The Player Hater (Accidentally in Love 1)

I moan before it hits my lips. Tempted, but not stupid; if I take a bite now, it’ll likely burn off my tastebuds and then where will I be? Sad and still hungry.

More moonshine hits my tongue.

The fire in my belly gets weaker as I get used to the flavor and taste and smell.

“Who made this again?” I ask, voice louder than it needs to be. Even I’m aware of that but let’s be real: I’m buzzed after a few sips. I’m also aware that I’ve already been told who made it, but, again…buzzed brain.

Well-rested and loopy.

“Lionel brought it with him. Made it himself.”

“Tastes like gasoline and shattered dreams.” Still, that doesn’t stop me from drinking more of it. “My pudgy pie will make it taste better though.”

Taking a bite, I already know before it hits my lips I’m going to love it—and I do. The hazelnut spread oozes from every side, jam along with it, bread slightly crusted and delightful.

I wash it down with another tiny sip of Lionel’s magic juice. “Damn that’s tasty.”

Davis eyeballs the glass warily. “Er. Maybe you should have water, too.”

Eh. Why drink water when this gutter juice is starting to taste so darn delicious? “Maybe I should make a s’more once I’m done with this sammy.”

“Maybe you should have twenty sammies—you need actual food.” Davis disappears while I’m eating the last of my cute, tasty, treat, offering me a croissant. “Here. Better eat some heartier carbs.”

Hearty carbs?

What is that even?

“This would be amazing dipped in chocolate,” I muse as I nibble at the end, inspecting it before it goes into my mouth. Sip on the liquor. Nibble more bread.

The fire crackles and pops as guests roast marshmallows and laugh and drink, and eventually, I plop back down in my chair to listen to the chatter.

“Davis, tell us,” the woman named Cookie says from across the fire. “How is it that a man like you is single?”

Well.

“That was rude,” I mutter beside him, more to myself than him, feeling good in the neighborhood and edgy on his behalf. Not that it’s any of my business—I don’t know the guy and have spent all of one hour with him, half of that time was spent digging a hook out of his earlobe.

It was a fine earlobe, but still.

Davis chuckles, but even with liquor inside me I can tell it’s strained. “Just haven’t found the right one.”

“So. No dating?”

He hesitates. “Yes, I date. Sort of.”

“What does that mean? Sort of?” The Other Suzanne chimes in. She seems as buzzed as I’m feeling.

I watch the exchange while chomping on the croissant I’d been given, sincerely wishing it was smothered in something sweet.

S’more.

A s’more croissant sounds absolutely yummy.

The Other Suzanne looks like the kind of woman who loves to gossip, drinks too much, and flirts with other men relentlessly—same as Cookie, though she’s way more blatant about it.

I wonder if they’re swingers…

I ponder this idea as I load a metal stick with marshmallows, prepared to cook three at a time; one to eat on its own, two for the graham cracker sammich.

“Have you always been single?” the women ask, almost in tandem, the question irritating me to no end.

“Nope, he hasn’t,” Thad chimes in, feet extended in front of him as he sits in his chair lazily. I get the feeling he doesn’t want to be left out of the conversation and thinks it’s his duty to give them information on his friend. “Had a few steady girlfriends. Horrible people who weren’t right for him. Not like my sweet cheeks here.”

Mia blushes in the moonlight.

“The longest relationship I have had is with the ladies at the Humane Society,” Davis laughs, poking the fire with a fire iron that he retrieved from the ground and digging into the embers, stoking it.

“Ladies at the Humane Society?” I blurt out, interested, but not wanting to be interested.

Yes, I’m purposely trying not to like this man; I know it’s wrong and I know I shouldn’t have decided before I got here that I wasn’t going to like him—that doesn’t stop me from being a grouch.

Regardless, it suddenly strikes me that I may have pre-judged him based on my own past experiences. Don’t we all do that though? Aren’t we all guilty of doing that?

Is it his fault that I dated a string of good-looking, successful guys who ended up betraying me? Is it his fault that my last boyfriend—a semi-professional baseball player—slept with a woman who used to hang around the ball park after the games?

Davis used to be a professional athlete—I cannot imagine how many gold diggers used to sniff around him. Cannot imagine a man that funny and good-looking being faithful.

Bah humbug!

I chuckle at my own reference to Christmas—my favorite holiday of the year—which makes no sense and is so super random of an insertion into my brain.