Page 25 of Catching Sparks

I glare at him while shoving him into the empty space he’s left on his bench seat. When he refuses to shift, I glare harder.

“Are you really going to make me pull up a chair when you have all that room?”

Caleb shrugs a casual shoulder, the poster boy of nonchalance. “You snooze, you lose. Garry got here first. He’s got dibs.”

“Garry?”

“Garrison,” Anna says.

I part my lips on a silent gasp, genuine shock rattling my bones. Maybe there was a tiny—minuscule, really—part of me that hoped I’d see Garrison here tonight. That maybe the reckless tease I goaded him with had interested him enough to attempt a night out. God, I don’t know why I even did that in the first place. A man like Garrison Beckett isn’t interested in the likes of me and vice versa. It was a moment of weakness.

So why am I hoping that he’s been thinking about my offer as often as I have? That he’s even a fourth attracted to me as I so very obviously am to him?

“Should we not have invited him?” Anna asks, an apology already locked and loaded on her tongue as she takes in my expression.

I adjust my features to hide my true feelings and then look over my shoulder for a glimpse of Bryce. She’s not at the bar anymore, gone off to who knows where. From the lack of Johnny at the table, I’m inclined to think she’s already off playing wingwoman for him.

“Oh, me and Garrison are best friends now. Don’t worry about it,” I answer before hauling a wooden chair from one of the empty tables nearby to ours and plopping my ass onto it.

“How exactly did that happen?” Caleb asks once I’ve got as comfortable as I’m going to in this hard-ass chair.

“That’s a secret.”

He takes a sip of his beer, the corner of his mouth twitching in a no-good way that has nerves immediately curling in my belly. “Alright. Hey, Garrison, how did you and Poppy become best friends?”

I follow Caleb’s stare, knowing damn well who’s going to be standing at the end of it but unable to avoid the pull to catch a glimpse of him. Desire ignites my blood the moment our eyes meet.

Cowboy Garrison is gone. The tight jeans and dirty T-shirt have been replaced by the same black slacks and button-up that he stepped onto Steele Ranch wearing. Only this time, it isn’t annoyance I feel at the image of him in those posh clothes that have no place in Peakside. It’s lust. A zap of it between my legs that turns my mind hazy.

I could purr at the fire in his gaze as he watches me far too intently to be innocent. It’s not just my foggy thoughts that have me recognizing his interest. I’m not that far gone. He’s just not hiding it this time. For a reason I desperately want to expose.

My newly dyed auburn hair has been chopped to my shoulders, and while it might still be a bit messy from the clip I had in earlier, he still drags those scorching greenish-brown eyes all over it as if I’d spent hours doing it up.

I resist the urge to fidget beneath the weight of that stare. My pulse races frantically when our eyes meet again, and he . . . scowls? The heat bubbling beneath my skin cools at the annoyance that flicks over his face.

It would be easy to get up and leave before he has a chance to strike me down. Maybe Bryce is close to the exit?—

“Why are you sitting there?”

I hesitate. “What?”

Garrison looks to Caleb, such a cold, calculating look on his face. “Why is she sitting there and not beside you?”

“He was saving your spot,” Brody says carefully.

“By making a woman sit on a hard chair in the middle of a walkway? I was under the impression you had better manners here than where I come from.”

I shiver at the cutthroat sharpness of his tone. At the sheer power vibrating in each word that makes sweat break out along the back of my neck.

“He has a point, Caleb. Why don’t you just swap spots with Poppy?” Brody asks.

It’s hard to tell if he’s genuinely in agreement with Garrison or if he’s just trying to diffuse the situation before it gets out of hand. Most likely the latter.

“You’re joking,” Caleb mutters.

Garrison is a breath away from my shoulder now, his aura slamming against my personal bubble, demanding entrance. “I’m struggling to find the humour in this situation.”

“How about me and Garrison go get some drinks? It seems Bryce has gotten lost,” I ramble before jumping out of my seat and snatching Sir Douchealot’s wrist, dragging him with me away from the table.

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