Page 10 of Starting Back
He grinned, holding my gaze until I waved and turned around, leaving the bar and pool area on shaky legs that had nothing to do with alcohol.
For God’s sake, was I this out of practice? I had boyfriends before Colin, sex too. It was just so long ago I couldn’t remember who or how. I went to the bar for a drink and wound up with a dinner date, and it all happened so fast that I agreed before I figured out how to feel about it.
I guessed this was what it was like to try.
THREE
LEO
The first rule I learned in bartending many years ago was not to date customers, and when I started shifts at a resort in the Florida Keys on random days I had off from the station, don’t date them even more if they’re tourists. It’s a rule everybody is told but usually breaks anyway—and then relearns each timewhyit’s a rule.
Dating customers was messy, especially if there were hard feelings and they kept coming in to cause trouble. Dating tourists was pointless since nothing could come of it once they left. Staying amicably polite but distant was the way to go if someone caught my eye, and it was never an issue.
Wasnever an issue until I spotted a woman by the pool and couldn’t tear my eyes away from her even if my life depended on it.
Beautiful women breezed in and out of here all the time, but there was something about Kristina that drew me in and wouldn’t let go. Maybe it was the way she crossed her long, toned legs, or how her back arched when she stretched her hands over her head in the lounge chair, that gorgeous body she seemed to have no clue about on full display as her head fell back against the chair as if she were surrendering to some kind of defeat.
After I’d met her, the odd frustration creasing her brow every time she lifted her drink for a sip made sense. She was a tired single mom who believed that having fun for herself wasn’t allowed.
And, for whatever reason I couldn’t figure out, I’d resolved to make it my mission to prove to her just how wrong she was.
I’d expected her to argue with me when I suggested the movie on the beach, but she’d agreed. And here I was, leaning against the bar at 6:55, trying and failing to ignore how excited I was to see her again after only spending a couple of hours with her.
This made no sense.
I’d never believed in instant connections. Instant lust, sure. I’d seen and experienced plenty of that, and I wouldn’t have tracked Kristina’s every move from the pool to the bar if she weren’t sexy as hell. Those green eyes trapped me the second she sat down, staring at the frozen drink menu as if she were searching for a solution beyond what she should order.
Maybe that was it? She seemed confident but unsure at the same time, compelling me on this quest to solve whatever it was that was bothering her.
A firefighter’s need to rescue even when off the clock was a sometimes-occupational hazard, but it had never applied to a woman I’d just met and was never this strong, this fast.
“What are you still doing here?” Jimmy, my boss, asked me as he looked me over and shook his head. “Bad enough you work on your days off. Go home and sleep, for fuck’s sake.”
He slapped my arm with the towel in his hand when I turned around.
“I’m not here to work. I have a da— I’m meeting someone for movie night.”
His brows jumped. “Is it that green-eyed beauty from this afternoon?”
“Maybe.” I shrugged, rolling my eyes when his shoulders shook with a chuckle. “She’s here alone, and I thought…”
What did I think? I still wasn’t sure. Only that I couldn’t let her leave without trying to see her again. Maybe Jimmy had a point and working too much was doing crazy things to my head.
“You’d keep her company. How noble of you.” He snickered when I glared back at him. “I need no explanations. You’re the one who always made it a point to steer clear of tourists. That’s why I was surprised when you camped out on her side of the bar the whole time she was here.”
All I could do was shrug again, as I still couldn’t explain or deny it. When I’d almost leaped over the bar to stop her when she’d said she was leaving, I’d known then she was different, even if I had no clue as to why.
“Hey,” a sultry voice said from behind me before something tapped my shoulder. “You said I didn’t have to change, but it felt weird being in a bathing suit at night.”
Kristina wore a short white dress with thin straps that didn’t quite fall on the tan lines of her shoulders. My gaze traveled down her body before I could help it, spotting all the freckles along her arms and what I could see of her thighs. Up close, her tan was the result of those freckles clustering together, and I wanted to trace a pattern with my tongue over the ones I spied across the neckline of her dress.
Maybe I couldn’t identify what was brewing between us, but it was trouble. I knew that much.
“You two have a good night. Enjoy the movie.”
Jimmy’s lips twitched as he greeted the new customers who’d just sat down at the bar next to us.
“Something wrong?” she asked as she glanced down her body. “Is this okay? I packed five sundresses for four days, so I figured I might as well break one out for tonight.” She grimaced when she lifted her head.
