Slipperless Series (Book #1)(4)

Yet, as I watched her draw near, I realized that wasn’t the case with her. She glanced at me once more as she passed by the table and held my gaze with the first show of confidence I’d seen from her. It sent a charge through my body, straight to my crotch. My head swiveled as she continued by and I watched her ass snap while her hips swayed back and forth.

“What are you getting, Gabe?” Brad asked. “Didn’t you say the steak tartare was good here?”

Barely listening, I kept my eyes glued on her as she slid into the booth, surrounded on all sides by her friends. One by one, they each looked at me, only to turn back to Fiona a moment or so later. Teasing her, from the looks of it.

“Gabe…” Brad said, as he spoke up.

“Hmm?” I replied. I turned back towards him. “Yeah?”

Brad scowled in my direction and looked past me towards the booth where Fiona sat.

“You’re way out of her league, man,” he said as he shook his head. Turning his attention back towards his menu, he continued, “What’s gotten into you?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.

Without lifting his head, Brad arched an eyebrow in my direction. “Really?”

“Yeah,” I said, as I crossed my arms at my chest. Leaning back in my chair, I nodded in Fiona’s direction. “Tell me what’s wrong with her.”

Brad closed his menu and after a hard swallow, decided to take me up on my challenge.

“Well, I mean, look at her. Yeah, she’s pretty enough but she’s…” his voice trailed off.

I tented my eyebrows at him, daring him to continue. All the other guys at the table watched as tension between us grew with each second that passed.

“She’s what, man?”

“Gabe look, just forget it. If you want to hook up with a big girl, be my guest.”

I thinned my lips and glared at him. “Take it back, shithead.”

Exasperated, Brad looked back at me. “Man, I don’t care. Go talk to her.”

“Take it back or we take it outside.”

“What?” he scoffed. “Come on man, chill. I’m not trying to start anything with you.”

A couple of ‘take it easy’s’ and ‘calm down’s’ filled the silence between us as the rest of the guys tried to soothe my burgeoning anger.

“Take it back!” I said, pointing at him across the table.

“Dude, fuck. Fine!” Brad said as he leaned away from me. “Forget I said anything.”

After I glared at him for a moment, I reached for a glass of ice water. Tilting it up to my lips, I hammered it back until the cubes collected around my mouth. After a final hard swallow, I placed it back down on the bright white of the tablecloth.

“We good?” he asked.

“Don’t talk to me right now, man.” I muttered as I waved him off.

An uneasy peace returned to the table as everyone raised their menus back to eye level. Instead of looking at mine, I glanced back towards her, and once again I caught Fiona looking. Her gaze fell away from me with an unhurried pace as she rejoined the conversation with her friends.

I shook my head for a moment, wondering what had come over me. Even though I might have disagreed with him, Brad did have a point. But, so what? It’s not like I was going to see her again.

And the way she behaved, Brad had her pegged. She wasn’t comfortable with herself. She probably had her hands tucked inside of her sleeves this instant. I chewed my lip as I considered the challenge a woman like her would present. That’s not something I wanted any part of anyway. I wasn’t in the people-fixing business.

But she did have some pretty friends.



FIONA

“Quit looking over there you guys,” I groaned.

“Why?” my friend Christine replied. “You keep doing it.”

I slunk down into the booth a bit, horrified I’d been caught looking at Gabe and now having to explain myself.

“He’s cuuuute,” hummed my other friend Ellie. “What's his name?”

Clutching my sweater sleeves inside my palms, I felt moisture come to my skin as my friends interrogated me about him. Besides Ellie and Christine, there were my two other friends, Kelly and Cheri. They were all beauties, who unlike me fought men off on a daily basis. In fact, the only time men usually talked to me was when we were all out together and they wanted to get close to one of them. Now that the situation reversed itself, I was literally like the proverbial fish out of water.

“Fiona…” Ellie said with a leading tone in her voice. “I’m not gonna ask you a third time. What. Is. His. Name?”

I chewed the inside of my lip for a moment before reaching up and tugging a strand of hair behind my ear.