Page 18 of The Perfect Heart

“On edge?” Jonas’s forehead creased. “How so?”

“She’s always jumping at shadows, any loud noise startles her, and she’s always looking around like she expects trouble. And if that’s not weird enough, she hasn’t cashed any of the paychecks I’ve given her since she started working here.”

My buddy’s eyebrows inverted, rising closer to his hairline again, and he let out a low whistle. “That sounds kind of serious, dude. What the hell is going on?”

“That’s my question,” I sighed.

“Wait, hold up—” Jonas held up his hand, a physical action to match his words. “You haven’t just asked her what’s going on?”

“No—” I started.

“Why not?”

The word stupid floated around the edges of my friend’s words, even if he hadn’t said it out loud. Yet, anyway.

“Because it’s complicated. Everything about this feels complicated.” I shook my head again, running a hand over my curls. “I don’t want to push her. I’ve tried a couple of times to get her to open up, but she shuts me down and clams up. If I go too hard, I’m going to”—I paused, looking for another word but couldn’t find one—“push her away.”

Jonas rolled his eyes, his opinion on that clear. But Nicole interrupted before he could voice it.

“Hey, Nash.”

She dumped a couple of beer glasses into the sink, her smile bright as her gaze raked me from head to toe. I heard a snort from Jonas but ignored it.

“What’s up? Table three ready for more?” I was already reaching for the glasses.

“They’re good for now.” Nicole stepped closer, her smile melting to something a little closer to suggestive to match the look in her eyes as she laid a hand lightly on my arm. “Actually, I was thinking that we haven’t hung out in a while. You want to come over after work? Maybe watch a movie?”

Unlike last night with Halle, I knew that we wouldn’t be watching a movie if I accepted Nicole’s invitation, and Jonas’s second snort indicated that he knew it too. And for a heartbeat, I almost relented, her touch renewing a ghost of the spark she and I had shared.

I hadn’t told Jonas that I’d had more than a simple moment with Halle. Last night’s arousal hadn’t left when I’d left Halle’s apartment—I could still feel it thrumming beneath my skin. My fingers remembered the feel of her leg in her leggings, itched for that feeling again, and possibly the skin beneath. It was enough that I had been distracted all day.

Spending the night with Nicole would be a good outlet. Maybe I could stop focusing on my movie night with Halle and return to running my bar.

But I looked up at a feeling on the back of my neck to meet Halle’s gaze across the room. She watched my exchange with Nicole with an odd look in her eye I couldn’t decipher, the corners of her mouth turned down. But as soon as our eyes met, she jerked her head away, and it was gone. And the spark for Nicole died out as quickly as it had ignited.

“Nash?”

Shaking away the odd feeling creeping across my chest, I returned my attention to Nicole, whose hand had begun to stroke up and down my arm.

“Sorry, I can’t. I need to get some work done for the bar.”

It wasn’t a total lie. Thanks to something my accountant had sent over, I knew I would be here even later than usual. But it was also an excuse, and from the way Nicole’s eyes flashed and narrowed, her lips thinning, she knew it.

Throwing a glare at Halle’s back, Nicole turned without another word, her dark ponytail whipping as she stomped away.

A chuckle made me turn to find Jonas watching me with a grin.

“Seems you have your hands full with the women in your life,” he quipped before sipping his beer. But his eyes still glimmered with amusement over the glass.

“Fuck you.”

“Thought I wasn’t your type?”

I rolled my eyes and returned to work to the sound of Jonas’s laughter.

Chapter 9

Halle