Page 45 of Dash of Bryce
These days, I was older and wiser. And I already knew that he was a practiced player – the kind who was better at flattering than at sticking around.
All this to say, my eyes were now wide open, which was a very good thing, because otherwise, I might be a huge hypocrite, cautioning Lexie and Gwen while falling for the wrong kind of guy myself.
But of course,theywere soft.Iwasn't – or so I believed until my resolve first started to crack.
Chapter 23
Harper
I stared at Bryce. "Wait, you're buildingwhat?"
He grinned. "A Christmas village."
It was just past ten o'clock in the morning, and we were sitting on the couch in my own living room. Since this was generally the slow time of day as far as coffee-selling went, I'd taken to visiting Bryce nearly every morning – parking the coffee truck not at the job site, but at the nearby park where I had met Bryce on that very first day.
I was still processing what I'd just heard when he asked, "What did you think we were building?"
Wasn't it obvious?"A burger joint."
Now, it washisturn to look surprised. "What gave you that idea?"
"Well, youdoown a bunch of them in Florida."
He shook his head. "No, I don't."
"You don't? But Myra said…" I let my words trail off at the thought of getting Myra into some sort of trouble.
"You mean the realtor?"
I gave a reluctant nod. "Yeah. She and I are friends. Sort of."
His eyebrows lifted. "Sort of?"
"We went to high school together, but it's not like we were close." I leaned toward him. "But what about the burger joints?"
"I soldthosemonths ago." He shrugged. "It'd be pretty hard to keep an eye on them from across the country, don't you think?"
I did, actually."Well, sure. But I thought that's why you were building one here."
His lips quirked upward. "And it never occurred to you to ask?"
I reached out and gave him a mock push to the chest. "And it never occurred toyouto tell me?" But then, as the ramifications hit home, I gave a little squeal. "Oh, my God. Do you know that this means?"
"What?"
"No more burger orders in the middle of the night. Do you know how much I hated that old drive-through?"
He laughed. "Well, judging from the way you destroyed it, I'm guessing it's a lot."
I was still reeling from what I'd just learned. It was funny to think that Bryce had never mentioned anything about a Christmas village. But then again, it's not like we spent a whole lot of time talking.
Sure, I knewsomethings about him, like he was one of three kids and had grown up an hour north of here. His whole family was apparently thrilled that he had moved back to Michigan, and it made me feel just a little wistful, knowing that I would probably never meet them – not with us being just a fling.
As my thoughts churned with the goodandthe bad, I suddenly realized something. "Hey, wait a minute. It's already December. Shouldn't the village be up already?"
He nodded. "It wassupposedto be, but the guy running the project made a big mess of it."
"But I thoughtyouwere running it."
