Page 5 of Swept Away

“He sounds pretentious,” I say, without looking around.

“That was impressively judgmental, even by my standards,” Marissa says, pulling her glasses back down onto her nose again. “Though you may not be totally wrong. He’s dressed like he’s in a magazine shoot. But he’s reading a self-help book. And he’s drinking a pint of bitter. I don’t know how to add these things up. Are those trousers made ofvelvet?”

Fine: I’m curious. I turn on my bar stool to look at the man sitting in the paisley armchair in the window, the one with the best view over the marina.

His outfit is what draws the eye first. He’s wearing a suit waistcoat, silky and gray, with no shirt underneath, and three fine silvernecklaces lie against the triangle of his bare chest. His black velvet trousers are tucked into his boots, which are stretched out lazily under the table. Generally speaking, the only men you see in The Anchor with their trousers tucked into their boots are ramblers, and they do not look like this.

Above it all is a mop of dark brown ringlets, parted in the center. He’s a lot younger than I expected when Marissa saidman with book—twenty, maybe. But there’s an old-soul vibe to him. I can picture him sitting in a bar in the 1920s, wearing braces, or maybe further back still—maybe he should be leaning lackadaisically against a ballroom fireplace inBridgerton.

I swallow. I don’t want a guy who looks like that. If I’m going to distract myself, I want someone I feel comfortable with. Someone average.

“He’s basically a teenager,” I say, turning back to Marissa.

Marissa squints at him. “Oh yeah, he is kind of young. The biceps threw me off.”

Despite myself, I glance back over my shoulder. He’s shifted, and now I can see the front cover of his book. I almost laugh.Surviving Modern Love. It’s a dating guide that’s everywhere at the moment—Penny’s been trying to get me to read it for weeks. It’s aimed at desperate women who suddenly feel their biological clock has started ticking, aka me—not at twenty-year-old boys who look as if they might front a reasonably successful pop-rock band. If pop-rock is still a thing.

He looks up and meets my eyes. A shiver runs over me like a bird skimming the water. The corner of his lip lifts in a curious smile, drawing a faint dip in his cheek.

I snap back to Marissa. My heart is suddenly thrumming.

“I believe I just witnessed amoment,” Marissa drawls. “Eyes meeting, sparks flying, et cetera.”

“You witnessed a man wondering why the two women at the bar are openly staring at his trousers.”

“That boy is not unaccustomed to being stared at,” Marissa says, examining him again over her glasses. “You don’t dress like that to fit in. Hang on, Penny’s calling me,” she says, checking her phone.

“Don’t answer.”

Marissa cuts me a look.

“You’ll have to lie when she asks whether I’m OK,” I say. “You hate lying.”

She rolls her eyes, but lets the call ring out, then frowns at her phone.

“Gack,” she says. Marissa’s favorite non–swear word—she used to swear like a sailor, but with Mae around all the time, she had to adapt. “Take the bar, would you? I need to call a supplier.”

I assess how drunk I am. Medium drunk. Perfectly acceptable here at The Anchor.

“Sure,” I say, already sliding off the stool.

By the time I’m behind the bar, grabbing my apron and securing it at my waist, the book-reading velvet-wearing twenty-something is walking over. I shoot a venomous look at Marissa, who smiles smugly at me over her shoulder as she heads to the door. She has coordinated this beautifully. Call a supplier, my arse. She just saw he’d need a new drink and wanted me behind the taps before he got to the bar.

“I thought you hated lying!” I shout at her as she opens the door.

“Doesn’t mean I’m bad at it!” she yells back.

And just like that, he’s right there in front of me.

“Hey, can I get you a drink?” he says, tilting his head.

He’s taller than I thought he might be when I was checking him out at his table, and he speaks quietly, leaning his forearms on the bar as he looks at me. He’s got heavy eyebrows, almost too heavy forthe delicate lines of his face; he’s the sort of handsome that only works in certain lights, but when it works, it’s stunning.

“I think that’s my line,” I say.

He pauses, thinking. “Huh,” he says, glancing back at the paisley armchair. “When I was sitting there thinking about what to say…you were not the bartender.”

I press my lips together to hold back a smile. I hope he can’t tell how much he’s surprised me. I know I should have the confidence to think a man like this would fall over himself to buy me a drink, but I don’t, not anymore. I am painfully conscious of my roots showing, and the fact that I’ve probably owned the leather jacket I’m wearing since he was in primary school.

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