On Dublin Street(12)

“Adam is Braden’s best friend,” Ellie explained and then turned to her brother. As soon as she looked at him she burst out laughing, her giggles filling the bar like fairy bubbles as she glanced back at me over her shoulder. “I would introduce you to Braden but I believe… you’ve already met.” I barely heard the word ‘met’ over her choked laughter.


I stiffened.


She knew.


Eyes narrowed, I shot Braden a disgusted look. “You told her.”


“Told her what?” Adam asked bemused, looking at the still chortling Ellie as though she’d gone mad.


Braden’s mouth turned up in amusement as he answered Adam without taking his eyes off me, “That I walked in on Jocelyn when she was wandering around the flat naked.”


Adam eyed me curiously.


“No,” I retorted with a bite in my tone. “I was coming out of the bathroom looking for a towel.”


“He saw you naked?” Craig interrupted, a scowl marring his forehead.


“Braden Carmichael.” Braden stuck a hand across the bar for Craig to shake. “Nice to meet you.”


Craig took it, seeming a little dazed by Braden. Great. Even men were charmed by him. While he smiled at Craig, that smile disappeared when his eyes fell on me again. I detected a slight chill in them and frowned. What had I done now?


“I have a girlfriend,” Braden assured Craig. “I wasn’t putting the moves on yours.”


“Oh, Joss isn’t my girlfriend.” Craig shook his head with a cocky grin down at me. “Not for my lack of trying.”


“Customer.” I pointed to the girl at the other end of the bar, glad for an excuse to get rid of him.


As soon as he was gone, Ellie was leaning against the bar. “Not your boyfriend? Really? Why not? He’s cute. And he certainly thinks you’re hot.”


“He’s a walking sexually transmitted disease,” I answered grumpily, running a dishrag over an invisible spot on the bar, desperately trying to avoid Braden’s gaze.


“Does he always talk to you like that?”


Braden’s question brought my head up reluctantly and I immediately felt the need to reassure him and defend Craig when I saw his cool, lethal eyes narrowed in my colleague’s direction. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.”


“Oh man, that break surely wasn’t ten minutes?” Jo complained as she wandered slowly behind the bar. She reeked of cigarette smoke. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would put up with any habit that made them stink so badly. I wrinkled my nose at her and Jo instantly understood. Not taking it to heart, she just shrugged and blew me a teasing kiss as she stopped to lean against the bar across from Braden. Her big green eyes drank him in as though he were a cigarette she was trying to quit. “And who do we have here?”


“I’m Ellie.” She waved at Jo as though she was a cute fifteen year old. I smiled at her. She was kind of adorable. “I’m Joss’ new flatmate.”


“Hi.” Jo offered her a polite smile before looking back at Braden expectantly.


I wasn’t at all annoyed by her blatant interest in him.


“Braden.” He nodded at her, his eyes quickly returning to my face.


Okay.


Really?


I was stunned.


If I were honest with myself I would admit that I had been bracing myself to watch Braden turn the flirt up a notch for Jo. She was tall, model thin, and had thick, poker-straight, long strawberry blonde hair. If Braden Carmichael transformed into a smoldering flirt around me then I had totally been expecting him to melt Jo into the floor with his charm.


Instead he’d been kind of cool towards her.


That did not make me happy in any way.


Hmm. I’d always been good at lying to myself.


“Braden Carmichael?” Jo asked, oblivious to his disinterest. “Oh my God. You own Fire.”


Damn my curiosity over this guy. “Fire?”


“The club on Victoria Street. You know, just off the Grassmarket.” Jo’s eyelashes were batting a mile a minute at him now.


He owns a nightclub. Of course he does.


“I do,” he muttered and then checked his watch.


I knew that move. I used that move whenever I was uncomfortable. In that moment I really wanted to slap Jo for gushing all over him. Braden was not replacing Steven. No way.


“I love that place,” Jo continued, leaning further over the bar to give him an eagle-eye view of her small, inconsequential chest.


Meow. Where did that come from?


“Maybe we could go together some time? I’m Jo, by the way.”


Ugh. She was giggling like a five-year-old. For some reason that giggle, which I heard every Thursday and Friday night, was suddenly very irritating.


Braden nudged Ellie as if to say ‘let’s go’, his expression impatient now. But Ellie was too busy murmuring to Adam to notice her brother’s quiet desperation.


“What do you say?” Jo persisted.


Braden shot me a searching look I didn’t quite understand before shrugging at her. “I have a girlfriend.”