Candy Ever After (Hot Candy 2)

Boom.

Crash.

There goes the fantasy.

“Douchebag,” I mutter under my breath and take off my glasses, then put them back on when everything turns blurry. “Nerdy chick? Seriously?”

He glances back at me, blue eyes wide. “Did you say something?”

I shake my head and worry at a fuchsia-painted nail. Almost rip it off, and still I keep chewing at it like a crazed hyena with a juicy bone. “Ellen, huh?”

He blinks. “Yeah. Just a friend.”

Uh-huh. And even if I ignored that, the “nerdy girl” comment still rattles.

Nothing wrong with being nerdy, surely, I try to reassure myself. After all, it’s probably true—but that’s not the image I wanted to project, not to this guy. Not to the protagonist of my bedtime fantasies. He should find me pretty. Intriguing. Sexy.

Also, did I need a reminder that this guy has been pining after Ellen Davenport, who’s pretty as a picture, the queen of the ball, since forever? Nope, I didn’t. Who would?

Nobody ever figured out why she never went out with him, but he sure is still trying! He only came here hoping to find her, maybe chat her up.

Ugh.

“Hey.” He shoves his phone in his pocket and turns back to me. He lifts a thick, dark brow. “Wanna walk me to the cash register and ring this one up for me?”

“Um, I should stay here.” I wave at the shelves. “These babies need a lot of maintenance.”

Now his other brow goes up—and oh shit, what am I doing? Who wouldn’t want to walk JK to the register and ring up whatever he wants?

“Right.” He lingers a moment longer, rubbing his chin, and my gaze keeps straying to the taut biceps bulging in his arm. “I’ll be on my way, then.”

Because Ellen wasn’t here.

“Have we met before?” he asks before he turns to go, and I’m sorely tempted to inform him about how long I’ve been observing him from near and far at college, of the long nights spent with my friends talking about him and his roommate, about my blog…

Know what? Nope.

“I don’t think we have,” I reply quickly.

“My mistake then.” But his voice is smooth, deep. Unrepentant.

Or maybe just polite and uninterested.

He turns to go and I want to follow him. Or hide behind the shelves. Or scream.

This is not how I imagined my meeting with Joel Kingsley would go.

Okay, you know what else? Forget about that blog post. Forget about all this. I’ll just pretend this day never happened. I busy myself with a display, try to appear busy, anyway, while he chats up Donna at the counter.

Though I do snap a pic of his amazing ass as he walks out of the shop, the banana book in his hand, his dark hair long enough to brush the back of his corded neck.

Nerdy. He called me nerdy.

I’ll show you nerdy. I’m more than you can handle, baby. I’m a sex bomb.

I hate him.

No, I don’t. I’m so confused.