Book Lovers(23)

I should’ve been looking where I was going.

I shouldn’t have worn such high heels, or had a martini on an empty stomach, or been reading a book that’s giving me a surreal out-of-body experience.

Because some combination of those poor decisions leads to me barreling into someone. And we’re not talking a casual Oh, I clipped you on the shoulder—how adorably clumsy I am! We’re talking “Holy shit! My nose!”

Which is what I hear in the moment that my ankles wobble, my balance is thrown off, and my gaze snaps up to a face belonging to none other than Charlie Lastra.

Right as I go down like a sack of potatoes.





6





CHARLIE CATCHES MY forearms before I can tumble all the way down, steadying me as the words “What the hell?” fly out of him.

After the pain and shock comes recognition, followed swiftly by confusion.

“Nora Stephens.” My name sounds like a swear.

He gapes at me; I gape back.

I blurt, “I’m on vacation!”

His confusion deepens.

“I just . . . I’m not stalking you.”

His eyebrows furrow. “Okay?”

“I’m not.”

He releases my forearms. “More convincing every time you say it.”

“My sister wanted to take a trip here,” I say, “because she loves Once in a Lifetime.”

Something flutters behind his eyes. He snorts.

I cross my arms. “One has to wonder why you’d be here.”

“Oh,” he says dryly, “I’m stalking you.” At my eye bulge, he says, “I’m from here, Stephens.”

I gawk at him in shock for so long that he waves a hand in front of my face. “Hello? Are you broken?”

“You . . . are from . . . here? Like here here?”

“I wasn’t born on the bar of this unfortunate establishment,” he says, lip curled, “if that’s what you mean, but yes, nearby.”

It’s not computing. Partly because he’s dressed like he just stepped out of a Tom Ford spread in GQ, and partly because I’m not convinced this place isn’t a movie set that production abandoned halfway through construction. “Charlie Lastra is from Sunshine Falls.”

His gaze narrows. “Did my nose go directly into your brain?”

“You are from Sunshine Falls, North Carolina,” I say. “A place with one gas station and a restaurant named Poppa Squat.”

“Yes.”

My brain skips over several more relevant questions to: “Is Poppa Squat a person?”

Charlie laughs, a surprised sound so rough I feel it as a scrape against my rib cage. “No?”

“What, then,” I say, “is a Poppa Squat?”

The corner of his mouth ticks downward. “I don’t know—a state of mind?”

“And what’s wrong with the Greek salad here?”

“You tried to order a salad?” he says. “Did the townspeople circle you with pitchforks?”

“Not an answer.”

“It’s shredded iceberg lettuce with nothing else on it,” he says. “Except when the cook is drunk and covers the whole thing in cubed ham.”

“Why?” I ask.

“I imagine he’s unhappy at home,” Charlie replies, deadpan. “Might have something to do with the kinds of thwarted dreams that lead a person to working here.”

“Not why does the cook drink,” I say. “Why would anyone cover a salad in cubed ham?”

“If I knew the answer to that, Stephens,” he says, “I’d have ascended to a higher plane.”

At this point, he notices something on the ground and ducks sideways, picking it up. “This yours?” He hands me my phone. “Wow,” he says, reading my reaction. “What did this phone do to you?”

“It’s not the phone so much as the sociopathic super-bitch who lives inside it.”

Charlie says, “Most people just call her Siri.”

I shove my phone back to him, Dusty’s pages still pulled up. The furrow in his brow re-forms, and immediately, I think, What am I doing?

I reach for the phone, but he spins away from me, the crease beneath his full bottom lip deepening as he reads. He swipes down the screen impossibly fast, his pout shifting into a smirk.

Why did I hand this over to him? Is the culprit here the martini, the recent head injury, or sheer desperation?

“It’s good,” Charlie says finally, pressing my phone into my hand.

“That’s all you have to say?” I demand. “Nothing else you care to comment on?”

“Fine, it’s exceptional,” he says.

“It’s humiliating,” I parry.

He glances toward the bar, then meets my eyes again. “Look, Stephens. This is the end of a particularly shitty day, inside a particularly shitty restaurant. If we’re going to have this conversation, can I at least get a Coors?”

“You don’t strike me as a Coors guy,” I say.

“I’m not,” he says, “but I find the merciless mockery from the bartender here dampens my enjoyment of a Manhattan.”

I look toward the sexy TV bartender. “Another enemy of yours?”