“Right, right. The key.”
“Yes, please.”
“Jeez, you just had to ask.”
Her eyes narrow, and I grin, stretching one arm across my bare chest and then the other and cracking my neck. I open the register and grab the key to Dad’s rental place from the side drawer before turning and holding it out to her across the bar.
She sighs heavily as she steps forward and reaches for it, but I yank it back right before she does.
“Sure I can’t convince you to come back to bed with me?”
“I know what you’re doing, Mr. Hammond,” she says with a huff.
“Oh yeah?”
She swallows, putting on a mean face, but her cheeks are still blushing bright red. “I know what you see in me.”
I grin. “I know what I’d like to see in you.”
Her face gets even redder, if that was even possible, before she swallows it back. She takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders.
“I can promise you, Mr. Hammond-”
“Mr. Hammond is my dad.”
“Your dad is Reverend Hammond.”
“Rowan is fine.”
Her mouth goes tight. “Fine, Rowan. I know what you’re doing.”
“Well don’t leave me hanging.”
Her mouth tightens. “Well, I just want to let you know you’re wasting your time.”
“Doing?”
“Doing your darnedest to try and tease me.”
I grin, the beer halfway to my lips. “Did you honestly just use the word ‘darnedest’?”
“It is not going to work, Mr- Rowan.”
“Oh it’s not?”
“No, it’s not.”
“Sure about that?”
“I’m not the sheltered little church girl you think I am,” she says tightly, eyeing me.
“Oh, of course not.”
I step out from under the bar and move to lean against the side of it in front of her, dangling the key.
“I’m not some sheltered little-”
“No, of course not you’re not, which is why you look so comfortable in a place like this.”
“This place is a dump.”
I laugh. “Aww, careful now, you’ll hurt my feelings.”
She gives me a look.
“It’s also why you looked like I puked on your bible when I said the word cock.”
She visibly stiffens, her mouth going sour.
“See?”
“I do not, I just don’t need to see that or hear that sort of vulgarity.”
I roll my eyes.
“The key? Please?”
“Not at all thrown off or flustered, huh?”
“I told you, I am not the sheltered little-”
“Fuck am I hung over as shit!”
We both whirl at the sound of Jade’s voice from the back hallway.
I snort.
Jade, wearing just a pair of boxer-briefs and a sports-bra as she shrugs a t-shirt over her disheveled hair.
“Fuck me fucking sideways,” she croaks out.
Evangeline peeps — an actual peep sound, like a baby bird.
Jade’s head jerks up. “Oh, hey,” Jade says groggily at her, turning and giving me a half grin and a raised brow before glancing back at church-girl. “You spend the night too?”
The front door slams open as Evangeline goes bolting out of it.
I sigh and take a sip of my beer.
Like I said. Master of first impressions.
Chapter Three
Evangeline
I’m ten steps away from that horrible bar, that girl, and from that horrible man when I stop.
Because I also realize that I’m heading back to the rental house without the key that we need to actually get inside of it. And I don’t have the key because I totally just ran out of there like a freak show.
What am I going to do, not go back with the key?
“No Dad, I didn’t get the key from the nice minister’s son because his penis was hanging out.”
My mother would faint.
My father might.
“Hey, hang on!”
I spin around to see Rowan jogging down the sidewalk, still in just a pair of jeans, barefoot.
“What?” I snap.
He laughs as he comes to a stop in front of me. “Did you want the key?”
“I asked you ten times for it.”
“Well, but then you left without it. Sort of sends a mixed message.”
I level my frown at him and he grins, shaking his head. “Sorry about Jade.”
“And I am sorry for waking you and your- your- girlfriend.” I let the words tumble out. “I just needed the key, and your father said you had the only copy, and that you knew I was coming over, and-”
He laughs. “Jade? Trust me, not my girlfriend. Nothing like that.”
I turn redder, frowning at the thought of, well, whatever they are.
“It’s none of my business, I just-”
“Believe me, I’m not exactly her type.”