Page 32 of Three Grumpy Groomsmen

Which has sparked a fantasy I didn’t even know I had and now can’t get out of my head.

“What’s our cover story?” Harrison asks. “Should Ivy be a famous actress and we’re her bodyguards?”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“You need a story in a place like this. We can’t just be ourselves.”

“Who are we going to be talking to?” I ask.

An hour later, I have my answer—everyone in the whole damn bar.

That’s who Harrison is talking to.

After ordering four plates of food that could easily feed eight people, Harrison has the older female server laughing and calling him “handsome.” He’s turned and made small talk with the table behind us when he borrowed their hot sauce sampler caddy and then before I could blink he was in a pepper eating contest with a man introduced to us as “the cayenne king.”

Everyone loves Harrison, including the band, who has invited him up to play drums, which, amazingly, he can.

Meanwhile, Ivy smashed on a whole pulled pork platter, gifted her sunglasses to a toddler who admired them, and is laughing and dancing on the sticky floor with a very elderly man when the band dedicates “California Girls,” to her. I don’t even know how they know she’s from California.

Ford is keeping one eye on Ivy and the other on the bullseye as he has suddenly become the stiffest competition in wherever-we-are-Texas’s charitable dart tournament. He paid the entry fee and added an extra five hundred bucks when he heard it was to help a local family whose young daughter has cancer. He’sgotten more kisses on the cheek from middle-aged women than I would have thought possible.

Then there’s me.

Sitting in a corner.

Legs sprawled out in front of me, a beer I’m ignoring resting on the table next to me.

I’m an introvert. The observer. I enjoy watching people interact and have a great time. People are fascinating and I apply all of that to my writing. My friends understand me well enough to know that just because I’m sitting doesn’t mean I’m not having fun.

My role when I usually go out with friends is to make sure no one ends up in jail or leaves their credit card behind the bar, and I’m good with that.

Harrison doesn’t get that.

He alternates between trying to coax me into having fun and snarking at me about not being capable of anything enjoyable.

“Seriously, does anything atallgive you pleasure?” he demands, after putting the drum sticks down and returning to the table for his beer.

For once, I don’t think he meant it as an innuendo.

But as I eye him, allowing my gaze to wander from his head and on down the length of his sexy as fuck body, the corner of my mouth turns up. “There are a few things that give me pleasure,” I murmur.

His eyes darken, and he drops into the seat beside me. “Like what? Me being quiet?”

I run my fingers over the sweat on the side of my beer bottle. “You being quiet because my cock is in your mouth, yes.” I shift my legs apart on the chair, needing more room. “While I yank your hair.”

Harrison leans forward, resting his chin on his palm. “Tell me more.”

But I’m not making it that easy for him. I sit back, creating more distance between us again. “I like to dance.”

His jaw drops, then he breaks out in laughter. “You do not.”

“How do you know?” I ask calmly, casually. “It’s not like you know me. You didn’t stick around long enough for that.”

He makes a face. “Look, we didn’t talk about what came next, if anything, that night. I thought we were just having good, clean, naked fun.”

“Sure,” I agree, because I’m not going to insist it was more than that, even though he knows full fucking well it was.

There was chemistry, yes, but there was a connection that went beyond sex.

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