by K. Bromberg
“Clearly,” she says wryly above the rim of the glass.
“You’ve either been dumped recently or are getting over a breakup,” I add out of selfish curiosity to see if she has a boyfriend, and the little grimace she gives in response tells me I hit the nail on the head.
No boyfriend, then. I file it away for thought.
“And you’re escaping—” She lifts an eyebrow. “Yes, you’re escaping whatever it is that troubles you . . . perhaps that's why you can’t seem to finish that novel of yours.”
Her head whips up, and she’s on the defensive immediately, as she should be. “What? How? Why? You looked me up!”
I hold up my hands in defense, a chuckle falling from my lips. “I’m letting a strange woman stay in a part of my house. I’m sure as shit going to look them up and make sure they aren’t a serial killer. It’s only prudent on my part to check out the person I’m giving keys to.” She opens her mouth to speak and then shuts it just as quickly. “I didn’t mean any harm by it. Honestly. You mentioned on social media you were struggling with your book. I put two and two together and . . .”
“And you assumed. You know what they say about people who assume.”
My smile is quick. So is my shrug. “As a woman who uses her words for a living, I’m sure you’re more than willing to let me know.”
Our eyes hold for a beat as a sly smile curves her lips. “For the record, Saint, I got the hell out of Dodge because I wanted to find some random town with an even more random and sexy man. One who would pin me against the wall while kissing me senseless before carrying me off to have some wild, bed shaking sex. A little—or hopefully a lot of—something to take my mind off my dumpster fire of a love life and the train wreck my creativity seems to have fallen victim to.” She lifts the glass of wine and finishes the rest of it in one long gulp. “Is that the answer you were looking for?”
I’m not sure if I should applaud her endgame or raise my hand and volunteer as tribute. Regardless, I bark out a laugh and lean across the bar top to get closer to her. “If that’s the case, Humbug, you’ve come to the right place. We’re as random here as random can get. And as for the second part . . .” My eyes flicker to her lips and then back to her eyes just as she abruptly stands from her seat, confusing me. “Wait. Where are you going?” I ask, not ready for this conversation to end.
“If you’re saying this is the destination I was looking for, then shit, I better start looking around for the sexy guy portion of it.”
“Oof.” I thump the side of my fist to my heart as if I’ve just stabbed myself. “That was brutal.”
She stops mid-motion from sliding a ten-dollar bill under her empty glass and offers a lift of her eyebrows. “I guess that depends on what side of the conversation you’re on.”
I glance down at the money. “Keep your money. The wine was on the house.”
“Then put it toward my dinner.”
“But you’re leaving,” I say, and hate that it comes out with a tinge of desperation to it.
She points to the booth in the corner that a couple just vacated. “I think I’ll get more work done sitting there than if I stay here.”
“True.” I pick up her empty wineglass. “Plus, it’ll give you a view of the entire bar,” I say, motioning to the expanse of bar top that stretches the length of the room.
“And why would I need that?”
“Because that’s where I’ll be, and since taking your eyes off me is proving to be a challenge for you, it’ll give you the best vantage point.” My grin is wide as I turn and walk down said length of the bar and give her a good look at my ass she was staring at earlier.
Harley Humbug.
Of all the gin joints in town, she picks this one.
Then again, that old saying doesn’t hold water.
We are the only gin joint. Hell, we’re the only joint whatsoever.
5
Harley
I take the table that's one side chairs, one side booth, because it’s the only one, not because it gives me an incredible view of Saint.
There’s no way I’d give him the satisfaction.
I tell myself this all the while his expression from when I told him I wanted to be held against the wall and kissed senseless replays over and over in my mind.
I wasn’t exactly lying, but I was more so saying it for shock value.
The problem is that Saint’s response wasn’t what I was expecting, and now I’ve superimposed the faceless man I wanted to kiss me, then bed me, with his.
And it’s not a bad fantasy to be had.
Too bad I made a promise to myself. One I intend to stick to.
Pulling my laptop and notebook out of my bag, I glance his way. He looks up at the same time, and our eyes meet. That arrogant smirk that he caught me looking owns his face.
His very handsome face.
“Ugh,” I groan. I don’t need this distraction right now. Not in the least.
I open my laptop, as I’ve done so many times over the past few weeks, to see the blinking cursor.
It’s just romance. It’s just words that end with sex. Write it, Harley. Write about two people connecting again after so long.
Write about two wrongs and making them right again.
With a deep breath, I place my fingers on the keys, but this time, I have thoughts. Thoughts that manifest into words. Words that are considerably coherent.
And I’m not even the littlest bit ashamed that art is imitating life as I type.
* * *
“I knew you’d be back.”
I look up and meet the eyes of the only man I’ve ever loved . . . and the only man I’ve ever let break my heart. Luke. He’s tall, rugged, with a rough cut jaw, full lips, and piercing blue eyes. Eyes that tell me he’s missed me as much as I’ve missed him over the past year.
“Of course, I’d be back. For work. For my family. This is my home.” I chuckle to hide the hurt seeing him causes. “But not for you.” I all but choke on the lie as every part of me wants to fist my hands in his shirt and pull his mouth to mine.
“And yet you came here, knowing I’d be here.” He angles his head to the side and studies me. All six foot three of him owns the space behind the bar. The bar his family has owned for over fifty years.
“Old habits die hard.” I take a sip of the glass of wine he slides across the bar and wonder why I did in fact come here.
But I know.
Haven’t I known since the minute I left here with visions that I was destined for greatness in Hollywood, that I’d be back? That the time away would only reinforce the one thing I knew for certain? That Luke Wethers was the love of my life, even if he didn’t believe he was.
“They sure do,” he murmurs in a way that has hope fluttering in my belly.
Ignore it, Sophie. He told you he didn’t love you. He told you it was nothing but good sex and fun times. He told you he didn’t want you.
And yet our eyes hold, and I see so much more in his eyes—longing, sadness, affection, love—and my confusion deepens further.
* * *
“You working?”
Startled, I look up to find Vix standing there with her hands on her hips and her eyes glancing at my screen and then back to me.
Ah, so Saint told her what I do for a living. I wait for the questions to come but am pleasantly surprised when they don’t.
Maybe he didn’t tell her.
“Yeah. Just trying to play catch up,” I say, more distracted than not that my train of thought was just disrupted.
“Saint says you need dinner.”
“Does Saint always have a habit of bossing people around?” I tease as I glance over her shoulder to the man himself.
“Only when he likes you.” Her smile is quick, and the laugh that falls from her lips is knowing. “So, what’ll it be?”
I glance down to the menu and make a quick decision.
“Another glass of wine?” she asks.
“Why the hell not?�
� I shrug as a table to our left erupts in laughter. “Are you always this busy?”
“Only every day that ends in Y,” she says. “I’ll get that out to you as soon as it’s done.”
“Thank you.”
Excited that I’m writing for the first time, I read the words on my screen again and then laugh when I realize I’m envisioning Saint every time I type Luke and me in the role of Sophie.
“Whatever works,” I mutter as I begin to write again.
* * *
“You missed me,” I tell Luke as he fills a drink order.
“Not any more than I miss anyone else who leaves this town.”
“You’re lying,” I push, looking for something—anything—to get him to admit that his feelings are still there, still burning bright like mine are.
“How’s Hollywood?”
“It’s . . .” Different without you. Lonely. “Hollywood.” I shrug. “A lot of people, a lot of competition, a lot of everything.” I muster a half-smile.
“And it seems like you’re taking it by storm.” He wipes his hand on the towel tucked into the waistband of his pants.
“I got lucky.”
“A recurring role on the hottest sitcom on air? I’d call that more than lucky.” He holds a finger up to someone looking for his attention. “I’m surprised you could remember your way back here.”
His words sting. They feel hurtful on purpose, leaving me wondering what I ever did to him.
Other than leave him behind.
“Like I said, Luke. This is my home. I’ll always want to come back here.”
“Yeah, well, that’s fine. . . until you don’t want to come back here anymore.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Never mind.” He gives me a half-cocked smirk that owns every part of me before he moves down the length of the bar top where a trio of college-age girls giggle and bat their lashes at him while he takes their order.
Jealousy flares.
Even more so when he glances my way and knows that I see him flirting with them.
That could have been me. Still in school, still coming here and hanging on every one of Luke’s words, and passing up the once in a lifetime opportunity.
But I couldn’t. Dreams are there to chase for a reason.
Too bad I had hoped he’d chase them with me.
* * *
When I look up, there is a group of women with sorority sweatshirts on, talking to Saint. I do a double take, startled by the sight and the similarity to what I was just writing.
I stare for a beat and my breath catches when Saint looks my way and smiles. “You good?” he mouths the words.
I nod quickly in response before averting my eyes back to my screen, embarrassed as if he knows I’m writing about him.
But a slow smile slides onto my lips as I realize I’m writing. Actually writing.
How did I not see this plot all along? How did I not realize how Luke was pushing Sophie away because he knew with one word from him, she’d stay in that Podunk town and never chase her dreams? How did I not see that he truly believed in her and her talent and was simply doing what was best for her? How did I not understand he was hurting her so she wouldn’t blame him later for it?
And more than anything, how did I not see that he’s smiling through the pain because he still truly loves her?
The adrenaline hits. It’s been months since I’ve felt the high of finally understanding my story and wanting to write like the wind. Of worrying that I won’t be able to type as fast as my thoughts fly.
So simple, and yet it felt like I was trying to prove Einstein's Theory of General Relativity over the past few months.
I mumble thanks to Vix when she slides my plate of food next to me, but don’t look away from the screen as I build the scene. One word upon another until the sexual tension is so thick the reader will all but beg for it to be broken.
* * *
“What’s your problem, Luke?” I ask as he strides past me. The air is full of sounds and thick with the scents of the annual town carnival. The same carnival we shared our first kiss five years ago. “Hey. I’m talking to you,” I shout after him, but he keeps walking as if he can’t hear me. As if he doesn’t care and that hurts even worse.
It’s been a week since I’ve been back, and if there’s a way for him to avoid me, he’s made sure to find it
I should take the hint that we really are over. I should let go of the hope I’ve been holding close to my heart. And yet, I keep remembering the way he looked at me in the bar that first night back to town.
I know he still loves me.
Without giving it a second thought, I jog after him behind the Main Street Feed Store.
“Luke. Luke!” I shout until he stops and turns to face me. The muscle in his jaw twitches as the moonlight washes over his face and my heart falls to the ground.
Tears threaten, but I force myself to push them away.
“Why do you hate me?” I ask him, my voice so very quiet.
“I don’t hate you. I never have.” He takes a step toward me.
“Then why can’t you just be happy for me? Why can’t you be nice?” I all but beg and hate the desperation in my voice.
“I am being nice.”
“That’s bullshit. You’ve done everything you can to push me away or avoid me over the past week. You’ve purposefully—”
I go to grab his arm as he strides past me, and before I can process one heartbeat to the next, Luke has me spun around and pinned to the wall of the building behind me. His hands tighten on my wrists as he stares at me in a frustrated anger I’ve never seen from him before.
“Don’t push me, Sophie,” he grits out.
Those words urge me to do just that as I try to yank my wrists from his grip. “Why? Why not, huh?”
“Because this town, this place, it’s not what’s best for you. You don’t belong here anymore. We don’t want you here anymore.”
I hiccup over a sob as his words tear through me and break my heart all over again. “Luke. Please.” The first tear slips down my cheek, and I hate myself for it. “Why can’t we at least be friends? Why can’t—”
“Because, as you said, old habits die hard.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
There is a moment where I feel like the world fades away. Where it feels like the Ferris wheel stops turning, the crowd stops making noise, and my lungs stop breathing.
Luke releases my wrists and slides a hand to my throat, where he places it just short of its hollow, his thumb brushing back and forth over my collarbone. His eyes flicker to my lips and then back to my eyes as a whole host of confusing emotions rage within their blue depths.
“Christ,” he mutters, seconds before his lips crash against mine.
Moments before everything that’s been wrong with my world suddenly rights itself.
From the taste of his kiss. The feel of his lips. The swell of my heart.
The feeling like I’m home.
* * *
I jolt when someone blows a noisemaker across the room from me seconds before everyone joins in singing “Happy Birthday” to Ed. Whoever Ed is.
That’s my cue for a break.
6
Harley
I shake my head as I leave the bathroom. It shouldn’t surprise me that it’s all decked out in Christmas décor as well.
It’s par for the course in this weirdly fascinating town.
I take my time heading back to my table that Vix said she’d watch for me and check out the black and white pictures lining the walls. And I was right. They’re all pictures of Saint Nick’s Hollow during various decades.
Despite the growth that’s documented from one picture to the next, one thing is still the same: the town’s obsession with Christmas and the holidays.
It’s kind of cool.
I shake my head and chuckle. There is something definitely wrong with me if that thought is crossing my mind.
>
With a quick glance behind the bar as I make my way back to my seat, I’m more than disappointed when Saint’s nowhere in sight.
I tell myself my disappointment stems from the fact that he—the flirting with him—is what helped to get my creativity going, but I know the truth.
Saint makes me feel good. He looks at me in a way my ex never did. Like I’m beautiful and desired, and there is no shame in wanting to be looked at like that again.
When I reach my table, I’m surprised to see Saint leaned back in my booth, arms crossed over his chest, and one eyebrow lifted as he studies me.
I stand there for a beat until I notice that my laptop is open with my screen lit up as if someone—meaning Saint—was just looking at what I was writing. Without asking, I snap the lid of it closed and question myself over whether I left it open or if he opened it and snooped.
Either way, I round on him and his blasé expression, annoyed as hell, wondering how much of an ass I’ll look like when I accuse him and he says he didn’t.
“You left it open,” he says, answering my question for him, but I don’t know if I believe him.
“That wasn’t an invitation for you to help yourself to its content.”
He twists his lips and continues to stare at me with those inquisitive eyes. “Why are you embarrassed about what you write?”
“I’m not.”
“Hostility. It’s always welcome from a gorgeous woman.” He winks, and I hate that I want to smile at his ridiculous statement.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Do you always make it a habit to apologize to men you’ve just met?”
“No. I don’t.”
You just fluster me when I’m not a woman who gets flustered easily, so I don’t know how to handle it.
“So why are you embarrassed that you write romance?” he asks again and earns a snort from me.