Page 4 of Smitten with the Single Dad

It was another forty minutes that they sat there. More beer. More food. More … obnoxious, sexist jokes by the idiots she worked with.

She excused herself to the bathroom when those three waters told her she needed a break.

“Do you need to use the washroom?” she asked Aleysha, hoping that her friend got the clue to accompany her.

But Aleysha was drunkenly flirting with Sam and shook her head.

Exhaling in defeat, Vica took off to the washroom on her own, weaving through all the people. She spent more time than was necessary in the washroom, but there came a point where she knew she needed to rejoin their group.

By the time she walked past the bar, the pub had emptied significantly and the bartender was telling people who just walked in that the kitchen was closed.

Phew!

They had to be getting ready to leave now.

She reached the table, and an icy shock sprinted down her spine. Besides Track, their table was empty.

“Where is everyone?” she asked, her eyes darting around the pub.

“I sent them to the ferry,” Track said, his smile lazy and his eyes hooded from an overconsumption of alcohol.

“But why are we not going with them?”

He shrugged. “The shuttle will drop them off at the ferry, they’ll walk on, and he’ll come back and get us. There’s still one more late-night ferry. I checked the schedule.”

“But why are we not going with them?” she repeated.

“It’s your last night. I figured you’d want to party a little longer.”

“You figured wrong,” she snapped, reaching for her purse and cardigan, and glaring at Track. “I want to go home. Now.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, irritation tingeing his voice. “Let me just pay. But we’ll have to wait outside for the shuttle to come back.”

Vica’s glare intensified and she crossed her arms over her chest.

Track snagged the gaze of the server and asked to pay his tab. Vica just stood by the bar, waiting, fuming mad, and ready to just walk to the ferry herself.But she knew that although the island was small, it had windy roads with no streetlights, and she wasn’t in the right walking shoes. It would also take her too long to reach the ferry.

Track knew she was mad though and approached with remorse in his eyes after he settled the bill. “I’m sorry, V,” he said, trying to rest a hand on her lower back. “I should have waited.”

“Yes, you should have,” she said before mumbling insults and curse words under her breath in Italian.

His nostrils flared. “That’s such a sexy language. What did you just say?”

She knew better than to tell a drunk man the truth, especially when she’d just insulted him. So she smiled and lied. “I said I miss my pillow and still have a lot of packing to do.”

He nodded and his fingers curled around her hip. He had her boxed in against the bar and so to move away from him would probably just infuriate him more.

“Let’s go outside and get some fresh air. The sky is so beautiful right now and I think the tide is out.”

“I’m fine here,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest again.

“Oh, come on, V.” He grew more forceful, pushing her with his arm as his hand remained curled on her hipbone. She didn’t want to piss him off since he was her ride home, and technically still her boss. So she acquiesced and eventually found herself outside.

The air was warm, but the briny breeze wafting off the water held a chill to it that made Vica’s legs break out into goosebumps as the gusts threw the diaphanous fabric of her skirt around her shins.

“Let’s go down to the beach,” he said, trying again to steer her.

She stepped away. “Let’s just wait where there’s more light for the shuttle.”

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