Page 7 of Let's Kiss and Tell

When I look up, there’s a woman smiling, her eyes almost sparkling with excitement. She has a petite frame, thick dark hair reaching her elbows, and an olive skin tone. She’s amazingly stunning, like the kind of stunning you can’t even look at for too long because it feels disrespectful. When I realize that she’s talking tomefor some reason, my brows immediately release.

“Oh, yeah it is.” I pass her the record.

“Whoa, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this before.” She takes it, analyzing it from front to back. “This is so cool.”

“Are you a record buff?” I ask.

“More like acool thingsbuff?” She lets out a weak laugh that unexpectedly makes me smile.

“It’s a collector’s edition,” I add, wondering if that tidbit of knowledge was unnecessary. She takes out her phone and snaps a picture of the record.

“I was going to say, the orange is pretty awesome.” She holds the vinyl up to the warm light, studying it.

“McCartney or Jackson?” I hear myself ask, unsure why I’m entertaining this conversation.

She gasps. “That’s like Sophie’s choice.”

“I don’t make the rules,” I say, playing along.

“I mean, both musical geniuses…” she debates. “What do you think?”

“Yeah but…the Beatles.” I give her a look.

“The what?” She blinks. It takes me all of two seconds to realize she’s messing with me.

“Funny,” I tease with an unimpressed look.

My next move could go one of two ways. I could continue this conversation, ask her what she’s doing here and who she is, see how many more times I can make her smile, because the flash of a dimple on her left cheek is sexy as hell. Or I can end this chat on a good note. One that doesn’t result in me lying in my bed tonight thinking about the beautiful woman who started a conversation but ended up not being interested at all.

So, I turn back to browsing the rest of the collection.

Just because I’m not looking her way doesn’t mean I don’t feel her eyes on the side of my head. I pull out a random reggae album and start reading the back, trying to make mental notes of the songs to distract me. She’s absolutely still staring, and I do everything in my power to ignore her.

“I’m Lucy,” she says, placing “The Girl Is Mine” back on the shelf among the others. Her fingers go to the next selection, pulling it out, and then she mindlessly gazes at the cover.

“Uh, Marsh.” My eyes follow her every move. “Nice to meet you.”

“Marsh,” she repeats, and shit, my name has never sounded so good. “I like that.”

“Marshall,” I amend. “But I think the last person who called me that was my sixth-grade teacher.”

“Where’d your parents get Marshall from?” Lucy asks, a curiosity to her voice.

“Well, I guess it’s my great-grandparents who came up with it,” I say. “Marshall was my grandpa.”

“Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Marsh.”

“Likewise, Lucy,” I say and we both continue looking at the records in front of us.

“Do you live around here?” she asks.

“Oh no,” I reply, although I wouldn’t mind living in this part of town. “I live on the west side. Just here for…” I stop myself and remember what Jay said. I need to stop thinking about work for two seconds and just beMarsh.NotMarshall Oakley, senior news reporter.“Was just having a drink with a friend. What about you?”

“I live in WeHo,” she says. “My friend just left so I was planning on heading out.”

“The, uh, door’s that way.” I tip my head in the direction she came from.

Lucy smiles like she knows she’s been caught. I’m noticing that she has at least two different smiles. I’m curious how many more are yet to be discovered. “Okay, fine, I wasn’t leaving,” she says. “I was doing some research.”