Page 3 of Hard to Forgive

I whipped my head back to my friends, tearing my eyes off of the man at the bar. I hadn’t noticed that my checking him out had been that noticeable, but Eli seemed to have noticed. That wasn’t surprising. He noticed way too much when it came to who we were all checking out.

“I’m good,” I lied. I very much wanted to go talk to him. He had the kind of broad shoulders that made me weak.

“You’re not good. You’re distracted. Go talk to him. See if there’s sparks. Go home with him and ride him into the sunset or whatever sick perversions you’re thinking of, just stop drooling. You’re going to water down your drink.”

I flipped Eli off. He reached over the table and grabbed my middle finger. “Oh look, a fuck for me to give later!” He stuck his empty hand in his pocket, like he’d grabbed something from me.

He was ridiculous.

“I’m going to remind you that you have that later when you tell me you have no fucks to give about something,” Holden warned him.

Eli reached back onto his pocket and grabbed my finger again. “Actually, you can have that fuck back. Maybe you should go give it to him.” He pointed toward the man at the bar again.

I hated my friends sometimes. As much as I loved them, I hated them.

Everyone was looking at me now, waiting for me to work up the courage to talk to the man who had caught my attention. I was not there to hook up. I was supposed to have a few drinks with my friends and then go home, get some rest before work the next day.

Judging by the looks on my friend’s faces, that would not be happening. Not without suffering serious judgment. Even Matt looked amused by all of this, the traitor.

I huffed and puffed, but eventually I gave in. I finished my drink and went to the bar.

The stool next to the man was empty and I slid onto it. I waved down Eli’s friend the bartender and ordered another beer. “You want one?” I asked the man beside me.

He looked over at me, his gray eyes sliding up and down my body before nodding. “Yeah, I’ll take another.”

His voice was deep and gravelly and sent chills down my spine. How the hell did he look like thatandhave a sexy voice? Some people were clearly God’s favorites.

“And another of whatever he’s having,” I ordered.

When the beer came, I turned back to the mystery man. “What brings you into the Rusty Nail? Don’t think I’ve seen you here before.”

The Rusty Nail wasn’t a place people typically just stumbled into. The tourists seemed to avoid it during tourist season, choosing Goliath or one of the better looking bars King’s Bay had on offer. Most of the customers that came into the Rusty Nail were locals, and this man didn’t seem to fit the profile.

“Just moved back to town,” he answered, “and this place is close to my apartment.”

“What do you think?”

“It’s sticky.”

I laughed. The bar at the Rusty Nail was always sticky. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t question it. I just accepted it as part of the bar’s somewhat questionable charm.

“I’m Jonas,” I introduced.

“Si,” he answered immediately.

“Where did you move back from?”

I really hated small talk. I wished there was a magic button that erased small talk from existence and downloaded all of the boring small talk information directly into our brains. I never felt like I was being engaging enough with getting to know youquestions. I wished I had Eli’s innate ability to just ask the right questions. The man oozed charisma in a way I never could.

“Charolotte.” Si sounded bored. Maybe I should just go back to my friends, mark this as a lost cause. I was about to excuse myself when he angled his body more towards mine. “You here with anyone?”

“Some friends.”

“You think they would mind if I kidnapped you for a bit?”

Well, that was forward. It was also my end goal but I hadn’t expected it to be put out there that bluntly. Maybe the small talk had actually been a win for once? That would be a first.

“Define kidnapping?”

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