Page 43 of Tourist Trap

“Wow, sounds like you’ve got a lot of big feelings about that.”

“I don’t havebig feelingsabout it,” I grumble. “I just want my spot.”

She pouts at me and pats my cheek. I can see Grant giggling behind her, entertained by my misery.

The asshole should be on my side.

“There are a bunch of spots on the street,” she says.

“Thatyoucould have parked in.”

“I got here first,” she says, lifting her hands in the air and stepping closer. We’re almost nose to nose, her hands now on her hips, looking up at me from her short height, me towering over her, and for a split, fucked second, I think about the fact that it wouldn’t take much to kiss her.

I bet that would shut up her incessant need to argue with me.

She’s my tenant.I remind myself.She’s only here for the summer. And you have more than enough on your plate to deal with a handful like Claire.

After our morning together where she told me more about her doomed relationship, I’ve removedthat she’s your brother’s ex from my reasons I can’t be into her, and before that, I removed thatshe’s too immature and young. The slowly dwindling list can’t be a great sign for my restraint, but I’ll worry about that another day.

I shake my head and step back.

“Claire!” Benny shouts over the music. “Is he giving you a hard time?”

“No, Benny boy, he’s just chatting with me,” she shouts over her shoulder, but her eyes and her wide smile are still directed at me.

Benny boy. Fuck, why do I like her fitting in here so damn much? She slides right into this place, not sticking out like some outsider, making nicknames for Benny and friends everywhere she does, as if she’s always belonged here.

“Come on, Miles, let my dance partner be. She was teaching me the Cha-Cha Slide.” I look over Claire’s shoulder at Benny, his smile wide and teasing, his usual Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned over a white tank top and a pair of cargo shorts, pipe for once out of sight. “Who knows how much longer I have to live?”

I shake my head, then look down at Claire, who is smiling wide at me.

“Yeah. Are you really going to deprive an old man of fun to argue with a girl about a parking spot? How very alpha male of you.”

A million thoughts run through my head, and more than one of them revolve around showing Clairejusthow much of a Neanderthal I can be by hefting her over my shoulder and carrying her out of here.

But I don’t. Instead, I shake my head, then gesture toward the bar for her to carry on before moving to see Grant.

“Come on, my man. Let’s get you a drink,” he says like it’s a consolation prize as he leads me to a larger table where half a dozen drinks sit in various states of empty instead of the normal high-top table we usually sit at on Tuesdays.

“I think I’m going to need it.”

I look around the dive bar. It’s more crowded, since it seems someone pushed the tables back to make Claire a makeshift dance floor. Lainey and June twist and turn together while a few other couples do the same.

Despite myself, I have to accept that this is what Claire brings everywhere she goes: joy, chaos, and a lightheartedness that can’t be denied.

It drives me fucking crazy.

“Looks like they’re having fun,” Grant says an hour later, tipping his chin to where patrons are now spinning around the dance floor. Some old 80s song I vaguely recognize is playing, and each time I look up, Claire is dancing with someone new, her head tipping back with laughter. She’s come to the table a handful of times to take a drink of water or chat with June or Lainey, but most of the night, she’s been at the center of the bar, dancing.

“Hmm,” I say noncommittally.

“You should go dance with her,” he says as if it’s a casual suggestion, but I know my best friend enough to know it’s anything but.

I look at him and shake my head.

“Why not?”

“Not the dancing type, and you know that.”

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