Page 7 of Starting Back
A man hanging on my every word as he seemed unable to take his eyes off me was sure as hell different, but I didn’t want to go there with Leo or bring up anything of my old or current life for fear of breaking this weird spell between us.
It wouldn’t last too much longer, but from the moment I’d sat on the barstool, I felt more alive than in…in more time than I could recall.
“Of all the women here, I’m just surprised you noticed me fidgeting on my chair.”
“Tell me something, Kristina.” He leaned his elbows on the bar, the flecks of green and gold in his irises shimmering as the late afternoon sun washed over his face. “Why do the most attractive women in the world never know it?”
“You’re askingme?” I chuckled, but he didn’t laugh with me.
“Hell yeah, I’m asking you.” His voice dipped low and husky as he locked his gaze with mine, not backing down an inch.
After I avoided his question, I camped on that stool as the sun continued to descend along the horizon. He’d leave to fill a drink order and come right back to me, asking me one random question after another while keeping my glass full.
“Where are you from?” Leo asked as he dried an empty glass and set it back on the shelf under the bar.
“New York. Upstate, not the city. Small town, everyone in your business.”
He laughed, a deep rumble that shook his shoulders.
“Sounds like my hometown in New Hampshire. Not that I’ve been there in a couple of decades.”
“Not even to visit?”
“No one left to go see.” He shrugged, his smile shrinking before he cleared his throat. “I have an aunt and uncle who live in Upstate New York too.”
“Where upstate? My town is near Albany.”
“I think that’s a couple of hours from where my aunt and uncle are in Fulton County. Small world, I guess.” He shrugged, holding my gaze. “I visit a few times a year. Not as much as I should. I’m too tan to be a Northerner now.”
He extended his inked arm, twisting it back and forth and showing off the sinew of muscle.
“Have you lived in Florida all this time?”
He shrugged and nodded.
“For a few years. I lived in Las Vegas before the Keys, but it was a little too much for me.”
“I can see that. I was there years ago on a girls’ weekend, and my liver wouldn’t survive living there.”
Life before my kids seemed so long ago, it was as if it hadn’t happened.
“I’ve seen some things.” He rubbed the back of his neck and laughed. “Whenever we got a call at the fire station, we never had a clue what to expect.”
“Fire station? You’re a firefighter?”
“I am.” He nodded. “I work the bar here and there on my days off.”
“Wouldn’t you want to relax on your days off? I know I would. Although with kids, I hadn’t experienced a true day off until…” I tapped my chin, trying to think of the last time I went a full day without Chloe and Emma, a piercing sting cutting through my chest when I realized this was the first time I’d left Emma for an entire day since she was born.
“Until now?” he asked, lifting a brow.
“Until now.” That realization made me gulp my drink long enough to give me a second of brain freeze.
“Another reason why you shouldn’t go home yet. Everyone needs a day off. This”—he motioned behind him—"doesn’t feel like work to me. I like to get out of my apartment and people-watch. Never know who you may meet passing through.”
His mouth blossomed into a wry grin that made the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“Working as a bartender when you should be home relaxing means that you have to deal with despondent tourists like me who can’t even pick their drink.”
