I really shouldn’t have gotten involved. But I wasn’t very good at staying away from things I should.
I’d kissed my stepmother—twice. Then another married woman. She’d been nice about it, though—so nice, in fact, that now I lived with her and her husband.
Impulse control and I had never gotten along. And as I stood in that fast-food joint, the scent of fried food making my stomach growl, I proved it once again.
Don’t do it. My mind repeated the mantra over and over and over again, and yet… I shifted just slightly, studying the striking brunette in front of me as she stared at the soda machine.
The soft, small features on her delicate face made her exceptionally attractive. Some people may have said pretty, I’d say beautiful…but when I fell for someone, I fell hard and fast, so maybe I wasn’t the best judge.
Not that I was in love…yet, but the potential was already brewing in my mind.
I cleared my throat, shuffling a step closer. “Uh, you need to pick the soda you want.”
She startled, glancing over her shoulder as though she hadn’t even known I was there.
That was my luck. Why would the beautiful woman in front of me ever had noticed that I was there?
“Oh, right,” she said.
My eyebrows pinched a little. There was something about those two words that piqued my curiosity. It sounded like she had a slight accent that I couldn’t place.
She glanced back at the machine again before she shifted aside. “Why don’t you go first? I’m holding you up.”
“Oh, no,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m in no hurry.”
She offered me a sheepish glance. “The thing is…I don’t know what I want.”
“Can’t decide?” I asked as I stepped forward and jabbed at the button for cola. As a doctor, I knew better than to drink this stuff, but sometimes you just needed to break the rules. Right?
She lifted her chin, her eyes focused on the machine like she was studying it. “I’ve really never had any of this before.”
I filled the other two cups I had with the orange soda my friends loved and snapped the lids onto them. As I stowed them in the drink carrier, I glanced over my shoulder at her.
“Is the orange good?” She tilted her head as she stared at the choice I’d just made on the screen.
“Umm, it’s okay. My friends like it. I don’t love it.” I narrowed my eyes slightly at her. Was this some kind of bizarre flirting?
I really hoped it was because I was striking out everywhere in love, and for once, it would be nice for someone to actually like me.
Although, I warned myself, once she heard about my past, she’d probably run screaming. And my big-mouthed half-sister would make sure she knew exactly how messed up my history was. From my issues with my dad to the revenge plot and all the other drama, Sierra would scare her off faster than I could say “nice to meet you.”
For once, though, I really hoped one of the ladies I met wouldn’t care.
“Hmm. What about the cola? That’s what you got, right?”
“Uh-huh, I did. It’s, umm, what about root beer? They have that.”
She arched a dark eyebrow, flicking her dark brown eyes to me before she thrust her cup forward.
I stood there for a minute like a complete idiot before I grabbed it. “Oh, right. You want me to…okay, sure. I can get it for you.”
I pressed the depressor to dispense ice into her cup, then tapped on the screen to find the root beer.
As the liquid poured into her cup, mixing the syrup with the carbonated water, I glanced over my shoulder and grinned at her.
She offered what looked like a polite smile, hands clasped primly in front of her. Something about her just didn’t fit the burger joint Alex and Ava had insisted we stop at.
Her clothes were a little too nice for a five-dollar meal in a place where the floor tiles were only slightly clean. Then again, I was here with a tech billionaire and his wife of twenty years, who had only recently decided to give their marriage a real shot.
I didn’t have the most conventional friends—maybe this woman was some sort of quirky, off-beat type, too.
The machine finished dispensing, and I pulled the cup from under the dispenser and snapped the lid on before I shoved a straw into it and handed it back.
Another polite smile. Of course. I definitely did not have skills with the ladies.
