That was a special brand of psycho.
Men like Jaime the Vet did not voluntarily sign up for that particular brand of cray cray.
Would it have just been nicer for him to ignore her message?
Or to just say no?
Fuck yes, it would have been.
But alas, not all on the Instagram was real, and then there was her superpower—the one that turned nice men into assholes.
It was probably some compulsion she’d woven through the airwaves, a subliminal message hidden in between the letters saying, “Turn into a lying, evil bastard upon reading this message.”
Or . . . there could be something in the bread.
Or it could be the third glass of wine.
“Did you want to order?” the nice waitress, who’d been patiently refilling the breadbasket all evening, asked.
Kate sighed, part of her wanting to slink home and feel sorry for herself. The rest of her figured she’d done her hair, put on a dress and heels, was wearing her fancy red lipstick, so yes, she should just order a plate of expensive pasta, another glass of wine, and carbo-load away her happiness.
Hell, she might even live extra vicariously and order a slice of that chocolate cake she’d seen float by on a tray earlier.
“Yes,” she said decisively. “I’ll have the pasta al pomodoro.”
“Me, too.”
Lightning.
Like that image from the Marvel movie, Thor lifting his hammer up to the sky, a deluge of electricity exploding from the clouds to coalesce on his weapon.
His voice did that to her.
Collided with her nape, exploded out through her limbs, firing her nerve endings, bringing them to rigid awareness as that deep rumble filled her ears.
“Sorry,” the waitress said, sounding a little dazed, and Kate couldn't blame her, not when her cells felt like they’d been lit up like glow sticks at a rave. “What was that?” the waitress asked.
“I’ll have what she’s having,” that sexy male voice said, and Kate was still reeling from it when he moved around the table and sat down in the chair opposite her. “Hi,” he murmured, as the waitress nodded and slipped away. Kate barely noticed, not when he was beyond fucking sexy with that rueful smile on his lips. “I’m really sorry I’m late.”
Heat. Desire.
That fucking man bun.
Then her mind cleared. Because late? Late?
Kate glared over at him and grabbed the last roll, tearing a huge bite off with her teeth. “This is mine,” she snapped. Or well, tried to anyway, the words came out muffled. “I can’t believe you almost stood me up.”
Pale brown eyes dimmed. “Damn. You didn’t get my message.” He ignored her warning and reached across the table, snagged a piece of the roll. “I’m sorry, Red,” he murmured, popping it into his mouth.
Anger gave way to confusion. “Um, what?”
He chewed and swallowed then nodded at her purse. “I’m guessing you didn’t check your messages.”
As a matter of fact . . . she hadn’t.
“There was a complication with my last surgery of the day. I had to stay late, make sure he was okay,” he said. “I didn’t have your number, so I couldn’t call, but I sent you a message on Insta. But when I didn’t hear back, saw it seemed like you hadn’t read it in the app, I worried you’d be here, and . . .”
“You came to check,” she whispered. Confusion gave way to melting.
As in, she went melty inside. Shit.
“I didn’t want you to be sitting here alone.” His eyes drifted to the empty breadbasket, the drained wineglass. “I see I was too late anyway.”
Regret in his tone, those brown eyes soft.
“It’s okay,” she murmured. “It’s my fault. I should have thought to check.”
The waitress came back then, two glasses of wine in her hand and another basket. See? She was damned good.
“Thank you,” he said, smiling that wide gorgeous smile, and the waitress blinked as she left.
Kate was doing some blinking of her own. He was wearing a nice, but slightly wrinkled, blue button-down and jeans, hair-covered ones if the slight glimpse of his leg she’d gotten held true. There was stubble on his jaw, lines of fatigue surrounding his eyes.
He’d had a long day but still came to check on her.
A stranger.
A good guy.
“Were the complications serious?” she asked, heart twisting. Because she was worried about the animal, not the fact that she might fall for the good guy.
“Not great,” he said. “Turns out, the little man has an underlying heart condition. It will take some further steps to determine the cause and follow-up treatment.”
“Poor guy,” she murmured.
“He’s a tough one.” Jaime smiled. “But he was soaking up all the extra attention like a champ. When I left, he was trying to crawl into my tech’s pocket.”
She pushed the bread in his direction, placed her own roll on her plate, pretending she had manners for at least a few moments. Then she asked, “Was the little attention mooch a dog or a cat?”
Must be a small one if he was trying to crawl into pockets.
Maybe a teacup poodle?
Or it could be a non-furry critter, another bearded dragon.
Jaime’s lips curved further. “Oh, Hank is a guinea pig. We call him Hank the Tank because he eats like crazy but is really small for his variety.” He picked up his roll. “His favorite snacks are kale stems and cantaloupe.”
A guinea pig named Hank the Tank, who liked kale and cantaloupe.
“Does he wear a vest?” she asked, heart already squee-ing in anticipation.
“No,” Jaime said. “But he does have a tiny bowtie collar.”
And boom, just like that, her ovaries exploded under the power of squeedom.
Three
Jaime
He stared across the table at a woman he probably should have avoided at all costs.
She’d asked him to participate in a scheme that involved lying to her family. Maybe he could have justified it because who cared, he was lying to people he didn’t know, wouldn’t know again, but he was a man who preferred honesty.
Had the lying ex once, got the souvenir T-shirt, wasn’t going to visit again.
That alone should have been enough ammunition for him to not reply to the message in the first place, let alone agree to the deception.
Except . . . he’d been following KateMcFunPants on Instagram for more than a year now.
She was the friend of a friend—apparently worked in the marketing department of Steele Technologies, a large tech company headquartered in San Francisco. His friend, Ben, was friends with Sebastian, a higher-up at the company, and Ben had been photographed with Sebastian and Kate(McFunPants) at a few events together. Jaime had been intoxicated first by her mouth, spread wide in a million-dollar smile, then had latched onto her eyes, her curvy body, and he’d followed her. She’d reciprocated, and they’d liked a few of each other’s posts—not an obsessive amount going back months and years, but a few here and there.
This was romance in the age of social media, and it was important to use the proper amount of creepage . . . at least publicly.
Because privately?