Page 64 of Meet Me at the Metro

“Hmm?”

“What happened earlier tonight at the train station?”

I don’t appreciate how quickly she looks away from me. “It was nothing. I’m fine.”

“Who was that?”

“I-I don’t know,” she mumbles. “Just some creep or something.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“You tell me,” she retorts, crossing her arms against her chest. “I’m fine, isn’t that what matters?”

“Who it was matters, too, Nora.”

“Please, Theo. Can we just please drop it for tonight? Call a truce? It was no one, I promise.”

She’s not going to budge, is she?

“On one condition,” I negotiate, knowing this conversation isn’t advancing any further tonight.

“What?”

“You leave me your number.”

“Oh, you’re smooth,” she laughs, her smile on full display as she finally dares to glance up at me again. “Got a pen and some paper?”

“I’ve got a pen.”

I stride over to one of the kitchen drawers and bring one back to her, but I can’t find any paper, so I hold out my hand for her to write on. I try to memorize every single number she etches onto my skin.

“Thank you,” I murmur, running my fingers through her damp hair and gently smoothing the dark strands behind her ears to see her entire face.

“No, thankyou. For tonight and well…you know…”

“For helping you come,” I finish to see her blushagain—she does.

Nora grabs her crutches and heads to the front door, nodding to my hand. “Don’t let that go to waste, Theo.”

“Oh, trust me, I won’t.”

I opt for going in the back door ofGullie’srather than coming in through the front so Rob doesn’t notice me clocking in late.

“You’re late,” he informs the second I step inside.

Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you have to take an hour-long cold shower to try and quell the raging boner you still have from the night before.

“Shit came up.” I cross behind the bartop and start my work restocking the liquor bottles lined along the shelves.

“You can’t keep coming into my pub late, Theo. Next time will be a write-up.”

“Bloody hell, Rob. You and your write-ups. At least I turn up for shifts. That’s more than the rest of your employees can say.”

“You show up late again, and it’s an automatic write-up. Understood?”

“Whatever, man.”

I quell my frustration by losing myself in the memories of last night, mulling over every detail in my head—from the way Nora looked all tangled up in my sheets to how damn beautiful her moans sounded, echoing through my flat.

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