About That Kiss:A Heartbreaker Bay Novel(3)

Having known him since she was in middle school, she could interpret his  every expression. He was male, which meant he had only a few.  Happy-mode, hungry-mode, sports-mode, work-mode, and pissed-off-mode.  That was it, his entire repertoire. She knew he had a lust-mode as well,  although she'd never seen it aimed at her. But at the moment, his  expression was new and completely unreadable to her.

"I'm barbecuing after work," he finally said. "You should come."

She stared at him in shock. "You want me to come over to your house for dinner?"

"Why not?"

Yeah, why not? She'd waited so long for him to ask her out, she didn't  quite know what to do with herself. She glanced at Morgan, who sent her a  surreptitious thumbs-up.

"So?" Gib asked. "You'll be there?"

"Sure," she said, trying for his same casual tone. "Sounds nice, thanks."

He nodded and moved off to his workstation, where he was making a  shelving unit that looked like an actual oak tree. His creations were  gorgeous and becoming more and more sought after. He was living his  dream, just as Kylie's grandpa had taught him when Gib had apprenticed  under him.

Trying to do the same thing, she turned away and busied herself with her  tabletop. She was making it for one of Gib's clients, since he'd been  kind enough to refer the customer to her. Hours later, she resurfaced  and realized it was six o'clock and she was the last one in the shop.  She vaguely recalled Gib and Morgan leaving an hour earlier and waving  them off.

Alone, she went through the end-of-the-day routine, locking up, tucking  Vinnie and his toys back into his carrier to lug everything up front.  Her last stop on the way out the door was the shelf beneath the front  counter to grab her purse, which had somehow tipped over and spilled  onto the floor. Crouching low, she scooped everything back into the bag,  freezing when she realized something was missing.

Her penguin. It was a three-inch-high wood carving that had been  beautifully and lovingly handmade by her grandpa years ago, and was in  fact the only thing she had of him. She kept it with her at all times  because, silly as it felt to admit, it was her good luck charm. As long  as she had the penguin, the last tie to her grandpa, everything would be  okay.

But it was gone. Even just thinking it had her breath hitching as she  searched the entire shop, top to bottom. Nothing. With an odd sense of  panic clogging her throat, she called Gib. He hadn't seen it. She called  Morgan. She called Greg and Ramon, the other two artists who worked at  the shop. No one had seen her penguin. She called Gib again. "It's  nowhere."

"Maybe you just set it down somewhere and forgot," he said in a rational tone.

"No. I know where I left it," she insisted. "I had it in my purse, but now it's gone."

"It'll show up tomorrow," he said. "Maybe with that slide ruler of mine you lost last week."

Frustration choked her. "You're not taking me seriously."

"I am," he insisted. "I'm just in the middle of getting things ready for  the barbecue, making my world-famous kabobs. For you. So get your cute  ass over here."         

     



 

Okay, now this should have made her day. He thought her ass was  cute????? But she'd have to obsess over that later. Much later. "Gib, I  think someone stole the penguin."

"I'll help you look in the morning, okay? We'll find it. Now move it."

"But-"

But nothing, as he'd disconnected. Kylie looked down at Vinnie. "He's not taking me seriously."

Vinnie, as comfortable in the shop as he was at home-or anywhere, really-just yawned.

Sighing, she carried him out the shop and through the courtyard. Here,  she felt herself relax a little bit. She loved this building. The  cobblestones were worn beneath her feet, as was the glorious old  architecture of the structure around her: the corbeled brick and exposed  iron trusses, the big windows.

It was a wet evening. Not raining exactly, but the moisture hung in the  air. Night was falling, so the strings of lights wrapped around the  wrought-iron benches lining the fountain were shining and sparkling with  raindrops.

Kylie walked past The Canvas Shop and then the coffee shop, which was  closed. Most of the other places were too, including the newest  one-Pinot's Palette, a wine and painting shop.

But the pub was open and she decided to make a quick stop. Most nights  any of her friends from the building might be found here. Tonight it was  the building manager, Elle, Joe's sister, Molly, and Haley, who worked  as an optometrist on the second floor.

Sean, bartender and also co-owner of the pub, tan from a recent trip to  Cabo with his new girlfriend, Lotti, slid Vinnie a doggy biscuit from  the jar he kept beneath the counter.

Vinnie practically swallowed it whole.

"Your usual?" Sean asked Kylie.

"Not tonight. I'm not staying. But . . . maybe just a quick coffee?"

Elle and Molly were dressed in sharp business attire. Elle because she  ran the world, Molly because she ran the front office of Hunt  Investigations, where Joe worked. Haley was in a doctor's lab coat-she  often forgot to take it off before leaving her office-and adorable  specs.

Kylie, the fashion outcast, was in jeans, a Golden State Warriors  sweatshirt, and some residual wood shavings. The fact that she had more  clothes to sleep in than to go out in said a lot about her.

Haley was talking about her recent date, which had apparently gone all  sorts of bad. The woman she'd gone out with had spread a rumor that  they'd slept together in order to get back at an old girlfriend. Haley  sighed. "Women suck."

"Yeah, well, it's not all that great on the other side of the fence either," Molly said.

"Gib finally asked me out," Kylie blurted.

Everyone gasped dramatically, which made her laugh. She'd been waxing  poetic about him the entire year she'd been working for him. "He's  barbecuing for me at his place tonight."

Another dramatic, collective gasp, and she knew they were happy for her. And she was happy too.

Wasn't she?

Of course she was. She'd wanted this for a long time. So then why  couldn't she stop thinking about Joe and that damn kiss? How he'd slid  one arm low on her hips, his other hand sinking into her hair to slowly  fist it, holding her in place as he'd kissed her slow and deep, easily  the hottest, most erotic kiss of her entire life . . .

Because she self-sabotaged, that's why. She'd inherited that particular  trait from her mom, who was a professional self-sabotager. Her drug of  choice was men. The wrong men. And Kylie was absolutely not going to  follow in her footsteps.

A woman strode through the pub and up to the bar. She had jet black hair  with a few purple streaks, most of it piled on top of her head and held  there with a pencil. She wore a pretty flowy top that said Keep Calm  and Kiss My Ass, skin-tight jeans, and some seriously kickass ankle  boots that had both Elle and Molly nearly drooling.

Her name was Sadie and she worked as a tattoo artist at The Canvas. She  nodded at Sean. "I need an order of buffalo wings, crispy fries, and  whatever you have for dessert," she said. "And you know what? Double all  of that." She slid a look over at Kylie and the girls. "When you gotta  take a minute to compose yourself at work because violence is frowned  upon."         

     



 

"Amen to that," Molly said. "Nice outfit, by the way."

Kylie sighed. "I need to make fashion my hobby."

"My only hobby is trying to close the elevator door before someone else gets on," Sadie said.

Elle high-fived her. "Hey, so if someone said you'd slept with them when  you hadn't, what would you do? Haley here has a situation."

"First of all, don't bother to deny anything. It won't work," Sadie  said. "Instead, use it. Tell everyone how bad he-or she-was, and make up  weird fetishes too, like . . . they called out their mom's name in the  throes or something. Destroy 'em, I say."

"Damn, that's good," Haley said.

"Not my first rodeo," Sadie said.

Kylie gulped down her coffee and stood up with Vinnie. "Okay, well, we're off to Joe's."

Everyone blinked in shock at her and she quickly rewound and replayed  her words in her own head and-Oh shit. "Gib's," she said quickly. "I  meant we're off to Gib's."

Elle pointed at her. "She said Joe's."

Haley nodded. "She totally did."

"Wait. Like, Joe my brother?" Molly asked.

"I don't know any other Joe, do you?" Elle asked.

"And it's not like he isn't really hot," Haley said. "What?" she asked  when they all just stared at her. "I'm gay. I'm not dead."

Molly grimaced and put her fingers in her ears. "Guys, please. He's my brother."

Kylie desperately waved down Sean. "I'm going to need another shot of caffeine."

Molly tapped her on the shoulder. "And I'm going to need you to tell me what's going on with you and Joe."