She steps away from me to go to the counter as James opens the door to the shop.
“James, hi!” she says in a cheery tone, while setting the bouquet on the counter and pulling out a piece of brown paper to wrap around it. The weird part is, she never even looks at what her hands are doing. She’s staring at James the entire time. Not necessarily like she wants him—but like she’s contemplating him.
Shit. I’m afraid I know what’s happening now.
“Morning, Annie! Thanks for having this ready for me.” This man has Town Golden Boy written all over him. The dazzling smile. The open face. The twinkle in his eye of a person who’s never been jaded by the world. Irrationally, I hate him.
“You look amazing,” Annie says with way too much emphasis, if you ask me. “Where are you going?” Her fingers work to delicately wrap twine around the brown paper—and all I can think about is how those fingers felt moving softly against mine. What they’d feel like dancing across my chest. Clutching at my back.
“With Mom to a wedding for one of my cousins.”
“Your dad okay?” she asks, sweetness and concern coating her tone.
What’s it like to have someone like Annie worry about you? I doubt James even appreciates what he has.
He chuckles lightly. “If you count stubbornly refusing to go to the wedding because it has a black-tie dress code and Mom won’t let him wear his John Deere hat, then, yes—he’s fine. I, however, am going to be miserable all afternoon after being guilt-tripped into going.”
“And yet you’re still taking her a bouquet of flowers. What a guy,” she says with a soft chuckle. “But you’ll have a great time. I’ve seen you on the dance floor, and I know you’ll have all the ladies lined up by the end of the night.”
James laughs again, and their camaraderie is making me feel a little ill.
“We’ll see,” James says before winking at Annie in a blatantly Matthew McConaughey kind of way. And now I want to run him over with his own truck.
Am I jealous? No, I’m never jealous. You can’t have a series of nostrings-attached hookups with women for your entire adult life and be the jealous type. It’s impossible. And yet, as I see Annie eyeing James in an assessing way and coming to some sort of conclusion, I realize I am absolutely jealous.
“Hey, James?” she begins thoughtfully. “I have sort of a random question to ask you. And feel free to say no, but would you—”
“I’ll do it,” I say quickly, cutting Annie off.
She whips her head in my direction and stares up at me. “You will? But you just said—”
“I know. I changed my mind. I want to do it.” She blinks and smiles up at me, and my heart fills with something that feels like lava. “But I have one condition.”
“Name it.”
I grin. “I get to walk out of here today with your book.”
“My book?” she asks, hoping she heard me wrong.
“The book.” I smile as I watch two pink splotches hit the apples of her cheeks.
For a beat, there’s nothing but silence. Painful, thick silence. And then slowly Annie’s sweet smile tilts ever so slightly into a devious grin, and I realize I just got epically played. “You’ve got a deal, bodyguard.”
“Executive protection agent.”
James clears his throat. “Why do I feel like I just missed out on an important opportunity?”
Because you did. Now, get lost, she’s mine.
CHAPTER NINE
Annie
I dramatically throw open the door to Amelia’s studio and then lunge to catch the handle before it slams against the wall. The point was to make a shocking entrance—not a hole in the wall.
Amelia whirls around on the piano bench, wide-eyed.
I hold up the letter. “This was unacceptable, you little…” She leans closer to see if this will actually be the moment I say something cutting. “Meddler! Beautiful meddler actually, because you’re honestly glowing today—but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m mad at you!”
Amelia smiles. “You are looking beautiful today too.”
“Don’t try to butter me up. You’re in trouble. You Funny-Faced me!”
“Yeah, I did!” Her smile grows. “What was his answer?”
I move to sit on the little couch against the wall and run my hand back and forth over the soft green velvet of the armrest. “You don’t get to know. Meddlers don’t get rewards.”