Southern Player (Charleston Heat 2)

“Yes ma’am,” I hear him say. “We’ll fix that right away.”

Lordy Lordy Lordy do I want this girl.

I’ll call her ma’am all day and all night, too.

I slide my hands into my pockets and wait on the far side of the shop, not wanting to intrude. But Gracie looks up and finds me anyway. Immaculately aware, like always. Her eyes flash with something I can’t place. A look she manages to hide by offering me a smile and holding up a finger.

I lift my hand, fingers splayed, and smile back. A silent gesture of hi and take your time and you’re such a boss and I admire you so much and I may die of lust-fueled thirst right here right now.

“Hey!” she says, a little breathless when she wraps up her meeting a few minutes later. “Two unexpected visits in one week. How’d I get so lucky?”

To quote Gracie—there’s a joke in there somewhere about getting lucky.

I don’t make it. Too soon. Or maybe too late.

Hard to tell.

“Hey, Gracie girl.”

My body roars to life when she pulls me in for our customary hug. I hold her close and inhale the scent of her hair.

Whatever shampoo she uses, I like it.

I wanna be polite. I wanna be clever and cute and flirty.

But right now, I’m too curious for that. Too impatient.

“I was just at Eli’s,” I say when she lets me go. “He said we need to talk.”

The tip of her tongue darts out between her lips. When she looks up at me, her eyes are uncertain.

She’s nervous, too.

“We do,” she replies. “I have an hour before this lunch thing I have to get to. Wanna go for a little walk? Heat’s not too bad yet, is it?”

I shrug. “It’s always bad. Let’s head for the Battery. Maybe catch a breeze off the water.”Chapter SixLukeWe take a right on East Bay Street. Rainbow Row, the famous collection of brightly colored houses that line one side of the street, provides much needed shade as we move toward the water.

It’s close to noon. Sun high and hot. The air is tinged with salt, the smell of the ocean.

I glance at Gracie beside me. Her dress is sleeveless, but it’s long. Her forehead and temples glisten with sweat. She’s warm. Same as I am in my jeans.

It’s driving me crazy that I can’t see her eyes through the dark lenses of her big ass sunglasses.

We’ve been quiet so far. I keep her on the inside of the sidewalk, away from traffic. Close. Close enough that our arms brush as we walk. Making the air between us, already thick with humidity, cloud with familiarity and electricity and want.

She does not pull away. If anything, she moves into me. Legs touching now. Her knee to the top of my shin.

What that means, I don’t know. I do know I’m finding it harder and harder to breathe.

Everything feels so close, so suffocating. Like we’re on the verge of something.

It can’t possibly get hotter.

I can’t possibly keep waiting.

This bubble’s gotta burst. Or I’m gonna die.

We cross the street. The green-brown water of the harbor is just coming into view when she speaks.

Her voice wavers. It hits me that she’s nervous, too.

“I want to ask you something.” She looks up, pieces of her hair flying in a hot, hardly satisfying breeze. “Something I hope you’ll take as a compliment. But if I offend you—I swear that’s not my intention, okay?”

I hook a finger into the collar of my shirt and give it a tug. Jesus Christ, am I gonna pass out?

“I am not fuckin’ okay,” I reply. “Gracie, I’m so damn confused.”

And turned on.

And hot.

She stops, back to the railing that separates the sidewalk from the sand and the incoming tide, and looks up at me. I can see the words on her lips. In the furrow of her brow. I’m sorry.

“Don’t,” I say. “No apologies. Just ask me. You know I’m not gonna judge you. Hell, you could ask to borrow my tractor so you can experience the throb firsthand, and I wouldn’t think any less of you. Ask.”

Gracie laughs. The familiar, happy sound eases the tension between us the tiniest bit. A reminder that she’s just Gracie and I’m just me, and we been playing this game for years now.

“All right,” she says. “Fine. I’ll ask. I’ll ask you, Luke Rodgers, if you have any interest in possibly, potentially, maybe hooking up with me. You said you don’t do serious, and, well…I don’t want to do serious for a while, either.”

My heart makes a run for it, ending up somewhere in the back of my throat.

Sweat drips down my temples.

Inside my hat, my head is about to explode.

Shit shit shit I fucked up. I should have told her right away the other night that I was putting on an act. Trying not to mess with her head.