“It’s my shitty day special,” he says. “Perfect for those nights.”
I take a sip and it burns so good. The flavor is subtle. I’m usually a mixed drink kind of girl, but this is pretty good. I feel it warm me as it goes down, and I take another sip. Okay, maybe it’s more like a gulp.
“Careful there, sprinkles,” he says. “I wouldn’t drink that too fast.”
“Sprinkles?” I ask.
He grins at me, looking a little sheepish. “Sorry. Sometimes I make up nicknames for my customers. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
“Okay,” I say. “But why am I sprinkles?”
“Your shirt.”
I look down. I forgot I’m wearing the shirt Becca picked out, with the cupcake topped with sprinkles. “Oh, right.”
“Sorry.” He reaches his hand across the bar to shake. I slip mine in his—it feels as nice as it looks. He squeezes my hand a little. “I’m Finn.”
“Juliet.”
“Juliet, huh? How often do you get guys telling you they want to be your Romeo?”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I’ve heard that. And they always think they’re so original, like no one’s ever said that to me before.”
“I can guarantee none of the guys using that line have actually read it,” he says. “That’s like, hi, would you like to have a three-day angst-filled romance that leads to a bunch of deaths, including our own?”
I laugh, and I’m a little impressed that he actually knows Romeo and Juliet. “Right? Don’t get me wrong, I love the story. But it’s such a stupid pick-up line.”
“So, do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
“Talk about what?”
He shrugs and wipes his hands on a white towel. “Whatever’s wrong. Usually when people come in here and say you have no idea, they want to talk about it.”
“It’s kind of a long story.”
He grins again, and god, those dimples. “I like stories.”
Is it completely cliché to sit and spill your troubles to the bartender? Maybe. But why the hell not?
“Well, I came out here for a girls’ weekend, but as you can see I’m currently without girls.”
“Ouch,” he says. “How did that happen?”
“This whole weekend was their idea in the first place,” I say. “They basically ambushed me this morning, packed my bags, and forced me into the car.”
“I don’t know, sprinkles, kidnapping is kind of serious,” he says. “Maybe you should rethink your friends.”
“Right? They wouldn’t even tell me where we were going,” I say. “So, we get out here, and they had a session booked for me with a photographer. That part was actually fun, except the photographer was… well, he was really hot. But extremely married.”
“Extremely? How is one extremely married?”
“His wife came out and she was adorable. And pregnant. But whatever, that’s not the point. After that, we had a late meal, and when we got back to our vacation house, I realized I can’t find the folder with my photos in it.”
His eyes widen. “Folder with photos?”
“Yeah.” I take another drink. “And, um, they aren’t really photos that I want strangers to see. I looked everywhere, and I’m pretty sure I left them at the restaurant we went to earlier. And the guy who worked there was a total creeper. I went back just now to see if they were there, but the restaurant is closed.”
Finn opens his mouth to say something, but now that I’m talking, I let it all spill out.
“So, I can’t find my photos. But the worst part is that my girlfriends are currently puking their guts out with food poisoning. I don’t want to make it sound like I don’t care that my friends are sick, or it’s all about me. It’s way worse for them. I hate that they’re sick, but this whole weekend just keeps getting worse by the minute. Even Mother Nature hates me.” I grab a strand of my sad, damp hair and hold it up.
He laughs.
“Are you laughing at me?” I ask, aghast.
“No, I’m sorry,” he says. “That’s brutal that your friends are sick.”
“Then why are you laughing?”
“You’re just very upset about this.” He slides my drink away. “I’m not sure this qualifies for my shitty day special. Even with puking girlfriends. After all, you managed to avoid praying to the porcelain god. You’re not sick, and you can still have a good weekend.”
I grab the glass and pull it back toward me, but my eyes linger on his hands. This guy is literal hand porn. “I haven’t told you the worst of it.”
“All right, sprinkles,” he says. “Try me.”
I take a deep breath. “The reason we’re out here for a girls’ weekend is that tomorrow is my birthday.”
He raises an eyebrow and slides the drink back toward him. “Oh no. Your birthday.”
“You don’t understand,” I say. “It’s not just any birthday.”
“Uh-oh.” He pretends to look at his watch, although he isn’t wearing one. “I better hang onto this until midnight. You should have told me you were turning twenty-one. I can’t be caught serving a minor.”
“Ha, ha,” I say with an extra dose of sarcasm. “I’m turning twenty-eight.”
“The horror,” he says, totally deadpan.
“I’m serious.” I reach for the drink and my hand brushes against his, sending a little zap through me. “This is a big deal. I had plans for what life would be like at twenty-eight, and they’re not panning out. I’m going to be thirty in two years.”
“Okay, so tomorrow’s your birthday,” he says. “That should be fun. Besides, life begins at thirty. You’re not even there yet.”
“I guess. But it feels like it’s too soon. Plus…” Should I keep talking? He’s so easy to talk to, although it could be the liquid awesome I just drank. “I just got out of a relationship. So I’m starting over. This isn’t where I saw myself at this age.”
“You’re a planner, aren’t you?” he asks, leaning against the bar. “You don’t like feeling out of control. So you make lists, and plans, and you have a trajectory for your life. When things take an unexpected turn, you have a hard time coping with it.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Wow, you’re just going to armchair analyze me?”
“Barstool analyze,” he says. “Sorry, it’s a habit. But, I have some good news for you.”
“Good news? How could you have good news for me?”
He holds up a finger, indicating for me to wait. “I’ll be right back.”
He disappears into the back and when he reappears, my eyes almost pop out of my head. He’s carrying a black folder. My folder. My photos.
“Oh my god,” I say as he slides it across the bar toward me. “Is this—?” I flip it open and close it as fast as I can. Yep. It’s me in lingerie.
He puts up his hands. “I will admit to peeking at the first one, but I swear it was only to see what it was. And I didn’t keep looking. Promise.”
“How the hell did you end up with this?” I ask.
“I’m guessing you ate at The Mariner Grill across the street?” he asks. I nod. “I must have been in there after you. I picked up a sandwich before I came to work, and I noticed the folder sitting on the table.”
“Why did you take it?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Honestly? I picked it up because I was curious. When I saw what it was, I didn’t like the idea of that guy at the restaurant seeing them. I know Ryan, so I was going to call him tomorrow and let him know I found it.”
I’m a little weirded out that he looked, but I’m grateful that he kept them out of the creepy restaurant guy’s hands. It’s actually kind of sweet. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”
He grins. “I aim to please.”
“Well, this is a relief,” I say, patting the folder. “Although I still have to spend my birthday more or less by myself. I don’t think my friends are going to be up for doing much of anything. You can’t really help with that.”
He draws his eyebrow
s together. “Maybe I can.”
“How so?” I ask. “This drink is really good, but I don’t think you have a magical cure for food poisoning.”
“No,” he says. “But I can spend your birthday with you.”
I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. He can what? My heart speeds up a little and I get a tingly feeling in my tummy. “Um, what?”
He smiles again, showing off those adorable dimples. “I’ll hang out with you tomorrow. I live here, so I can show you all the cool things to do. Your friends can rest and recover, and you don’t have to spend your birthday by yourself.”
I bite the inside of my lip. This is so spontaneous. I don’t know anything about this guy. He could be a serial killer, or married (although he’s definitely not wearing a ring—I checked), or—
“Okay,” I hear myself say. Wait, did I just say that? I hardly even thought about it.
“Great,” he says. “Meet me here tomorrow. What time do you want to get started?”
“Nine, I guess?”
He flinches. “Nine? All right, I’ll make that work.”
“Is that too early?” I ask. “We can meet later.”
“No, I’ll be fine,” he says. “It’s quiet tonight, so I won’t be here too late. And I’ll try to go to bed as soon as I get home.”
“Okay,” I say. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”
He smiles and shakes my hand again. “Goodnight, Juliet.”
“Goodnight, Finn.”
6
Finn
Juliet isn’t here yet when I get to the pub in the morning. I take another drink of coffee. Fuck, it’s early. It’s been a while since I was out and about before eleven. Or noon, really.
I thought I recognized Juliet when she walked into my pub last night, but it didn’t click that she was the woman in the photos until she mentioned getting pictures taken. Then I was kicking myself for not realizing who she was sooner. She was dressed, which was the difference I suppose. But it was the same slightly wild light brown hair, dazzling blue eyes, full mouth.
Then she told me about her weekend disasters, and I felt bad for her. She’s clearly not feeling awesome about her birthday. I guess that’s a thing for some women, although I don’t get why it’s a big deal. Having birthdays is better than the alternative. But I hated the thought of her spending the day sitting around while her sick friends recuperate.
Today, I’m not quite so sure this was a good plan. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I have a tendency to run my mouth without thinking and get myself into trouble. I liked chatting with her last night. She was kind of sassy and fun. And she’s definitely beautiful. There are worse things than spending the day with a beautiful woman. But what if I realize she’s not as fun as I thought? What if she’s annoying, or complains a lot, or just isn’t a nice person?
She walks up the street, wearing dark jeans and a trench coat belted at her waist. Her hair is down, and smoother than it was last night. In full daylight, I get a good look at her. My memory wasn’t messing with me—she’s beautiful. I guess we’ll see if this was a mistake or not.
“Happy birthday, sprinkles.” I lift the coffee I brought her. “I don’t know how you take your coffee, or if you drink coffee, but I got you a latte.”
“I love coffee.” She digs into her purse and pulls out a sugar packet.
“Prepared,” I say.
“Always,” she says brightly. I hold the cup for her while she adds the sugar and replaces the lid. “Thank you.”
“So how are your friends doing?”
“Still sick,” she says. “They’re keeping water down, and they both had a few crackers this morning. But they’re hating life.”
“Were they upset about you leaving today?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “A little too enthusiastic about it, actually. If they weren’t relegated to the couch, they would have shoved me out the door.”
I laugh. “Okay, well, what do you want to do?”
Her expression looks a little stunned. “I thought you had a plan.”
“Plan?” I ask. “Not really. I figure we can just go with the flow. What sounds fun?”
Her eyes are wide and she swallows hard. “I… um…”
“Have you had breakfast?” I ask.
“No, not yet,” she says.
“Okay, let’s start with breakfast, and go from there.”
She still looks a little stressed, but she nods.
“What do you like to eat?” I ask.
“Just about anything,” she says. “As long as the place is clean. And no shellfish.”
“Fair enough. I know the perfect place.”
I take her to Old Town Café, which has the best breakfast in town. We order at the counter and take a seat by the window.
“So, Juliet,” I say. “So far, I know that today is your birthday. You like one sugar in your latte. I think what you said last night about getting out of a relationship means you’re single. And you posed for provocative pictures in sheer black lingerie.”
Her face colors a little and she tosses her napkin at me. “Stop it. You said you didn’t look at those.”
I laugh. “I didn’t. Promise. I’m just teasing you. But seriously, tell me something about yourself.”
“Okay,” she says. “I live in West Seattle, and I own my own business.”
“Yeah? What do you do?”
“I’m an organizational consultant,” she says. “People hire me to organize their houses or offices.”
“Interesting.”
“What about you?” she asks. “I know you work at an Irish pub. You drink coffee, and you think nine is early in the morning. What else?”
“I actually own the pub,” I say.
“You own an Irish pub?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I don’t know,” she says, looking me up and down. “You don’t look very Irish.”
“My name is Finn,” I say. “It doesn’t get much more Irish than that.”
She laughs. “I’m sorry, that was probably insensitive of me.”
“No, I’m just giving you a hard time,” I say. “My Dad was Irish, my mom’s Italian. I look a lot like her. I was born in Ireland, though.”
“Really?”
“Yep,” I say. “We moved to the States when I was five.”
“You know, come to think of it, I can hear a hint of an accent,” she says.
“Can you?” I ask. “Some people say that, but most don’t notice.”
“What else? What’s your last name?”
“O’Connor.”
“That does sound Irish,” she says. “Mine’s Blake. Did you grow up out here? After Ireland, I mean.”
“I did. We moved here when I was six, and my dad opened the pub. After my parents got divorced, my mom moved about an hour away. I went back and forth, living with each of them a couple times, before I finally settled with my dad. This town always felt like home.”
Natalie, the owner, brings our breakfasts. “Hey, Finn. Enjoy.”
“Thanks, Natalie.”
We both dig into our food. I have a breakfast sandwich on a fresh English muffin. Juliet ordered an omelet with spinach and feta.
“This is amazing,” she says.
“Yeah, this place is great.” I take another bite. “So where did you grow up?”
“Seattle area,” she says. “My parents are divorced too, so I moved around a few times.”
“College?”
“SPU,” she says. “You?”
“WSU,” I say.
“Uh-oh,” she says. “One of those guys.”
“One of what guys?” I ask.
“Everyone knows WSU is a party school.”
“Okay, that’s actually true,” I say. “But I made it through relatively unscathed.”
“What did you study?”
“Psychology,” I say. “Actually, after WSU, I got my master’s.”
“You have a master’s in psycho
logy, and now you own an Irish pub?” she asks. “How did that happen?”
“My dad died last year.”
She puts down her fork and reaches over to touch my hand. I can tell she’s a little surprised when we touch, like she did it without thinking. But her hand feels good against mine. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Thanks.” I kind of want to turn my hand so I can squeeze hers, but she pulls away. “He had a heart attack. It was unexpected.”
“That must have been so hard.”
“It was,” I say. “But we don’t need to talk about that. It’s your birthday, sprinkles. What should we do with our day?”
Her eyes meet mine and a slow smile crosses her face. I kind of like how it felt to say our day. It’s crazy, but I’m really attracted to her. She’s smiling at me like she kind of likes me too, but I don’t want to make any assumptions. I’m just here to hang out with her so she doesn’t have to be alone on her birthday.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” she says. “I’m not really a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl. Normally I would have planned a whole itinerary for the weekend, but my friends surprised me. And the surprises kind of kept coming. I’m feeling pretty off-balance.”
“Maybe feeling a little off-balance isn’t such a bad thing.” I hold her gaze for a moment, but I’m starting to get hard. Shit. We’re going to be done with breakfast soon, and I don’t want to stand up with an obvious hard-on. “I am a fly by the seat of my pants kind of guy, so what if you let me take the lead today?”
Her cheeks flush and her lips part. “Um… okay.”
“Perfect.”
After breakfast, I decide we’ll do the tourist thing. We start with miniature golf. At first I mean to let her win, but she has a competitive streak that gets my blood pumping. I beat her—barely. After that, we wander around Main Street for a while, going into a few shops. She buys her girlfriends each a Jetty Beach shot glass. I wish I had thought to buy her a birthday present, but it didn’t occur to me this morning. I watch what she looks at, wondering if she’ll give me a clue as to what she might like, although I’m not sure how I’ll pull off buying something without her noticing.
We stop for lunch. Afterward, we pop into the shop next door and I buy her an ice cream cone. The weather is decent, so we wander outside for a while. I keep glancing at her, watching her lick her strawberry ice cream. Her tongue is pretty distracting.
Weekend Fling Page 4