Guy Hater (Fisher Brothers 2)

“Do you think you two will get married?” I'd asked her as we’d hung out at the bar one evening. I had never met a couple, regardless of age, who had overcome the number of roadblocks to their relationship that they had.

“Without a doubt,” Jess said with a smile. “But not anytime soon.”

I smiled back at her, loving her practicality and her heart. “Not in a rush?”

“I know I want to spend the rest of my life with Nick, but I don’t want to get married yet. A piece of paper doesn’t change how I feel about him. And I’m not ready for kids, so the whole wedding thing can wait, as far as I’m concerned.”

I laughed. “You’re so not a typical girl.”

“Tell me about it,” she said with a grin, lifting her glass in a salute.

I tapped my glass to hers, still processing all that she had told me. After taking a sip, I said, “I still can’t believe everything you two went through. That must have been really hard.”

“It was at the time. I was a mess. You and Frank don’t have an easy story either, you know. Maybe all the drama is some sort of prerequisite to landing a Fisher brother.”

I hadn’t thought about it that way before, and would have never considered comparing my story to Jess’s, but maybe she was right.

“They better be worth it.” My gaze slipped to Frank pouring a beer, and his eyes instantly darted up to meet mine from across the room as if he had sensed me staring.

Jess laughed as she sipped her No Bad Days cocktail. “You know as well as I do that they are.”

I couldn’t have agreed more.

• • •

Date number two hadn’t happened the night after date number one like Frank had planned since he couldn’t get away from the bar for very long. The nights we spent together at the bar didn’t count as real dates, he’d said, so our next official date had to wait.

With those rules in place, the second date had actually been over a week later, a daytime date on a Saturday morning before he went to work. We rode out to his favorite spot in Malibu and spent hours lying in the sand, talking, eating from the picnic basket he had packed, and making out. Being with him excited me so much, I felt like a teenager again.

“You live in Marina del Rey and you work in Santa Monica,” I said to Frank as I lay back in his lap, sunlight soaking into my skin as he ran his fingers through my hair. “Why do you come all the way out to Malibu to go to the beach? You realize this makes no sense, don’t you?” Malibu was gorgeous, but it wasn’t the easiest place to get to with all the traffic.

He looked around us, and I followed his gaze to the surfers catching waves and the paddleboarders keeping their distance. Then he shrugged, brushing his fingers through my hair like he’d been doing for the last hour.

“I’ve just always liked it here. It’s a little less crowded. The waves are nicer, and if you time it right, you can watch the dolphins.”

I popped up. “Dolphins?”

“Every morning and every evening. They’re incredible.”

“And the waves.” Curious, I squinted at him. “Do you surf and I didn’t know?”

“Yeah. I can’t get my board on my bike, though, so I haven’t surfed here in a while.”

Crap. Imagining Frank on a surfboard, all wet and muscular paddling in the water, took my fantasies to a whole other level. I leaned back into his lap and grabbed his hand, moving it back onto my head.

“Now who’s the bossy one?” he asked, teasing me, but started playing with my hair again almost instantly.

“What can I say?” I sighed as my eyes fell closed. “I like the way your man hands feel in my hair.”

• • •

Tonight was officially our third date, even though we’d hung out together way more than three times, and over two weeks had passed since our first date. I had no idea where we were going or what we were doing, but Frank had said to dress casual.

I still hadn’t seen his place since I left the bar before it closed during the week, and he had insisted that I wasn’t allowed to come over for the first time at four in the morning on the weekends. No matter how hard I begged, he refused to give in.

“Are you ready for tonight?” Britney raised her freshly threaded eyebrows at me, and I scrunched up my face in response.

“What’s tonight, exactly?”