Muffin Top

She gulped, her heart beating so fast it had to be approaching light speed. “There’s more?”

This was how he flirted? She resisted the urge to fan herself and pull at her collar like some kind of cartoon. No wonder the women of Waterbury couldn’t resist him. The man was lethal to the better-decision-making process.

“Would you like to hear all about it?” he asked, his voice low and rough as if he was trying not to sound so damn sexy and failing miserably.

Of course, that’s when the waitress stopped by their table and asked if there was anything else she could get them and—judging by the fact that the waitress stood so her back was to Lucy—by “them” she meant only Frankie and by “anything” she meant a blow job.

The dismissal of even the idea that Lucy could be with someone like Frankie by the waitress was enough to take an ice pick of reality to her hot air balloon of sexually frustrated anticipation. This was reality.

“Just the check,” Lucy said to the waitress’s back.

The waitress glanced back over her shoulder with a shocked expression as if she’d genuinely forgotten Lucy was there. It wasn’t the first time Lucy had gotten this reaction after speaking. It was as if being fat put a target on her and gave her an invisibility cloak at the same time. If she wasn’t so used to it, it would have pissed her off. As it was, it just made her tired.

“Don’t even think you’re paying for this,” Frankie said, ignoring the waitress. “I asked you out, I get the check.”

Nope. That took this whole thing too far into the pity date territory she was determined to avoid at all costs, and she was still too flustered from Frankie’s outburst to agree to that. “You know why that’s not gonna happen.”

“There’s a lot that’s not gonna happen.”

And double ouch. Sure, she knew it was just an attraction-by-proximity thing with him, but the swiftness of his declaration made her wince anyway. “With the number one being you paying for lunch.”

The waitress let out a huff and smacked the bill down on the table. “Once y’all figure it out, you can pay up front.” Then she sashayed away from their table without a single look back.

“I think you pissed her off,” Lucy said, stating the obvious because her brain was too fried and her body’s reaction to the man across from her too strong to think of anything witty.

And the constant belly-tightening awareness of him made no sense. She knew she and Frankie couldn’t be a thing. Taking a deep breath, she went over the list. One, she wasn’t his type. Two, he wasn’t hers. Three, he was on the sex bench. Four, he was only flirting with her because that’s what he did, not because he meant it. Five, they’d have to go back home eventually, and being one more on the long list of Frankie Hartigan’s women did absolutely nothing for her.

Okay, it did something for her, but only in a late-night-fantasy way, definitely not in a real-world, light-of-day way. No way did she want to turn this pity date week into a pity fuck, too.

Flustered and annoyed with herself, she grabbed the bill before he could and hustled over to the cashier by the door. Chicken? Her? Totally.

Frankie didn’t press her on her fast getaway from Charbroiled. He changed the subject and kept her laughing and made her heart beat faster with a little touch here or a look there all the way back to her dad’s house. They’d no more than walked in the door—Frankie having to pivot to avoid a flying ballistic missile otherwise known as Gussie, who seemed to be as interested in what Frankie had behind his zipper as she was—when she spotted the note. It was three sentences on a yellow Post-it stuck to the mirror next to the coatrack.

Muffin,

Leading group session and then meeting Alvarez for drinks. Don’t wait up. Be good.

Dad

Be good? Like she needed to be told that. She was a grown woman. Her gaze drifted over to Frankie, who was holding Gussie in his arms but at a distance, sort of like a non-kid person held a toddler with a stinky diaper. Her pulse ticked up. Shit. Maybe she did need a reminder if watching him avoid getting a Gussie tongue bath as the French Bulldog whined in frustration was getting her worked up.

“What are we going to do with ourselves?” he asked, putting down Gussie, who immediately began running in excited circles around him.

She had ideas. She had lots of ideas. None of which would be put into action.

“Up for a movie?” he asked.

“Sure.” She could totally sit next to Frankie Hartigan in the dark and pretend to pay attention to a movie plot instead of how sexy he looked with a few days beard scruff, or how even the idea of his thick fingers touching her made her need to squeeze her thighs together to relieve the ache that had been building since they’d left Waterbury.