Page 31 of Jingle Belle's Biker

“Melissa’s great. I’d trust her.”

“Good enough for me,” Havana says. “I’ll give her a call.”

When she saunters off, he nods at the surroundings. “I know this isn’t your type of place?—”

“I prefer the more hardcore gentleman’s club.”

He almost spits his beer. “Fuck, you were wasted on Hastings.”

“I guess you met Lance when you and Nomad took the apartment.”

“That cat follows me around. He’s not mine.”

“If you say so,” I murmur into my wine glass as I curl my feet on the bottom bar of the stool. “And Lance is?—”

“A rich asshole?”

“That’s one way of putting it.” I want to laugh, but I stop myself because Lance can be money-hungry, but what does that make me if I laugh? I was going to marry him. I take another swallow of my wine.

“Sorry.” Saint doesn’t sound sorry. “But I get the feeling he was out of your league.”

“Esther was my favorite,” I say. “Thing is, the Hastings are about money, and Lance is?—”

“No different.”

For a moment, I fall silent. Old school classics belt out in the air as our burgers, aromatic with that deeply savory scent of griddled beef and cheese and fried potato can bring, arrive, hitting the bar in front of us.

“I thought he was,” I say softly. “Thought he was driven, yes, but I thought he had a bigger heart in terms of humanity. When he tried to have the public library closed, I . . .”

I swallow.

There’s knowing it and saying it out loud to someone who isn’t my good friend.

Someone one step away from being a stranger.

It feels more real, stating it. Real and jagged-edged edged like it’ll rip open my own public skin and expose all my shortcomings.

Like the one that chose a pretty face, perfect suit, and moneyed trappings.

The two men couldn’t be worlds apart, and yet . . .

I snatch up the burger and take a bite.

Yet nothing.

He’s my neighbor, nothing more.

“What is going on in your pretty head, Belle? Because it sure as shit looks interesting.” He takes a bite of his own burger, then sets it down. “Tell Saint all about it.”

“I was comparing you both.”

That’s not what I meant to say.

“You come out on top in that.” I don’t look at him.

He touches my cheek, and it takes all I am not to sink into the touch of those roughened fingers, my strength not to think what it would be like if he used his fingers on me elsewhere.

“Fuck. Did you know when you blush, your skin heats?” He leans in. “Why are you blushing?”

---