was afraid he was going to make her look like an idiot. That he was going to say she was crazy and he was of course not meeting her here. Because he had not planned to meet her here. She actually hadn’t spoken to him at all since she’d collected her car. Which was rude, she realized.
But she just didn’t like making overtures to Luke. He was a pain. And he always made her feel like she had an itch beneath her skin.
When he stood, saying something to the Dodge siblings with a big smile on his face, she felt like she’d been kicked in the chest by a horse. And then he was walking over to her. She crossed her legs, then wobbled, because she was up on a stool and it was an impractical position. She braced herself on the counter and blinked, then took a quick drink of her soda. Then set it down. She wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to be doing by the time he got to the counter. And then he was there, so the entire performance was moot.
“I hear we’re meeting? And that you’re buying me a drink?”
She pursed her lips and nodded. Then took another drink of her Diet Coke. “As a thank-you,” she said finally after she swallowed her sip.
“Oh. A thank-you. Funny how I didn’t get one earlier.”
“I thanked you,” she said. “You know. After you picked me up off the side of the road.”
“But not for fixing your tire. And you didn’t text me. I thought you were going to let me know if you had a ride.”
“I thought I was going to let you know if I needed a ride. And my boss gave me one. So I didn’t.” She cleared her throat. “Thank you. For fixing the car. I really do appreciate it. And I do owe you a drink.”
“Is it possible that you were covering your ass, though? Because you didn’t want to tell Kaylee that you were here to stare at Bennett all evening?”
Her face got hot and she had a feeling she was lit up like the damned neon sign that hung outside the saloon. “No... I don’t...”
Her gaze drifted over to the table, to where Kaylee and Bennett sat next to each other. That stomach tightening turned into a twist. A mean, painful twist that sent a metallic taste flooding through her mouth.
“You don’t care.” Luke leveled his gaze on her. “Laz,” he called out. “Can I get a shot? Something really good, because Olivia Logan is paying. And you know she’s good for it.”
Laz nodded and set about to pouring another measure of amber liquid into Luke’s glass.
“Excuse me?” Olivia asked.
“I changed your tire, Olivia,” Luke said. “Don’t go getting me cheap alcohol.”
“No. What do you mean I don’t care?”
Luke sat next to her, his broad shoulder nearly brushing hers as he took his position on the stool. “You don’t care about Bennett.”
“Yes,” she said. “I do. I care about Bennett... A lot. I love him.”
“Why did you break up with him then?”
“It’s complicated,” she said.
“It’s not that complicated. You want to be with him or you don’t.”
Great. She was getting lectured about love and relationships by a man whose longest relationship had been with his pickup truck. “I needed to be sure that he wanted to be with me,” she said stiffly.
“Okay,” he said, arching a brow. “By breaking up with him?”
“Well,” she returned, “it’s informative. I mean... I guess at this point not so informative in the way that I wanted it to be.”
“You wanted him to see what he was missing?” Luke asked.
For all that he pretended not to understand her feelings, he seemed to understand pretty well. Better than she would like, actually. She didn’t like that he could see through her quite so easily because if Luke could, surely everyone could. “Yes,” she answered reluctantly.
He lifted a shoulder. “I still don’t think you care.”
She picked up her soda, and then redirected, brought it down hard on the bar. “I do care.” Her heart was pounding and she was breathing fast. “Stop acting like you know what I want. Or you know what I think. You don’t actually know me.”
“Olivia Logan, I have known you since you were a stuck-up little girl. And I know you now that you’re a stuck-up woman.” Laz slid the tumbler of whiskey down in front of Luke and Luke tipped it up to his lips, downing it in one go.
Luke leveled his gaze at Olivia. “Don’t tell me I don’t know you.”
“I’m not stuck-up,” she said, bristling.
He shifted in his seat and her eyes were drawn to where his hand was wrapped around his glass. He had strong hands. A working man’s hands. Callused and rough, vaguely dirty around the fingernails even when they were clean.
She imagined that they’d be rough to the touch. That they would scrape against her skin.
If she were to shake hands with him, or something. Because there were no circumstances otherwise under which they would ever touch.
She looked away.
“Okay, Olivia.” His tone was so maddeningly placating it made her want to punch him.
“I’m not. Why do you think I’m stuck-up?”
“Because right now you’re looking at me like I’m something you stepped in out in the cow pasture. In fact, you look at a lot of the world that way.”
“I’m in a bar.” She waved her hands around. “Which is not my natural habitat. I don’t think I’m better than the bar, I just don’t feel like I know my place in it. And anyway, you’re not nice to me.”
“Honey, I fixed your flat tire earlier and gave you a ride to work. What do you mean I’m not nice to you?”
She trawled back through her memory, trying to come up with the example of a time when Luke had been mean to her. Well, not mean, but maybe unkind. All she knew was that she felt upset after being with him often enough that she was certain he had to be.
“You know. You are... Provocative.” He was. He provoked her. That was the word. Not mean, maybe, but she always left interactions with him feeling like she’d been poked with a stick.
He lifted one brow. “Provocative? Well. That has several connotations to it, sweet thing.”
There he was. Provoking. “Do not call me that.”
“Don’t call you what?” He lifted his glass and indicated the empty state to Laz. “Honey or sweet thing?”
“Both. Neither. I am nothing remotely sugar-based to you.”
“Well. My mistake.”
Laz refilled
