Love, Exes, and Ohs (Cactus Creek #4)(16)

Whoa. “That bad? The town folk who’ve been eagerly tuning in to each of your dates—word traveled fast with this one, by the way—reported he had a ‘new-money, Hamptons-meets Hollywood’ look to him.”

“Wow, that’s actually a dead-on description. My compliments to whoever’s running the gossip hotline tonight.”

“So what happened?”

“My guess? He let the internet or some highly misguided fashion magazine dress him instead of common sense. He showed up wearing a pair of designer skinny jeans and one of those ridiculously deep-cut v-neck shirts that ninety-nine percent of men shouldn’t even attempt to wear. For crying out loud, he was showing more cleavage than I was.”

Insulting Bachelor #2 with a reference to a part of her that excited the hell out of him? Ten points across the board for best post-date debrief ever.

He kept his expression and tone neutral. “I’m surprised Sienna set you up with a rich dude to begin with. What was that about?”

Xoey shrugged. “She probably misinterpreted one of the things on my list.”

He frowned. “I don’t remember there being anything on the list that could be misinterpreted like that.” And he’d seen the list. At least the photo of it that Xoey had sent to Lia’s phone.

Which could only mean…

Quick like a bunny, Xoey pivoted and darted off in the direction of the little urban messenger style bag she usually wore slung across her body instead of a purse of any sort. Sitting all by its lonesome on the chairs over by the weight lifting machines.

He beat her there without even trying, and had her password already punched in before they began their Coyote and Roadrunner chase around the gym.

Three quick swipes and a wider shot of the list flooded the screen.

Interesting.



*



CRAP.

Xoey could already see an interrogation was imminent.

Always destroy the evidence. Had primetime cable TV taught her nothing over the years?

She sighed. This night had certainly taken a strange series of twists and turns.

After the disaster that had been Dani’s Bachelor #1 blind date set-up, which Dani had apologized profusely for—but not before laughing to the point of tears, of course—Xoey hadn’t had very high expectations for Bachelor #2.

And for good reason. He’d turned out to be kind of a superficial tool.

In the beginning, they’d actually had an engaging conversation about his work managing a posh night club, which had been pretty interesting since there was a lot of crossover between his work and hers.

But it’d gone downhill from there.

There was no argument that he was handsome, despite his unfortunate wardrobe choices. He looked a lot like one of the headlining strippers in the movie Magic Mike. Hair perfectly gelled, a very cosmopolitan style of dress, and made-for-TV good looks. All very ‘today’ cool, and fashionably polished.

After getting over his clothes, Xoey had actually enjoyed herself enough for the first ten or fifteen minutes—enough that she’d intended to thank Sienna by letting her and her buddies have their crazy intense fantasy football draft party at Ocotillos, something that absolutely no establishment in Cactus Creek allowed anymore…not since the epic food fight that Sienna and her boys had ended up getting into a few years back over one particularly heated draft pick.

About a half hour into the date, however, Xoey found herself switching over to deciding to charge Sienna double for all drinks at Ocotillos for the next week.

The guy flirted with everything on two legs.

Not only that, but when he found out that Xoey had once trained to be a dancer, and had been a cheerleader in high school, he’d let the true colors of his player flag fly.

She assumed he was going for some seductive dominant billionaire bit, but as the night went on, having him whisper cheesy ‘dirty talk’ in her ear with all that hot, heavy breathing against her neck just kept reminding her of the time she’d visited the zoo as a kid, and one of the baby elephants had started sniffing her with his trunk.

She called time of death on the date shortly after, politely thanking him for the drinks and conversation, and graciously blaming her long work day as the reason she was calling it a night.

By the time she’d made her way to the front entrance of the club, she saw that he’d somehow managed to get over the devastating rejection, thanks to two coeds who were coordinating their giggles and head tilts like Olympic caliber synchronized flirters.

And now here she was an hour and a half later, dealing with an altogether different aggravating male.

“I find it…curious that you left your top man-quation item off the photo you took with Lia’s phone,” teased Isaac.

Yeah. Not happening. She spun around and headed back to her bag. Walmart was still open, she could always simply buy a new phone.

But her normally sweet best friend didn’t let up this time.

He was across the room and on her in an instant, effectively caging her against the wall, his body just barely touching hers from chest to…yeah.

Holy hell.

This was the most intimate their bodies had been since they broke up. Sure, they still hugged and gave each other pecks on the cheek. And they lounged around on the couch together all the time, of course.

But this… He wasn’t even touching her and she could feel him over every inch of her skin.