She’d moved in.
I traced the lines of her grin with my eyes. She looked genuinely happy. So did the other woman.
I smiled in return and typed out a message to congratulate her on moving in. She’d found a new home and a job all within a matter of twenty-four hours. Any normal person would have trouble with that kind of success but it made sense to me that Briar wouldn’t. She was so likeable. So charming and funny and easy to be around. Who wouldn’t want to live with her?
Walker returned and I put my phone facedown on the table.
“Talking to someone?” my friend asked.
“That girl I was telling you about found an apartment today and moved in. I was congratulating her.”
“Ah yes, Briar, right? Your mystery girl from the pub?”
“That’s her.”
“When are you seeing her again?”
“I don’t know. We don’t have any plans.”
“You should make some.”
I eyed him suspiciously as he leaned back in his chair and sipped his bourbon. “Why?”
Walker chuckled, bemused, and set his drink down before clasping his hands together over his stomach. “Because you like her obviously.”
“So?”
He rolled his eyes. “You have a crush, man. A real, genuine crush. How long has it been since you were interested in a woman in this way?”
“I don’t have a crush on her,” I said, feeling like we’d gone back to high school.
“Oh, sure you don’t.”
“I don’t,” I insisted. “She’s a muse, nothing more. You know I don’t have the time or energy to indulge anything more than that. Harriet is up my ass about my deadlines, and if I don’t meet them, my publisher is going to drop me and—”
“I don’t see how any of that has anything to do with Briar.”
I frowned. “Time, Walker. It all has to do with time. I want to know more about her so I can round her out in my head and use her as a character. Nothing more.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m curious, not crushing.”
Walker didn’t seem convinced. He studied me quietly, obviously thinking his own thoughts until he decided to strike again. “For a guy with his head always buried in the pages of a romance book, you’d think you’d be able to spot a potential love story for yourself a mile away.”
I felt my brow furrow and resented how accurate my friend’s words actually were.
I was incapable of romance in real life. Sure, I could write it. I could create it in my head. I could spin words and make two fictional people fall so madly in love that it made real, living, breathing people swoon. But I couldn’t capture that feeling for myself.
Love was a fickle and elusive beast in my world.
“She’s just a girl,” I said, and I didn’t know who I was trying to convince, myself or Walker.
If it was Walker, I was failing because he smirked at me. “That’s always how it starts.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
“That’s the best part, Wes.” Walker leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “You’ve already started. The heavy lifting is done. You just need to stay consistent and keep showing up. Take her out on a date. Not an impromptu date. A planned, deliberate, no-holds-barred date. Text her back and invite her out to dinner.”
“She has a lot going on right now with moving in and—”
“Don’t be a little bitch,” Walker barked. “Text the girl and tell her you want to take her out on Friday night. Someplace nice.”
“How nice?”
Walker’s smirk never left his lips. “Someplace where you can pull out her chair for her and it won’t be weird.”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Wes, just text her. She’s not going to say no. And even if she does, so what? Ask her to go out with you next week. Be persistent. If she’s not into you, she’ll say no again. If she is? Well, then maybe you’re really onto something with this girl. You can claim she’s a muse all you want but you’ve never talked my ear off so much about a muse before. There’s something different about this one, and if you let her fall through the cracks, I swear to God you will live to regret it. And so will I because I’ll have to hear about it too.”
“You’re kind of an ass, you know that?”
“When I need to be, yeah, I am.”
I sighed and picked up my phone. Briar hadn’t responded to my congratulatory message and I assumed she was busy with her new roommate unpacking or getting things in order. Perhaps they were having celebratory drinks or something, too. I hoped she was enjoying herself, whatever she was doing.
“Send it,” Walker pressed.
“Mind your own business.”
“If I minded my own business, you’d never get a damn thing done.”
I stared at the blinking cursor on the keyboard of my phone and tried to think of the right way to phrase the message. I didn’t want to come on too strong and scare her off, and I certainly didn’t want to come off as an asshole telling her what to do. I wanted it to be an invitation she could easily decline if she wasn’t up for getting together.
But then again, did I really want that? Or was that the people-pleaser in me that wanted to give her an easy out?
I typed out the message. It was simple and concise. I told her I’d love to celebrate with her tomorrow over dinner and drinks if she was free.
I hit send and waited. My palms were sweaty.
“There’s no way you can tell me you’re not into this girl,” Walker said. “Look at you. You’re sweating bullets. All over a text message, no less.”
“She’s special.”
“Uh huh.”
“You wouldn’t get it,” I said sharply. “The only women you’re interested in are your perfect models. You want to talk about playing it safe and sticking to muses? You’re the poster boy for it, Walker.”
My friend grinned at me. “You’re not wrong.”
“Yet I take your advice anyway,” I grumbled.
My phone buzzed. I flipped it over. There, right beneath the message I’d sent Briar, was a simple capitalized word.
YES.
Walker chuckled. “I take it by that boyish grin on your face that she’d like to join you for dinner?”
“Yes, she would.”
“Which makes you eternally grateful to who?”
“To whom,” I amended.
“Get fucked, you grammar snob.”
I snorted and put my phone down. “If my date goes well tomorrow, maybe I will.”
Walker arched an eyebrow. “Confidence. Where did that come from?”
I grimaced. “I don’t know. I don’t like how that sounded. I take it back. I don’t think Briar is the sort of girl to have sex on the first date anyway.”
Walker swirled the last mouthful of his bourbon around in his glass before throwing it back. He set it down hard on the table and leaned back to cross one leg over the other. “So where are you going to take her, Romeo?”
“I’m not sure yet. I hear you when you say a nice place, but I don’t know if that’s Briar’s speed.”