Page 152 of Blue Moon Mistress

But when his gaze slides to me, I wonder if Scott can see the lie in Chase’s eyes. Because he’s exactly their type… just not in that way. Not without a woman in the middle.

Which brings a pertinent question to mind.

And after a few pointed questions and laughing insults, when Scott finally goes back to his table and the messy card game he and his friends are playing, I lean closer so I don’t have to shout over the music.

“What are you going to do when people start noticing that more than one of you has started calling me your girlfriend? It’s a small town.”

He looks at the drink he’s making and scowls. “I don’t think any of us thought of that.”

“It might become an issue for Thomas.” I hate that this is a conversation we’re going to have to have. “In charge of young minds and all of that.”

He scowls at the bar, but if he has something to say, he doesn’t get the chance. A grizzled old man shouts at him from the other end of the bar and he gives me a quick smile before he turns and goes to grab the man another dark bottle.

Chase moves around the bar with the ease of someone who’s spent the larger portion of his life in it.

He’s comfortable here and I like it.

He comes back when he can, and each time he’s pulled away, he apologizes.

“I’m the one intruding. You don’t need to apologize for doing your job.”

“Still. I want to spend time with you.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He brings me a second drink when my first is done, but not before he grabs something from a window on the other side of the bar.

The basket he sets in front of me is loaded with dark orange deliciousness.

“It’s a Thursday night, things are slow. If anyone wants anything, they’ll just yell at me.”

“I didn’t know you guys served food.”

“We do and we don’t.”

When I look pointedly at the basket of fries between us—fries that very clearly did not come out of a bag—he chuckles.

“The menu is super small, and you can really only get one thing each day. Potato dishes excluded.”

“And what’s today’s actual offering?”

“Thursday night is soup night.”

“What kind of soup?”

“Today, it’s a minestrone.” He leans forward to whisper, “That one starts out in a bag, but we do enough to it after the fact to call it house-made.”

I laugh as I bite the first fry.

It’s perfectly seasoned. “You have a cook hiding back there?”

“It’s the kid who’s been coming out to bus tables. He doesn’t like front of house duties, so he gets to stay in the back most of the time.”

He chews on a fry as he looks around the room.

“We close at eleven-thirty Monday through Thursday. Want to stick around? Come home with me after?”

I probably shouldn’t.

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