Page 5 of Just a Friend for the Lion
This is the routine.
The song and dance.
The daily sausage symphony of my life.
And hey, I’m not knocking it.
I’ve got good friends, a great family, and a booming pizza business with recipes that’ll make you weep tears ofstracciatella—seriously my Italian egg drop soup is banging.
As for love and happy-ever-afters? Nah.
That ship sailed after a string of underwhelming dates, a very regrettable situation involving a vegan mime, and—oh yeah—the realization that my sisters found literal fated mates through a magical dating app run by a centuries-old Witch.
Cool. Cool cool cool.
Magic is real? Fantastic.
The world is filled with supernatural creatures? Awesome.
My sisters are mated to two of them, and those guys think the sun rises and sets on them? Fucking wonderful.
I mean, I’m thrilled for them.Truly.
This isn’t even sour grapes.
Carina and Geraldine, Dina for short, are living their best magic-meets-happily-ever-after lives, but me?
I’m more realistic.
Someday, hopefully before I get much older, I’ll find a nice guy. We’ll date. Maybe get married. Or maybe I won’t, right?
That’s okay. It’s fine.
Living single is a completely valid life choice. And if I’ve always dreamed of a white gown and birdseed (rice is bad for the critters) followed by the pitter patter of little feet a couple of years later—that’s okay.
Some dreams never come true.
I get it. And I’m fine with that.
I am completely okay with never feeling that special zing that tells me I've metthe onewhenever I meet a new guy.
Or I was okay with it.
Then he walks in.
I don’t even see him at first.But I feel him.
Like a shift in the atmosphere.
A subtle zap in the air that prickles across my skin.
I glance up and—Holy. Freaking. Hotness.
Six-foot-something of prime-grade male confidence, wrapped in a tight black tee that’s clinging to his chest like it owes him money.
His shoulders are broad enough to block the sun, and the way he moves? It’s got that casual, lazy swagger you only see in two places—runways and slow-motion action scenes where the hero walks away from an explosion without looking back.
His jeans are worn in all the right places, and there’s a very real chance they were custom-distressed by divine intervention because no one’s ass should look that good outside of a fantasy. Golden-tanned skin, tousled dark hair that looks like he just rolled out of a beachside dream, and—wait. Work boots?
