Page 42 of Cherry on Top

“I’m . . .” I’m thinking I might have underestimated how this was going to be.

“Enzo Moretti’s pretty potent, I guess,” Kate teased.

“He’s something,” Will said. He didn’t really want to lie to Kate, but this was his real reaction to the man, so it was hardly like he was pretending otherwise.

“Giana must be over the moon,” Kate said.

Will leaned against the cold ice cream case and waited for it to cool him down. It didn’t really work, which said everything. “We’re going on a date Wednesday night,” he said.

Kate looked shocked, which was surprising, considering what she’d just said—and probably how enthralled Will had looked when he’d walked back in just now.

“Seriously?”

“You said it yourself. He’s pretty potent.”

“And famously not an actual inhabitant of this town,” Kate said.

Will had not anticipated this very logical argument.

“Neither was Luca, before he moved here,” he suggested.

Kate shot him a look. “That was different. He’d never lived here before. He didn’t have a chance to hate the nosy gossips, the way you can never escape every stupid shit move you’ve ever pulled, and the stifling narrowness of the expectations.”

It was Will’s turn to be surprised. “I didn’t know you disliked it here that much.” All of the above was true of any small town, including Indigo Bay, and he’d known that when he moved here. Small towns were a Johnson’s specialty, and he’d grown up in them. He’d learned there were downsides, like anywhere, but he didn’t want to live in some big, impersonal city. He wanted to know the little kids who came in for ice cream cones, and their parents, too.

Kate waved a hand. “Oh, I don’t. I’m a realist, though. And all of that? Is all stuff I’ve heard Enzo say, about a thousand times. He couldn’t wait to get out of here. As soon as Giana reluctantly let him go, he was gone.”

“I know that,” Will said.

“Then what are you doing with him?” Kate’s tone turned concerned. “He’s gonna break your heart.”

“Maybe it’s not about the heart. Maybe it’s just . . .he’s a really, really hot guy, and it’s been a while for me,” Will said. Honestly, that was probably more of a convincing argument than the Luca one.

He should’ve started with: I’d just like to get this guy underneath me. And over me. And in me. ASAP.

Kate would get that.

She laughed, all her concern melting away. “Okay, fair. You deserve it, boss.”

“I do,” Will agreed, grabbing a water bottle from the fridge under the counter and taking a long drink. He needed to cool down, not keep thinking about Enzo in bed.

“Giana’s gonna hold out hope that you’ve got a magic cock, you know?”

Will choked on the water.

“What?” he said, coughing.

Kate gave him a hearty slap on the back and a very knowing grin. “She’s totally gonna hold out hope that your magic cock makes Enzo decide he likes Indigo Bay well enough, as long as you’re in it.”

“I guess,” Will said.

This fake dating thing had been going on officially for twenty-three minutes so far, and already Will had regretted agreeing too many times to count.

How would he feel on Wednesday night?

But as a harried mom with four children walked in to Cherry’s, the tinkling doorbell singing and Kate moving to the counter to help them, Will knew he’d agree to do it again, no matter how hard it was.

Chapter Nine

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