Page 13 of Cupid's Shot

“What?”

“Extra whipped cream?”

“I’ve been eating so clean for the last month. It’s cheat day.”

A cute noise escapes her.

“What?” I ask, wanting to know.

“Whatever diet and exercise plan you are on, it’s working.”

I smirk, seeing she’s nervous after saying that. Deciding to be bold too, I say, “You know, I’ve always thought you were cute. Last night’s look, though, was really sexy.”

“No pants is a good look on me?” she quickly quips.

I laugh, then blush, biting my lip and covering my mouth with my hand, trying to hide the growing innuendos and ideas running through my head.

“Those wings though.” She raises a brow. “Those were sexy.”

“Just the wings?” I tease, begging her to say more.

“I guess your abs were okay too.”

I grab for her hand, swiping my thumb over her knuckles. “I like this look the best,” I say, eyeing up her coveralls. “It’s so you.”

We hold a long stare, our eyes conveying our mutual attraction.

“I always thought you were so cool,” I say after a silent moment. “I definitely always noticed you …”

13

We are flirting. I did ask for his number to flirt with him, but I wasn’t anticipating us to be flirting so much and so fast.

“I paid attention to you too,” I say, then sip my grapefruit juice. “You went to state all four years in wrestling. You’re very smart—especially in calculus, but …” I pause, thinking. “I don’t know where you went to college.”

“I didn’t.” He shrugs. “It wasn’t for me.”

“So, what did you do after high school?”

“A lot of things that affirmed I’m not a career guy. I’m never going to be a career guy.”

He takes a bite of his pancakes, and I’m trying not to judge him, but being a forever bartender is not the sexiest thing.

“My version of the American dream …” he says after finishing a bite, “is rooted in health. Our society doesn’t value their health at all.” He chuckles to himself. “Hot take, I know. But health is wealth, as they say. That’s what I like about the bar. I’m moving around. I’m standing. I’d go crazy if I sat in a chair all day.”

“I feel that. I have to be moving around too. It’s more for my creative brain, though.”

“It’s also nice to do something real, something tangible rather than stare at a screen and live more in a digital world than the real one.”

I smile, deleting the judgment I’d just passed on him. He knows who he is, and he knows what he wants. That’s sexy. “We have so much in common.” I smile.

“That we’re both good with our hands?”

“Very risqué for brunch, Aaron,” I whisper with a growing blush on my cheeks.

He chuckles, and it’s sending me. Our chemistry. It’s there.

As we finish our meal, I note that he ate every single bite on his plate.

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