Page 2 of Studfinder

I glare back at Jake, squeezing my entire face like a child sticking out her tongue at my nemesis. I don’t know what it is about Jake, but something about him raises the hackles on my neck and dampens my underwear at the same time.

As Roderick pours my coffee and sets my cupcakes in a bag, my foot taps impatiently. I’m a bundle of nerves and need to get out of here if I can’t sit here to relax.

“Two Dark Horse Mochaccino cupcakes and a dark roast for the plush peach couch defender.” Roderick winks at me, before eyeing the man hogging my spot.

“Next time I come in here, he better not be taking up space in my place.”

Roderick laughs. “Now, Rita, as much as we love you, you know we can’t reserve you a spot, nor will we kick patrons out if they sit there first.”

Jake can hear Roderick from his seat, and he lifts his mug to salute Roddy’s words.

“Well, we’ll just see about that,” I snap, preparing for battle over a set of cushions in a coffeehouse.

“I look forward to the challenge,” Jake mocks from his seat on said couch, and then he has the audacity to wink at me. He winks. Quickly, I turn my back on the hunky, smirky, sexy silver fox and strut across the wooden planks to exit the Busy Bean. Only as I use my backside to push the door open, I glance back at Jake Drummond once more and find him watching me with those cinnamon hot lips quirked up on one side, and I realize he’s going to be difficult to ignore as he recently started to work with me.

2

Jake

That Rita Kaplan is a pain in my ass. Not only would she not sign off on my meeting sheet a week ago, but she is the supervisor where I work, and now she’s staking claim to some antique piece of furniture in a coffee shop. She’s insane. And something about her makes me want to push all her buttons. Push her and her buttons right up against a wall and fuck some sense into her.

Jesus, Jake. I swipe a hand down my face and fall back on the cushions, not realizing how tense I’d been in her presence. The tension is due to my absence on the sex scene and the need to expel some seriously pent-up energy soon. Only problem is not many women are interested in an ex-arson investigator, ex-convict, and ex-husband. The final ex doesn’t really define me, but it fits with all the other things I’ve been ex-ed out of in the last decade.

With a shaky hand, I lift the coffee mug of dark roast to my lips and sip. In my opinion, people do not appreciate good coffee enough. I get it they’ll pay exorbitant amounts for a decent brew, but do they actually savor the flavor, the satisfaction, and the downright joy of drinking a good cup of coffee? I know I didn’t until I had to live with the piss-poor sludge served in the state penitentiary. As far as prisons go, it wasn’t the worst. It wasn’t riddled with gang warfare and boyfriend swapping like I’ve heard of in other places. This was Vermont. We’re all grunge-happy, ice cream royalty, organic farming, and woodland animal safety. Cue the bitterness of being trapped like an animal for seven long fucking years.

Taking a deep breath, I remind myself I’m free. I’m liberated from schedules and constraints, and someone telling me when I can shower, shit, and watch television. I’m able to be me, only I no longer know who that is. I’m also not one-hundred percent unshackled. I still have the mandatory parole period, including enforced work-placement and required AA meetings. It’s a cross I’ll bear to get me to the other side—true freedom and possible escape from Vermont. As soon as I’ve done the remainder of my time, I am outta here, said with all the lackluster gangster in me. I want to be so far gone from this place, this state, and all the haunting memories.

The thought saddens me as I’m finally able to see my brother without a partition between us or a supervisor watching over me as we sit at a folding table in cold chairs. Soon, I will see my nephew, who is no longer a teenager but a grown adult. Rory has come far despite the fumbles and foils of two men trying to raise a reckless boy into a good man. Just this summer, he’ll be graduating from law school. My heart fills with pride while bittersweet over Rory’s accomplishments. So much had been sacrificed to ensure he became more than his father or myself.

Willing away thoughts of things I cannot change, I brush my hand over the velvety worn material on this ugly couch and chuckle. Rita returns to my mind. Who does that woman think she is? Thinking she holds the rights to a piece of furniture in a public coffeehouse?

The first time I met Rita Kaplan was at an AA meeting a week ago. The local church hosts them in their basement, and as part of my parole, I must attend. It’s bullshit if you ask me, and my behavior illuminates my attitude about attendance.

“We have someone new with us tonight. Would you like to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your story?” Rita’s cheerful voice was like nails on a chalkboard, but it was her eyes that scratched me. We’d only crossed gazes, but it felt like she saw into the depths of my soul, or maybe it was just the glare of her eyeglasses under the fluorescent lighting. At least, that’s what I told myself after her bright blue eyes pinned me to the folding chair.

“Yeah, I’m not ready to share,” I’d stated while slouching in my seat. My voice came out rougher than I intended, but I was not used to speaking with others.

“How about at least a name?” she asked, coaxing me like an encouraging schoolteacher. Her smile was warm enough, and it drew my eyes to her lips. Instantly, I wondered what her mouth would feel like against mine. I also had other ideas where she could put those lips on me. She was not my type, though, and I shifted in the cold metal seat to disguise the semi I was sporting, chalking the disturbing reaction up to the fact I hadn’t been with someone in seven years. Yeah, I had that seven-year itch, all right, and I needed to scratch it hard.

“Jake.” When I offered nothing more, she glanced down at a clipboard on her lap like that singular name was enough to recognize me. Certain my parole officer had notified the local authorities of my residency along with the local support groups of my requirements, I surmised this woman had heard of me. She smiled sweetly but also with a knowing eye—I was not going to participate. No sob story would be pouring out of me, nor was I sharing my experience with alcohol. I didn’t have a problem, which is the first thing an alcoholic would say. The truth is, I really didn’t. When I was arrested, I was drunk and fought off the officer, thus adding disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and intent to harm an officer to my sentence. As I knew Frank Stucco, the charges of belligerence were dropped, but the alcohol consumption increased in jail. I got caught with the contraband. Forget how I got it, it only mattered that I was caught with it. Just like the sentence I served for arson. Forget how it happened. I was the man caught at the scene of the crime with too many connections and no alibi.

After forty-five minutes of a feisty woman wearing red-rimmed eyeglasses glaring at me, the meeting ended, and Rita confronted me.

“I know your type.” The bold directness did nothing to dispel the full hard-on I had by the meeting’s conclusion. I’d tuned out the sad stories and turned on my own imagination about this vixen and what she could do to me wearing only those eyeglasses. Naughty schoolteacher? Dirty librarian? I wasn’t going to be particular in my fantasy. Ironically, nothing else about Rita called her my type. Sandy brown hair with heavy strips of gray. Wrinkles at the corner of her eyes. The mocking set of her mouth when she falsely smiled. Still, she was instantly under my skin, and again, I attributed it to those eyes, blue and bright behind her glasses and a hefty dose of need-to-get-laid.

“And what’s my type?” I sassed back.

“You’re not taking this seriously.” Fisted hands came to her hips which had my gaze falling to them. She was petite with a combination of granola hiker and uptight businesswoman in her appearance. The hiking boots did not go with the fitted skirt and silky blouse she wore.

“Listen, sweetheart, you’ll learn real fast that I don’t take anything seriously anymore.” I didn’t. I couldn’t, but nothing I said surprised her more than one word.

“Sweetheart?” she snorted. Literally, the most unattractive nasal sound honked between us. “I am not your sweetheart.”

I shook my head at her disgruntled tone and did the most unnatural thing for me. With my fingertip, I bopped her on the tip of her pert nose.

“Then if you’d just sign off on this sheet, no one needs to be the wiser, and I can be out of your hair.” It was a risk asking this stranger to place her signature along the ten lines of my required meetings. I could get in big trouble if she tattled, telling my parole officer I tried to cheat the system.

Rita shook her head, adamantly dismissing my request. “No can do, handsome. Maybe you’ll learn something by being here.”