Scratch the Surface

I couldn’t explain it, but the stranger from the night before felt like he belonged with me. I could see myself sitting and talking to him for hours. I wanted to watch movies with him. I wanted to talk to him about my plans and see if his and mine could possibly align. See if maybe he might want that.

It was nuts.

The whole love-at-first-sight thing was a crock of shit, and I wasn’t in love anyway, but there was something there, something I had to question and know the answer to. There was no way I could let it go, because while I was feasting on him, I’d had the compulsion to claim him somehow, to tattoo my name over his heart, and that had never happened before in my life. When he was lying there with his head on my chest, smiling at me in the near-darkness even as he drifted off to sleep, I wanted to ask if I could see him again. I wanted to ask if he wanted to take a ride on my bike, and more than anything, I wanted to ask if he’d like to see the sunrise from my fire escape.

Breathing deeply, feeling better, as I always did when I had a plan, I headed back out. I was surprised when I went toward the area near the stage, which wouldn’t have a band on it for another two hours, and saw the owners, Charles and Rita Bowen, were there with a table full of people. Before I could turn to make my loop, I heard my name called.

Approaching the table, I went around to Rita, who immediately grabbed my hand and stared up at me as she always did, like I hung the moon.

“You see, I told you we just had to wait for Jeremiah to get here and he’d fix everything.” Her sigh was deep. “Kingman’s wouldn’t be Kingman’s without him.”

I turned and looked around the table, but stopped suddenly as I found myself staring into the same deep, dark midnight-blue eyes that had captivated me the night before.

“No,” my mystery man murmured, his gaze locked on me, “I can’t imagine Kingman’s would do well without him at all.”

4

Cameron

It took everything in me not to stand and take hold of him so he couldn’t walk away. When I looked up to see who Rita Bowen was talking to, every drop of air was squeezed from my lungs. I was stunned because, dear God, what were the chances?

I had been sitting there at dinner, feeling like my skin was too tight, anxious, checking my text messages every couple of minutes to see if there was any word from Doug. I’d finally broken down and texted him to ask if there was any sign of the Good Samaritan. Sadly, Doug reported, there was no sign of him. And then…there he was. Jeremiah.

“I noticed you called in my mother.” Mr. Bowen grinned up at him. “That’s a brilliant way to get my son back in line without hitting him upside the head with one of his precious pans.”

He glanced at me, then returned his attention to Mr. Bowen. “Yeah, I—that’s what I thought.”

“You know this place like the back of your hand, Jere,” Mr. Bowen complimented him as Drake put an arm around the back of my chair. “It’s amazing.”

Jeremiah scowled suddenly, and I didn’t understand why, but then I had this weird epiphany, which never happened to me. It wasn’t as if I walked around and thought, “Who could want me? Who could be jealous over me?” I wasn’t stupid. I knew what I looked like. I was a mix of my parents, who were both beautiful people. My father, at sixty, with his deep tan skin, dark blue eyes, and dirty-blond hair now shot through with white, still had women and men watching him and smiling, even reacting with an occasional stutter. He’d gifted me with his thick gilded hair and sapphire eyes.

My mother, with her auburn mane and hazel-green eyes, classically appealing, had given me her chiseled bone structure and pale coloring. I came out handsome because of genetics. So when I was hit on, I understood. And even though, up until today, I had never noticed Drake being even remotely interested in me, I got that he was now, because of how I’d been at the morning meeting. I was more open, looser, easier. But what he didn’t understand was that it was the man in front of me who’d kick-started the change. We were amazing in bed. He’d known what I wanted, needed, and whether that was because he’d slept with so many people or he knew intuitively, I didn’t care. I wanted to talk to him, because if the connection was the same out of bed as it was in…I needed to take him home with me.