side, his cheekbones high and defined, his jaw severe—sharp angles—and coated in what had to be three days of scruff. A scar split through his right eyebrow, making it appear lower on that side, and there was a trace of another at the bottom of his chin.
But it was the hardness burning from his strange grey eyes that knocked the breath from my lungs.
No, not perfect.
Just beautiful and dark and a little bit frightening.
My heart thudded and I couldn’t stop from taking a startled step back as a slow slide of attraction trickled beneath the surface of my skin—like feathers touching me everywhere—before it gathered to flutter low in my belly. Maybe it’d been far too long since I’d allowed a man to touch me, because all at once I felt the grip slipping on my own little reality. The reality where men didn’t cause a reaction like this in me, because I knew better than to go looking for that kind of heartbreak.
No, I didn’t have a bunch of priorities or concerns.
I had one.
I couldn’t afford to flirt or play—not like normal women my age—couldn’t risk the trouble a boy like this would most assuredly bring.
As if he’d want me after he knew, anyway.
The beautiful stranger’s frown only deepened, and I felt like a total idiot standing there with my mouth hanging open, tongue-tied.
Blinking away the stupor, I swallowed hard and painted a smile on my face, knowing it probably appeared just as fake as it felt, but this guy had left me staggered, confused, and affected in a way I didn’t necessarily like.
“What can I get for you?” I finally managed to say.
Those burning grey eyes narrowed in speculation, and not exactly in a friendly way. Waiting. As if he were waiting on me when I was the one who’d asked the question.
My own head tilted, searching him in the shadows in return, wondering what he was thinking, because he was looking at me as if he were expecting me to call him by name. Suddenly all of those years of self-consciousness came bounding in, and discomfort shifted my feet as I went cold with dread.
Did he recognize me?