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“Eat your muffin and I’ll tell you,” Bishop bartered.
I was no longer hungry. But in the interest of getting what I wanted, I did what my companion wanted and extracted the baked good from the paper bag.
Ripping off a chunk, I popped the sweet confection into my mouth and the flavor detonated on my tongue. My eyes shuttered closed momentarily to enjoy the heavenly texture and sugary delight of the blueberry, carby-goodness. When I opened them back up, Bishop was smoldering back at me, hungrily watching the movement of my tongue glide across my lips searching out any remaining sugar particles.
Blushing, I covered my mouth self-consciously and swallowed. “You aren’t eating?” I posed, hoping to deflect some of the attention away from me.
He slowly shook his head. “Nope. I’m here for you. Not the food.”
As far as lines went, that was a good one. “I see. Well, why? I mean, you could have just texted if you had something to tell me.”
Bishop leaned back and grinned that panty-dropping grin of his. “I did text. Two times. Which is twice more than I usually do. You didn’t respond, so I had to resort to drastic measures.”
That brought us back to the present question of how he’d managed to find me. “And what were these drastic measures?”
Bishop looked rather pleased with himself for his cleverness when he said, “Calling in reinforcements. We share a mutual friend who recommended this coffee place to you today.”
It dawned on me then who he was referring to. “Angel.”
“Bless her beautiful heart,” Bishop returned in earnest.
So that’s why my friend had texted about treating myself to a coffee and snack from this bistro today. She was in cahoots with her husband’s biker buddy! I couldn’t be mad though. I didn’t know much about Angel, but I could tell she was the sort to give fate a little push in what she thought was the right direction. If I wasn’t so overwhelmed with life, I would have thought it was really kind of sweet. But, as it stood, I was, so this delectable man was off-limits to me like sweets on a crash diet!
Besides, I wasn’t in a space where I could get into a relationship right now. Between my job, lack of cash, and my past, it was best I kept my nose to the grindstone and ignored this mouth-watering temptation in front of me.
Let’s be real. I was only a temporary distraction to the gorgeous biker. Once he got what he wanted, a quick lay and maybe my strawberry cream cake recipe, he wouldn’t stick around. He’d be off to the next. Maybe even multiple nexts. Like those twins he’d been palling around with at his party. I was merely a challenge to him because he wasn’t used to hearing the word no. Once he realized there was nothing there besides carnal lust, he’d dump me faster than week-old salmon. Since my poor heart couldn’t take that kind of rejection, it was going to have to tell my lady bits to ignore their wants in place of my soul’s needs.
“So, when are you going to let me take you out for dinner?” Bishop pressed.
I had to come clean before this went any further. I was just delaying the inevitable and it wasn’t kind to either of us. “Bishop,” I began carefully, but he cut me off before I could launch into my spiel.
“Call me Matty,” he said with a heart-melting smile. “It’s what my family calls me back home. I’d like to hear you say it.”
I swallowed, trying to remember my train of thought as he looked deep into my eyes. “Um, okay. Matty,” I conceded, “this isn’t going to work.”
He grinned, seeing where I was going with this, and cutting me off at the knees before I could protest further. “Oh, I know it will,” he replied with more confidence than anyone had a right to exude. “Have no doubt about that.”
I pivoted. “And I’m very busy with work.”
“I’ll make sure I get you in bed by a decent hour then,” he returned, a puckish twinkle in his eyes. “Scouts honor.”
“You were a scout?” I asked disbelievingly.
“No, but I take their pledge very seriously,” he replied deadpan.
I giggled despite myself. “Bishop!”
“Matty,” he corrected.
Why did it matter? We weren’t going to be anyone to each other once I left this coffee shop. I needed to get a hold of my imagination and stop fantasizing that we could work out. That he might actually care about me. It was a pipedream and what a little girl would do. Not a full-grown woman who had goals and aspirations she needed to attend to.
“I just can’t do this,” I reiterated. “I’m, I’ve got a lot of baggage,” I confessed, biting my bottom lip nervously.
“And I’m a guy who you met in prison while teaching a life skills course. Shit happens, Babe. But you don’t run away from a good thing when you find it because you’re scared that it might not turn out the way you want it to.”
He had a point, but that didn’t stop me from ignoring it. “I just can’t right now. It’s complicated.”
“Fine. We’ll just start with sex and work our way up to the relationship. I can live with that,” he teased, stealing a bite of my muffin.
