I blinked at her, freezing myself. “What?”
“You don’t think…”
“Think what?”
She met my eyes. “You don’t think he has feelings for you, do you?”
I balked. “No. No way. That’s impossible.”
“I know, but it doesn’t make sense otherwise. I mean, sure. It could be that he’s protective over you because you’re his best friend’s sister, but the whole erection thing blows that out of the water.”
No kidding.
I dropped into the nearest chair. Why hadn’t that thought ever crossed my mind? It was the most logical answer, but it didn’t make sense.
It was Josh.
Josh.
There was no way he could have feelings for me, was there?
“Okay, but why would he offer to find me dates if he had feelings for me?” I asked after a few moments of silence. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“I’ll give you that.” She waved a mass-market paperback in my direction before she set it on its stack. “None of this does, but there’s something going on.” She peered over at me. “Do you have feelings for him?”
“What? No!”
“Are you sure?”
I paused. Yes, I was sure I didn’t have any concrete feelings for Josh. Absolutely so. But that didn’t change the fact I’d felt… things. Like those butterflies in my stomach when he got too close or smiled at me just right.
But those weren’t feelings.
Were they?
“Well, that answers that.”
“No!” I protested, grabbing a stack of books from one of our most popular self-published authors and following Saylor to the new release table. “I don’t have feelings for him.”
“But there’s something.”
“Fine. Maybe there’s some highly inappropriate butterflies at inopportune times that don’t make any sense.”
“That’s how all good romance novels start, my friend.”
“I’m going to shove a romance novel up your ass,” I muttered, arranging the books I was carrying on the new release table.
Saylor laughed as she set a book stand on top of the stack of Patterson novels and put one on it so it was standing up. “I’m just saying, Kins. Either way, we need to figure out what’s going on.”
“We? We?”
“Yes, we. I bet there’s a way me and Holley can figure out how he feels about you without it being obvious.”
“You? Not obvious? Try again.”
“No, I’m being serious. Where are you going with this guy tonight?”
I straightened the books. “Bronco’s.”
“Really?”
“The fancy place didn’t work so well, so I thought I’d try a little more casual,” I admitted. I was already regretting that particular decision, because I knew exactly what she was going to say next.
“Okay, so what if me, Holley, Josh, and Colton come to Bronco’s tonight? I’ll watch Josh and see how he reacts to you dating literally right in front of him.”
“There’s a problem with that.”
“What?”
“The entire sentence, Saylor.” I turned back to the big tables to grab another stack of new releases to adjust. “Absolutely no way. My brother being there? That’s a recipe for disaster.”
She nodded slowly. “Maybe so, but it’s not like me and Holley can take Josh for a drink. Then he’ll know something is up. If I tell Colt I want to spy on you and tell Josh it’s an ideal time to spy on you, nobody will suspect anything.”
“Why? Because you’re a nosy bitch?”
“Exactly that.” She grinned, putting the new release sign on the table. “And I’m not even sorry.”
Even I had to laugh at that. I did love the fact that Saylor was unapologetically who she was.
“Fine,” I said after a few minutes. “You do that, but none of you are to come near us, do you hear? And you sit on the other side of the bar and arrive after we get there.”
She rolled her eyes, but ultimately agreed.
By the time I turned my back on her, I was already regretting this like hell.***Mondays at Bronco’s were, thankfully, not insanely busy.
Usually.
Tonight was an exception.
There was some big hiking convention or something going on in White Peak this week, so it was busier than usual. Whatever it was, it was a new thing that didn’t happen on a yearly basis.
Thankfully, Elliott had booked our table in advance, and since Holley and Ivy’s parents owned the bar, Holley and everyone else had no problems getting a table either.
Awesome.
I wasn’t going to lie, I’d had a moment of hope when I’d seen how packed this place was.
Elliott and I placed our food orders and handed the menus over to Rachel. She took them and flounced away just as the jukebox rolled over to Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey.
That was Saylor’s song.
If she was using the jukebox to get near us, I was going to string her up from the town square clock by her ankles while she was naked.
“So you own the bookstore in town?” Elliott asked, genuinely looking interested. “What kind of books do you sell?”
I gave him a brief recap of how we came to own the store. “We sell just about everything. Fiction, non-fiction, kids books, local guide books. And, apparently, books on raising ducks.”