Page 12 of Chasing Lynda

I don’t even pause looking at her luscious, soft looking lips. The words leave my mouth before I can even think that this isn’t any of my business.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

She jumps as if she’s been caught red handed, doing something wrong. She drops the croissant again. “Oh, fuck!” She whimpers and then she turns the most intense pair of blue eyes I’ve ever seen right on me. “My breakfast!” She moans, bending over again to pick up the pastry.

This time I don’t even let her sexy looking ass distract me. I grab her wrist, pulling her slightly toward me. “You can’t eat that!” I say, shocked that she’d try to eat food that has been on the floor not once but fucking twice.

Her gaze hardens, her delicate jaw tight with tension. “It’s my fucking breakfast, what’s it to you if I eat it or not?”

She struggles against my grip and I let her go but I argue my point. “First off, it was on the floor when you picked it up the first time,” I say with a shudder. “Do you know how many germs there are on these planks? You could literally catch the plague.”

Her eyes are still fixed on the pastry. “Five second rule,” she says stubbornly.

Goddamn it! “That’s fucking bullshit and you must know it. The five second rule doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t matter if something has been on the floor for five seconds or five minutes. It’s still picking up dirt. It’s gross and you shouldn’t eat that. Might as well lick the fucking floor at that point.”

She seems to think about it for one second. She must know I’m damn right. “Well fuck, I just forgot my wallet at home and I’m starving. I have low blood sugar.”

I believe her. For as much as she was about to eat food off the floor, the expensive bikini and flip flops and the way she speaks and carries herself tell me that she can’t be a homeless person. She must be a tourist or a student. About eighty percent of the people under thirty in Bridgeport are either one or the other.

To my surprise, I really want to find out which one it is. So I grab the croissant one second before she can. “Look, seriously, you can’t eat this. I was about to go get myself some breakfast, how about I buy you a new one?”

Oddly, she doesn’t immediately accept. Maybe she thinks that I’m hitting on her? I mean, even if she thought I was, it’s weird that she’s so hesitant. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an arrogant asshole but I know I’m not bad looking and usually girls jump at the opportunity of spending time with me.

Something else must be bothering this girl because she doesn’t immediately turn me down but she looks around nervously. Again.

“Hmm, I—” she starts, taking a step back from me.

“Please?” I plead. “I feel responsible that I scared you and made you drop that croissant. Even with your five second rule, which by the way is still bullshit, that’s been on the floor for a while. And we can’t have you passing out if you have low blood sugar.”

I can see the distrust in her eyes and the internal conflict as she weighs my offer up. Whatever brings her here, she looks nervous and on edge. Maybe it’s because of what happened to her last night?

I don’t know why all of a sudden it feels so important to get her to stay and to find out more about her. There are a lot of pretty girls around here but this one really intrigues me, so I insist. “I promise that all I want is to make sure that you have something to eat. You don’t have to hang out with me at all. Just let me buy you breakfast.”

I try to put all my sincerity in my tone and she must see that I’m really not trying to play any weird games like those assholes last night on the beach.

“Ok. Thank you.”

She’s still a little hesitant, her shoulders are rigid as she follows me inside the cafe, so I resist the urge to put a hand on the small of her back. I give her a wide berth, like one would do with a feral cat.

There are two customers buying a to go order before us, so I look at her as she peruses the items on display in the counter.

“Hey, if you want something a little more substantial than a croissant, that’s totally ok.”

She tightens her grip on the strap of her white canvas bag, considering my words. “Are you sure?”

I nod, unable to look away from the blue depth of her eyes. “I’m getting a bacon and egg biscuit. They bake them fresh every morning, so I recommend them.”

She licks her lips and my eyes follow the movement of her tongue as it darts out to wet the supple, pink skin. “If you’re sure, then a bacon and egg biscuit sounds really good.”

Dodge and Zane always rib me that I can’t just take a small victory and I always have to push my luck and I guess the two assholes are right.

I can’t help it but try to make her agree to more time with me. “Do you want to have your food to go or would you like to sit at one of the tables on the deck out back? The view is really nice and we could—”

She turns to look behind us as the door chimes with some incoming customers. “No, I—I gotta go. Sorry, I—”

Her eyes are fixed on the three men and the woman who just stop behind us, looking at the specials written in chalk on a blackboard behind the counter.

The guys look completely normal, dressed in blue jeans and plain, white t-shirts. The woman looks absolutely odd, as if she didn’t belong in this century in a wide, dark blue bonnet and a long skirt that sweeps the tiled floor of the cafe. Her face is completely free of makeup and she averts her gaze when I look at her, taking one step to the side.

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