“I probably shouldn’t have said that. Sorry. Residual first date awkwardness. I’m going to go before I tell you about the reproduction of flowers.”
Will doesn’t cringe or look away. He smiles fully and it slips right into the fleshy part of my heart, inflating it like an emergency flotation device. “Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you around town, Annie.”
“I guess you will.”
Then I hop up into my truck. But I hop a little too high and slam my head on the doorframe.
CHAPTER THREE
Will
“How’s your job going these days, Annie?” My date blinks back at me with wide eyes, and I immediately realize my mistake. “Gretchen! Shit. Sorry. That was—”
“The second time you’ve done that since you walked her outside,” Gretchen says quietly, but with an edge. She was completely fine with me spending a few minutes with Annie outside, but after the first name slip, things quickly went south. Understandably.
What a douchebag move to call a date by the name of a different woman. What the hell is wrong with me? I can’t get Annie Walker out of my head for some reason. I keep spacing out and picturing her soft blue eyes and then realizing I’m just staring at the salt and pepper shaker on the table.
It’s an unresolved attraction, that’s all.
During my stint working in Rome, Kentucky, it was always difficult to not pay attention to the youngest Walker sister. The sweet one, everyone says. The quiet one. The cute one. I’ve heard folks in that town refer to Annie as every possible synonym of those words—but never once did they give her the adjective that always sprung into my head when I saw her: gorgeous.
We’d never really talked before because first, I don’t socialize while on the job, and second, I’ve known since the moment I laid eyes on Annie that I needed to stay the hell away from her. Something about her attracts me in an I-could-get-feelings-for-her kind of way. And I don’t do feelings.
But tonight, I talked to her, and it was a colossal mistake. I can’t stop thinking about her.
Even just that short talk with Annie outside of the restaurant was the most I’ve enjoyed a conversation with anyone in a long time. Which is a problem because I’m currently on a date with a woman I can’t seem to focus on. I just keep thinking about how Annie’s entire face lit up and reflected her thoughts. Her wide eyes. Her pink mouth. Her nervousness. I wanted to talk to her all night. Hell, I would have settled for sitting and watching her read her book. I bet she makes all kinds of faces while reading.
And now I realize I’ve done it again. Gretchen said something, and I don’t know what it was. Shit, I don’t deserve to be on a date with her tonight. “Uh—” I smile at her, trying to search my brain to see if any part of it heard her. “Damn, I’m sorry Gretchen. I’m distracted tonight and missed what you said.” I hate that I’m not giving her my full attention. Annie did something to me—she scrambled my brain.
Gretchen pats her lips with her napkin. “It’s okay, I just said that I got a promotion at my job.”
“That’s great. You deserve it.”
“Yeah,” she agrees and then frowns. “To be honest, Will, I feel like I’m having dinner with a brick wall. Is it because of her? Annie?”
I lie, mostly because I want it to be true. “No. Well, sort of. Annie is a family member of the person I’ll be providing security for again starting tomorrow.”
“Rae Rose,” Gretchen says flatly. “You’ve been her security on and off for five years, Will, it’s not a secret. You can just say her name.”
Yeah, but I’ll never do that. I take my job protecting Amelia seriously—and that means never dropping her name. The number of dates I go on where they recognize me from that damn BuzzFeed article is absurd. They always want to know the gossip about Amelia. What’s she like? Is she sweet? Have I ever hooked up with her?
It’s wild to me the intrusive questions people will ask about a celebrity because they think their life is open for public consumption. And by the way, the answer to that last question is a resounding no. I have never, nor will I ever, sleep with Amelia. Like I said, I take my job seriously and sleeping with the person you’re protecting is unprofessional. Not to mention I like to think I have good morals, so sleeping with someone who’s engaged is not appealing. And third, after working for Amelia for so long now, she feels like the little sister I never had.
I don’t want to offend people, though, so I sidestep Gretchen’s statement just like I do everyone else’s. “Anyway my head jumped into work before it was supposed to after seeing Annie. I hate to do it, but I think I’m going to have to cut our date short tonight and head out after dinner.”