The Bookworm's Guide to Dating

by Hart, Emma

  Elliott’s eyebrows shot up. “No kidding.”

  I nodded slowly. “We used to be pretty good friends. He was really close with one of my best friends, Holley.”

  “Like a relationship?”

  “Oh, no. Just really close friends.” Even if Holley had been half in love with him when we were teenagers—and given how that friendship had ended, I wasn’t going to tell her about his injury. “So he’s out all season?”

  “The doctors seem to think so. He’ll probably come home to do his rehab since I’m here anyway.”

  Yikes. Maybe I would be telling Holley. The last thing I needed was her on my ass if she found out I knew he was coming home.

  “Cool.” I smiled.

  “You’re not really interested in sports, are you?”

  I shook my head. “I hike the trails when the tourists aren’t around, but that’s mostly just an excuse to listen to audiobooks.”

  He laughed, and our conversation devolved into what was, admittedly, a completely comfortable discussion. We covered everything from his favorite books to our favorite movies, and we only stopped talking when our food was delivered.

  Of course, that was when I became acutely aware of the eyes pinned to my back. I didn’t need to turn around to know there were four pairs of eyes trained my way, maybe five if Saylor had grabbed Tori. I doubted that because she was building a new website for a client, but I wasn’t going to turn around and let Elliott know we were being watched.

  Especially by my brother.

  CHAPTER TWELVE – JOSH

  rule twelve: your dating life is not a romance novel trope.

  “I don’t like him.”

  Holley rolled her eyes as she looked at Colt. “You’re only saying that because she’s your sister.”

  “Why the fuck am I here?”

  “Because we wanted to spy on her and didn’t want to make it obvious,” Saylor answered honestly, sipping her vodka and cranberry juice through the straw. Her gaze was focused solely on the table where Kinsley and Elliott were sitting, and I was glad I had my back to them.

  I didn’t want to see her.

  If I’d known she was here on a date with the guy she’d told me she didn’t like, I never would have come.

  Although, judging by the way Saylor kept glancing at me, I think she knew that.

  I didn’t know how she knew that, but she was smart as a whip, and I was seriously starting to think that she suspected I had feelings for Kinsley.

  I didn’t know where she’d gotten the idea, but here I was—wondering when she was going to spit it out.

  “They seem like they’re getting along,” Holley said, capturing her own straw between her lips. “Better than the other guy, anyway.”

  “That’s hardly competition,” Saylor replied, never looking away from them.

  I wasn’t going to turn around. I wasn’t going to turn around. I was not going to turn around.

  I fucking turned around.

  Kinsley’s back was to us, but there was no denying that she was having a good time. Her dark hair hung down her back in loose waves, and she shook it out while she laughed at something he’d said.

  “Thought you said she didn’t like the latest guy,” Colton said, nudging me. “Don’t tell me she’s finding dates on her own.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, man.”

  And I didn’t. I knew this was Elliott, the physical therapist guy she’d told me she didn’t click with over text. I’d seen his fucking picture, for Christ’s sake.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  I turned at the sound of Saylor’s voice, frowning at her smirk. “What do you mean?”

  “You look like you’ve been kicked in the balls.” She sat back and sipped her drink again.

  “She told me she didn’t like him. I’m just wondering why she lied, that’s all.” I shrugged and finished my beer. “Anyone need another drink?”

  Colton and Holley both said yes, but it was—unsurprisingly—Saylor who decided to join me to go to the bar.

  “I’m hungry,” she said by way of defense, even though I hadn’t asked her why she was coming. “And I don’t trust you not to fuck up my food. Actually, I don’t trust anyone to not fuck up my food.”

  I shook my head as we got in line for the bar. It was stupidly busy in here tonight, and I wasn’t holding out much hope of food anytime soon if the packed tables were anything to go by.

  We stood side by side as we waited. Saylor wasn’t exactly someone I’d ever spent a lot of one-on-one time with. We didn’t have a whole lot in common except for our friends, which made her eyeing me right now extra suspicious.

  “Say it,” I said after a long moment of her pretending like she wasn’t looking at me.

  “Say what?” Innocence tinged her tone, but her wide-eyed stare wasn’t fooling me.

  Mostly because I knew Saylor was anything but innocent.

  “Say whatever is on your mind, because if this carries on much longer, I’m going to leave and stiff you with my bill.”

  She barked out a laugh. “What a gentleman you are, Josh.”

  “Never claimed to be,” I muttered. “Spit it out.”

  A moment of silence, and then, “You like her.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I took a step forward in the line.

  So did she. “Yes, you do.”

  “I really don’t.”

  “Kinsley.”

  “What about her?”

  “You like her.”

  “Of course I like her. She’s a great girl. Known her a long time.”

  “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

  “Like I said, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I stepped forward again.

  Saylor was displaced by a few people trying to shove in the line, but she shut them out with a sharp, “Hey! Fuck off to the back of the line!” and muscled back in next to me. “Fucking tourists,” she muttered.

  At least that bought me a moment of reprieve.

  “You like Kinsley. You have feelings for her.” She said it very matter-of-factly.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I repeated again, staring at the bar that was approximately three people away from us.

  “Yes, you do.” She grabbed my bicep and forced me to look down at her with a rough tug. “I can see it, Josh. You think you aren’t watching them, but you are. You’ve had a face like thunder all night, and you’re absolutely horrific company. What do you expect me to think?”

  “I think you lured me here tonight under false pretenses so you can fit me into whatever narrative you’ve built in your mind.” I stepped forward again. “I don’t know where you got these ideas, Saylor, but you couldn’t be more wrong.”

  “Oh, fuck off. You’ve got feelings for her. You were mad when you thought she wore that hot as hell dress, happy when she didn’t, thought she was beautiful, got a boner, and were glad her date went to shit.”

  “Why don’t you just put all that on a billboard in the town square, hmm?”

  “So I’m right.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You implied it.”

  “Saylor. Fuck off.”

  She shuffled forward and pressed her side against mine as a waitress with a tray full of drinks passed us by. “No, I won’t. Why don’t you just admit it? I can see you have feelings for her. It’s not a crime.”

  She wasn’t going to let this go.

  Fuck sake.

  “She’s Colton’s sister,” I said in a low voice. “It’s all irrelevant.”

  “I don’t think it is.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not me, so what you think doesn’t matter.”

  “Are you admitting you have feelings for her?”

  “I’m not admitting shit,” I snapped. I didn’t mean to, but apparently tonight had put me in a foul mood. “Just because you put something in my mouth doesn’t make it true.”

  She eyed me, but she didn�
�t say a word as we stepped up to the bar. Ivy and Holley’s mom, Jasmine, was on the other side, and she greeted us with a beaming smile that was reminiscent of both her daughters.

  “Josh, Say!” Her tone matched her smile. “How are you both?”

  “We’re well, thank you, Mrs. Stuart,” I replied. “Can we get some drinks and food to our table?”

  “Sure can, darlin’. And I’ve told you—call me Jasmine.” She whipped a notebook out of thin air and leaned on the bar. “What can I get you?”

  Saylor rattled off the order for the entire table, and I added my own food order of loaded dirty fries. Jasmine called it through to the kitchen and turned to do our drinks. Within a few minutes, she’d added everything to our tab and had all four of our drinks on a tray in front of us.

  “I’ll take that,” Saylor said, grabbing the edges of it. “I’d hate if you fell over staring at Kinsley.”

  “I’m not going to fall over with our drinks,” I drawled.

  “Yeah? Then stop looking at her.”

  Fuck sake. I was looking at her again.

  Why did Saylor know everything?

  She was really starting to piss me off.

  I focused my gaze back on the table. “Don’t talk about this in front of Colton, yeah?”

  She eyed me like she thought I was an idiot. She probably did, to be honest.

  “I’m not dumb, Josh,” she said, clearing a path for me. “You are, but I’m not.”

  “Thanks.” My tone was dry, but if she noticed, she showed absolutely no signs of caring. I wasn’t surprised by that at all.

  That said, I was already regretting pseudo-admitting my feelings about Kinsley.

  Not that I thought Saylor would tell Colton anything—or anyone else for that matter. She was a pain in the ass, but she was a loyal pain in the ass.

  She’d keep it secret for Kinsley’s sake, if nothing else.

  We rejoined the table, and I slid the tray on the sticky surface. As Saylor and I took our seats, both Holley and Colton grabbed their drinks and turned their attention back to Kins and Elliott on their date.

  They were eating, and so there wasn’t a lot of conversation going on by the looks of things. Thankfully, I was fully able to stare at them since everyone else at the table was, too.

  And I hated it.

  Really fucking hated it.

  I was pissed that she’d lied to me. I was pissed that I was here. I was pissed that I’d been tricked into being here.

  To see her out with the guy she’d lied to me about.

  This was never going to work if we couldn’t be honest with each other.

  I almost snorted. That was rich, coming from me. It wasn’t like I’d ever been truly honest with Kinsley, and there wasn’t a chance that I could be.

  I’d already toed the line one too many times in the last few days.

  ***

  “You’re about as subtle as a snowstorm.” Kinsley sat next to me in the booth and shoved me with her elbow so I’d move up.

  I moved up.

  “It was her idea,” Holley said, cocking her thumb toward Saylor.

  “It was her idea,” Saylor repeated, copying Holley’s motion.

  Kins looked at me. “Well? Whose idea was it?”

  I sipped my beer. “Not a fucking clue.”

  Colton grunted. “I don’t care whose fault it was, the next time you ask me to come for a drink, I’m gonna tell you to fuck off.”

  All three girls rolled their eyes—simultaneously, I’d fucking swear it.

  That was some skill.

  “Where’s everyone else?” Kins asked, looking at Holley and Saylor.

  “Ivy and Kai are at dinner with his parents, and Tori is at home undoing some mess one of her clients made of her website,” Holley answered. “She used a lot more fucks when she told me.”

  Now that I could believe. Fuck was Tori’s favorite word.

  “So how was the date?” Saylor leaned forward on the table, using a napkin to wipe away some water. “It looked like you were getting along well.”

  I was going to kill her.

  Colton looked how I felt, though. I was glad one of us didn’t have to keep that cooped up.

  Kinsley glanced at both me and her brother. “It went really well, actually. It was a little awkward at times, but I think we might go out again.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Really.”

  She turned to me and stared. “What’s with the tone of voice?”

  “You told me you don’t like him.”

  “I changed my mind. Is that illegal?”

  “No, but I don’t know why you didn’t tell me.”

  “Because I wasn’t aware I had to tell you every single little thing,” she said, reaching for her glass of wine. “Evidently, I was mistaken.”

  I fought the urge to clench my jaw in annoyance. “No, but it would have been nice to be made aware since I’m the one who’s supposed to find you a date.”

  “Well, you found me one.”

  “It would have been nice to have been told.”

  “Am I missing something?” Colton looked between us. “What’s up with you two?”

  “Nothing.” I swigged from my beer bottle. “I just don’t appreciate being lied to.”

  “Yeah, well, neither do I.” Kinsley finished her wine and got up, taking the empty glass with her.

  A hush fell over the table with her departure, and everyone stilled for a moment until Holley and Saylor rushed after her in the direction of the bar.

  Colton stared after them, then looked at me. “Seriously. Am I missing something?”

  I said nothing, because I knew the answer was yes. But nobody else other than Saylor knew I had feelings for his sister, and even then she didn’t know just how deep they ran.

  I didn’t even know myself until I saw her having a good time with another guy tonight.

  And that fucking sucked.

  I rubbed my hand down my face and blew out a long breath when I dragged my fingers over my jaw. “I’m glad I’m a builder and not a professional matchmaker.”

  Colt snorted. “You and everyone else, man. You know you can just tell her you don’t want to do it anymore, don’t you?”

  “I might have to. If she’s not going to be honest with me, I can’t help her.”

  He grunted, looking away, and we fell into a silence that was only broken by our respective sipping of our beers.

  I needed to get ahold of my shit. I’d come too close tonight to letting my true feelings be known in front of him.

  Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the girls to return from the bar. They also came bearing two more bottles of beer, but both Colt and I rejected them. We were already on our second drinks and both had to drive home, so Saylor and Holley shrugged and kept them for themselves.

  Kinsley sat next to me again even though I was pretty sure she wanted to be anywhere else but here. She peered over the table at her brother. “Spoken to Amber today?”

  Colt let loose another grunt, but this one held more frustration than the last. “I’m heading over there after this beer. I found a house I want to look at this week, and I’m buying one whether she likes it or not.”

  “Oh, that conversation is going to go well,” Saylor muttered, drinking the beer she’d intended for him.

  Just to rub salt in the wound.

  Colt opened his mouth, but Kinsley beat him to it. “Yeah, yeah, we know. She wants you to move in with her so you can have a baby, but her apartment is smaller than yours and she doesn’t own it, so what’s the point when you’ve saved up enough for your dream house?”

  “His dream house is going to be completed next week,” I said dryly. “And he only wants the house because he wants to steal my idea of a man cave in the basement.”

  At that, Colt smirked. “Who wouldn’t want a man cave in the basement?”

  “I’d take a library,” Kinsley said.

  “But not in the basement,” Holley added. “In a castle.
With ladders. And enchanted teapots that talk and tell me I’m pretty.”

  “Hell, I’d take the beast for all that.” Saylor finished the detour with a raise of her bottle, and all three clinked their drinks.

  “What are they talking about?” Colt asked me.

  “Beauty and the Beast,” I replied without missing a beat. “What? Piper used to love that movie as a kid. At one point, she used it for blackmail. Like if I watched it with her, she wouldn’t tell our parents I’d cut all the hair off her Barbie again.”

  “You used to cut the hair off her Barbie?” Kinsley’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s low.”

  “No, I didn’t,” I said. “Didn’t mean my parents believed me when she told them I had, though.”

  “Aw, man, that’s genius. Why did she never share that with me?”

  Colton frowned. “Hey! You were way more of a little shit when we were kids than I was.”

  Holley snorted. “No.”

  “Yeah, no,” Saylor agreed.

  “She used to beat me with books!”

  “And you deserved it every time.” Kinsley calmly sipped her wine. “As Lisa Kleypas once said, “A well-read woman is a dangerous creature.” But not because she’s smart, but because she’s always got a weapon on hand.”

  “Who’s Lisa Kleypas?” Colton asked.

  “And did she really refer to a book as a weapon?” I followed up.

  She blinked at us both. “An author, and no. The latter is a Kinsley original, thank you. And a warning.”

  “Terrifying,” I muttered.

  “Watch it. I’ll beat you with a dictionary.”

  “She will,” Holley assured me. “She might not look strong, but I’ve watched her haul encyclopedias around like they’re nothing.”

  “Let me guess—a hidden talent of bookworms? Superhuman strength?”

  Saylor grinned.

  “No,” Kinsley mused. “But we do have extraordinarily strong fingers.”

  “I don’t think I want to be part of this conversation anymore.” Colt drained the rest of his beer and got up. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said to me, throwing a wave over his shoulder to the girls.

  I waited until he’d gone. “Why do you have strong fingers?”

  All three of them mimed licking their fingers and flipping the page of a book.