Hot Stuff

I sigh and stare at him. “Have you always been this aggravating?”

“No. It’s recent.” He shakes his head, still grinning. The prick. “Most likely bolstered by my big, fat, swollen heart, thanks to falling in love with the most incredible woman on the planet.”

“Great. Remind me to thank Holley the next time I see her.”

“I will,” he answers without hesitation, and I kind of want to reach across the table and smack him. “Come on, dude. Just do it. What can it hurt?”

“A lot,” I finally admit, dropping the menu and the farce at once. If I can’t tell my best friend about the depths of my dark soul, who can I? “It can hurt a hell of a lot, actually.”

“And why’s that?”

“She’s my captain’s daughter.”

“What?” Jake howls, positively delighted. “She’s Captain Carroll’s daughter?”

I nod and picture stabbing my best friend with my fork at the same time.

“Well, shit. Maybe you shouldn’t go for it, then,” he says, but his words don’t match the tone of his voice or his expression. “I’m sure that the attraction will pass. That the first woman who’s caught your eye in over a year is probably the same as any other woman. Plenty of fish and all that. You’re a rule-follower. You don’t need hassle in your life. You don’t need excitement. You should just stay boring, that’s what I say.”

“Damn you,” I condemn, shoving back my chair and standing with a huff. What a reverse psychology-toting asshole.

Jake’s not offended in the least. In fact, he looks entirely too pleased with himself, and I will, at some point, find a way to get revenge on him because of it.

Finally free to scan the dining area for Lauren’s table, I find her almost immediately. She’s not that far away, but she is tucked in the front corner of the restaurant at a table with someone else.

Shit.

My first instinct is to berate myself for being nervous, but the truth is, I haven’t dated in nearly twenty years. It’s fine for me to be nervous—it’s natural.

It’s how I overcome the nerves that matters.

Even though Jake is a real dick, what he said was accurate.

I mean, who knows when I’ll get the chance to do this again? It’s been two months since I last saw her at Thanksgiving, and it’s coincidental at that. If I don’t do it now, short of asking the captain himself for her phone number, I might as well kiss any chances of spending more time with Lauren goodbye.

And fuck, I want to spend more time with her.

A lot of fucking time.

Which is something I haven’t felt in years.

There’s a reason she has my attention, and I’d be a fool not to try to understand why.

Assured I’m doing the right thing, I settle into my stride and lift my chin up higher. It’s now or never. All or nothing.

The world is what we make of it, and I spent way too many years making hardly anything. Thank God for my kids. They’re the only things that make me feel like I haven’t been floating through life without respect for it entirely.

It’s time I take the dive somewhere else. Give someone else a shot. Give myself a shot at having something more.

You can do this, Garrett. Just walk over there and lay it on the line.

I can do it. I do shit that takes far more courage every day at work.

That doesn’t explain why my heart is damn near pounding out of my chest, but whatever.

I’ve got this. I’m doing it.

No one notices my approach to the table—not Lauren, not her companion, not the server standing by her chair. Because of that, when I come to a stop next to them, Lauren’s eyes move up the length of my body with a comical slowness full of expectation.

“I’ll take another glass of tea—” she starts to say, jolting when her gaze lands on my face and she realizes who I am.

“Really? Are you sure you want to have another date with the nuclear waste site?” I tease.

She smiles and blushes, even though she’s trying desperately not to do either.

At the tone of my comment, her table mate looks up from her plate and takes notice of me for the first time.

Her eyes widen and her pupils dilate—a reaction I’m somewhat conditioned to from women—but after a quick glance to Lauren, she calms her hormones into a smile. I’m spoken for. Very obviously spoken for, apparently, to anyone other than Lauren Carroll.

Hell, even I don’t think I’d realized how little I’ve cared about women since I met her in September. I thought it was the fact that I’d been married for so long—that I wasn’t used to being a single, available guy.

But maybe it’s been something more than that.

Maybe it’s been a doe-eyed doctor.

“Garrett. What are you… Do you… I mean…what are you doing here?” she stammers.