Page 19 of If Tomorrow Never Comes

Literally.

This evening wasn’t just the three of them—there would be more people for her to talk to. Maybe even enough that she could avoid Jamie for the rest of the evening. Part of her worried he might try to get her alone to talk, which probably needed to happen at some point, but that wasnotsomething she’d do while Carly was around. For somereason he’d wanted to pretend they didn’t know each other, so that’s what she’d do.

For now, he was nobody.

Besides, hadn’t she been promised a hot guy with tattoos?

“Sorry this place is a little shabby. If it were up to me, we’d be somewhere with high-top tables and cosmopolitans, but it was Jamie’s turn to pick,” Carly said with a good-natured eye roll. She released Jamie and tugged on Elliott’s arm, completely unaware of the tension snapping between them. “Come meet everyone. They asked how I knew you, so I went ahead and told them, like you said I could.”

“That’s fine.”

Jamie didn’t follow them into the side room and instead continued to wherever he’d been headed when Elliott ran into him. Carly introduced Elliott to four additional people—two women and two men, one of whom was exactly as Carly had described him. She caught his name, Stephen, because she’d been expecting to meet him, but forgot the rest as soon as she heard them. Her brain struggled to focus after what had just happened.

“You don’t look like a cancer patient,” one of the women said after Elliott sat down.

“Tara. Fuck.” Stephen shot Elliott an apologetic look.

“What?”

“I’m not technically a cancer patient anymore,” Elliott said mildly. “Thanks to Carly, hopefully it will stay that way.”

Tara nodded thoughtfully. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I just meant you’re really pretty, and you look ... normal.”

“Not helping.” Stephen shook his head and regarded Elliott from beneath ridiculously long lashes. His eyes were warm and kind. “Sorry, she has zero filter.”

Elliott smiled. Cancer was an uncomfortable topic for some people—she’d seen every reaction in the book. “She called me pretty. I’ll allow it.”

He laughed and tilted his head. “She’s not wrong about that part.”

He had jet-black hair that was pulled up in a tight bun, tanned skin, and striking blue eyes that contrasted sharply against the rest of his features. He was slender, his body completely opposite of Jamie’s behemoth form, and had a full sleeve of tattoos along both arms. He wasn’t her usual type, but then again, she hadn’t dated all that much. Did she even have a type?

“Carly said you work at Starbucks? Which one?”

“The one off Seventy-Second Street.” One of the four streets she knew in Omaha.

Jamie returned to the table, a beer glass in each hand, and slid into a chair directly across from her. Carly immediately tucked herself close to his side and grabbed one of the beers.

They were an attractive couple.

Elliott forced herself to focus on Stephen, who gave her an easy smile. “Really? You can’t have been there long. I’m in there at least once a week, and I’d have noticed you.”

Why didn’t Stephen’s flirting hit the same way as when Jamie’d done it? It was damned inconvenient. “I haven’t—I’m still in training. Just started last week.”

He took a pull from his beer. “Maybe I’ll stop by twice this week.”

“I’ll probably be there,” was all she could think to say. Yuka would have had some fun, flirty response if she liked the guy, or a firm and effective deterrent if she didn’t. God, Elliott wished she was here. “And you’re a photographer, right?”

His blue gaze reminded her of a clear summer sky. “Yeah, that’s right. Officially I work atEnjoy Omahamagazine, doing headshots and stuff, but that’s only so I can afford to travel and build my portfolio in nature and wildlife photography. Nebraska doesn’t have the most diverse scenery, so I’ve gotta go elsewhere when I can.”

“Nature photography ... is that likeNational Geographickind of stuff?”

“That’s the dream, yeah. Not that I expect to ever hit that level. Hell, I’d be happy for my shots to be on postcards at random truck stops across the US.”

She grinned. “Next to the personalized pocketknives and key chains?”

“I’d rather be between the novelty lighters and dream catchers, but I’ll take what I can get.”

Elliott laughed, and a tingling sensation shimmered down the back of her neck as she sensed Jamie’s attention on her. She did her best to ignore her body’s insistence that they not forget his close proximity.Why aren’t we closer to him?

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