Annabelle: Other than Ellis, yep, but I am bringing her up to speed right now in another message. Bye.
I glanced up from my phone to see Blake just staring at me with a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Thanks for meeting me here tonight.” He handed me the rose.
I threw it onto the chair next to me. “I did not agree to meet you. I was tricked into this.”
Blake leaned back in his chair. “I figured as much when Waylon told me he had a message for me from you.”
“What if someone see us?” I questioned in a low voice while leaning over the table.
Blake met me halfway, our lips only inches apart. “Let them see us. I can always find a new job, but I cannot find someone as captivatingly fiery as you anywhere else in the world. From the moment I met you, I knew you were going to be the delightful challenge to my crass stubbornness, which is something I have always been searching for.”
“What in the hell are you talking about?” I threw my hands in the air, nearly knocking my drink onto the floor.
“You can’t tell me you don’t get a little excited every time we’re in the same room. We’re both passionate people who need other passionate people in our lives to push us to be better.” Blake grabbed my hand, refusing to let it go even when I tried to snatch it away.
“I think you’re insane.”
He shrugged. “What if I am? Aren’t the best people in this world a little mad? Isn’t that what keeps life interesting?”
“This isn’t some damn Lewis Carroll poem. This is real life where you irritate me to no end and push my buttons like no one ever has in my entire life.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How could he truly think we were some type of destined lovers from the few encounters we’d had, most of which were us fighting and me walking away from him?
“I prefer to think of it as challenging one another, but I get it.” He rolled his thumb over the back of my hand. “All I am asking is for a few hours of your time where you don’t jump down my throat or try to run away.”
“And if I do that then you won’t bug me to date you ever again?” I stared down at his hands clutched around mine.
“You have my word.”
“Fine. You have one hour.”
“I’ll take what I can get.”
I sat there blinking at Blake for a few moments, waiting for him to say something. Finally Waylon walked over and asked what he wanted to drink.
“Bottle of Bud, please,” Blake responded quickly.
Once Waylon was behind the bar, Blake remarked, “That took a while.”
The momma bear inside me reared her ugly head. “He was trying to give us a little privacy.”
“I was only joking. I am not a complete asshole, Caroline.” He thanked Waylon for the beer before chugging half of it down in one gulp.
“I think you might be more of an ass than you give yourself credit for, Mr. Hartigan,” I sniped before waving to Waylon for another cosmopolitan.
“We’re back to you calling me Mr. Hartigan, I see.” Blake raised an eyebrow.
“You’re keeping me here basically against my will, so yes, I feel that is the only appropriate thing to call you.”
“Fair is fair, Miss Waters. How do you figure I am more of an ass than I give myself credit for?” He crossed his arms over his chest, and all I could think about was how his muscles must be flexing so perfectly under all those layers of clothing.
Keep it together, Caroline. You don’t like this man.
Before I could come up with an answer, Blake was leaning across the table, crushing his lips onto mine.
Pulling away abruptly, I nearly fell off of my barstool. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I think you need to stop fighting this.”