Free Play Fling (A Stupid Cupid Book) by Amber Scott Page B

guy think he is, popping up all over the
place?” Looking all young and hot and…and what else, she didn’t
know. Something. Delicious, maybe.
    Sampson grunt-meowed, typically unimpressed.
Brooke wiped a wet lock of hair from her cheek and sighed. Water
dripped from her legs and toes. The heat and the alcohol soaked a
nice numbness into her limbs. No such luck on her mind.
    “And how long had he stood there watching
Millie lead me around like a blindfolded idiot? And why whisper
against my neck like that? To amuse himself? To screw with me? I
mean, you gotta wonder.” Sampson blinked. She dropped her head
back. “Or not.”
    In a city like Reno, life didn’t have six
degrees of separation. More like two. Running into your hairdresser
at the grocery store, your mailman at the new bar, wasn’t out of
place. Divorce taught her that quickly. Nowadays, she expected
it.
    Discovering Elliott was more than just a guy
with some guts and romance even made sense in this smaller world.
But seeing him tonight, right there in the middle of Jason and
Millie put him outside of degrees. Suddenly, he became much closer.
Her inner circle.
    He shouldn’t even be on her mind in the first
place. Every time she tried to drag her thoughts away, though, they
boomeranged back.
    The warmth of new embarrassment washed over
her. What had he thought when he saw her? She’d totally tripped
over her tongue. Completely lost her cool. But how could she not
when each time she saw him, he looked better? It wasn’t as though
there was a puzzle to figure out, though. He was at the mall. So
what? At the same time she was. No big deal. Moments after she’d
been transformed. And exactly when she ran into her ex.
    “Coincidence. That’s all.” Nothing more.
Sure, he had mesmerizing eyes and a smile that sent her stomach in
somersaults. Yes, she wondered how delicious his full mouth might
taste. “I’m making too big a deal out of this.”
    Sampson blinked, as though to say, “Why yes
m’dear, you are.”
    All of it together was no more than simple
coincidence. Yet her mind kept trying to make it more. Over and
again. Like it had dropped some missing thread that would sew it
all up to make sense. She couldn’t name why. The drive home,
sitting around, in the bath. She turned the moments over, examining
the nuances. With every lift and look, each time, he became more.
More present. More there. In her life. As though he’d been there
the whole time and she only now noticed.
    Destiny?
    Brooke snorted, startling Sampson. He meowed
and readjusted.
    When she stopped skipping and twirling down
fantasy lane, and blessed logic took her by the hand, none of it
fit. Correction. Didn’t need to make sense. How could he
possibly be there this whole time when he was at least ten years
younger than her anyhow. “Wait a minute. Only ten years?” she asked
Sampson. But her cat had closed his eyes.
    No. Had to be more than ten because ten
didn’t sound all that bad.
    Fantastical or not, the inexplicable feeling
of destiny, of a crossroads, clung to her, making her uneasy and
eager all at once. If they’d been alone, what would she have said
to him? Would she have lingered, flirted, waited for him to pursue
her again? Would she have given him a chance?
    No. Impossible.
    But he had looked so good. And those eyes.
She could die in those eyes. The way they looked at her, into her. They’d made her forget where she was. Who she
was.
    Even now, her tummy trembled just thinking
about it. If she could explain it all, somehow, maybe then he
wouldn’t be so compelling. Maybe she could think straight. She
thought of those books. Of his hands proffering them to her. Of the
mischief in his grin. An imp’s grin. She envisioned him grading her
paper. Smiling. Shaking his head, no. Paper not good enough. She
wanted it to be good enough. Beyond a basic, competitive, teacher’s
pet drive to improve, to shine. This ran far worse. Brooke wanted
him to like her words. She