If she had a lick of sense, she’d say no. Nothing good could possibly come from him interacting with Dennis again. If anything, it would make matters worse. And yet here she was, for reasons she couldn’t begin to explain, handing her phone to Joe.
He swiped at the screen to answer the call and put the phone to his ear. “Hey Denny, Fi can’t come to the phone right now. Actually, she can but she doesn’t want to talk to you, so how about you give it a rest?” He paused to listen to whatever Dennis had to say. When he spoke again, his Jersey accent was thicker than before. “Well, I appreciate the suggestion, but I’m pretty sure that’s anatomically impossible. In all seriousness, you really need to learn when to quit. If she didn’t answer the first twenty calls, number twenty-one isn’t working either. Take the L like a man and move on with your life. Trust me; you’ll be a lot happier.”
He didn’t bother listening to whatever Dennis said in response. Instead, he ended the call and gave the phone back to Fiona.
“That was fun.” A note of amusement warmed his eyes, the brown so dark it was hard to tell the difference between the iris and the pupil. “I doubt it’ll do any good, but it was worth a shot, right?”
The phone sounded again with Dennis’s ringtone, and Fiona let out a sigh. She should have known better than to give him the phone. “Not to be rude, but I better go. If he’s not already on his way, he will be soon. I’d rather not be here when he arrives.”
A serious look settled over Joe’s face. “I can make him go away if you want.”
She didn’t know what he meant by that, and she wasn’t about to ask.
“I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want things to escalate any more than they already have. It’s better if I just spend an hour or two with Liz at the bar. By the time I get back, he’ll have given up and gone home.”
The pair of lines between his eyebrows deepened. “You shouldn’t have to flee your own home because of that asshole.”
“That’s life,” she said with what she hoped was a casual shrug. “Sometimes it’s better to take the path of least resistance. Sooner or later, he’ll realize he’s wasting his time, and then he’ll move on with his life and leave me alone.”
The noise Joe made suggested he didn’t agree, but he kept the opinion to himself. That was good, because she wasn’t in the mood to play the If-I-Were-You game with her neighbor.
Joe leaned one shoulder against the doorframe and crossed his arms over the broad expanse of his chest. There was something in his eyes she couldn’t identify, his expression impossible to read.
Just as she was about to ask what was on his mind, he said, “I’m sure this is going to sound crazy, but I have a proposition for you.”
Chapter 5
Thisearlyintheevening, Spiny Norman’s was quiet, with only a handful of tables occupied and a couple of patrons at the bar. That would change as more people left work for the day, giving them maybe an hour or so before things got loud enough to make conversation a challenge.
Pinto breathed in the scent of hops and barley as he followed Fiona to a table by the wall, trying hard not to notice the sweet sway of her ass and failing miserably. In his defense, it was a mighty fine ass. Any man, straight or otherwise, worth his salt would have taken notice.
He claimed the seat that backed against the wall and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “This place is pretty new, isn’t it?”
From what he could tell, the brewpub had risen from the ashes of a franchise restaurant that went belly-up a few years ago. As far as bars went, it was fairly well lit, with exposed brick walls and wood beam ceilings that gave the place a rustic feel. Handcrafted wood tables and plush faux leather chairs made you want to kick back and watch a game or two on the wall-mounted televisions. A glass wall behind the mahogany bar showed off the brewery’s stainless-steel fermentation tanks, the room at least twice the size of the area reserved for customers.
“About six months,” Fiona replied as she hung her purse on the back of her chair and took a seat.
She’d insisted on leaving her apartment for fear of her ex showing up and making an ass of himself. Again. She hadn’t even taken the time to change from her work clothes into something more comfortable, and how messed up was that? Nobody should have to put up with that shit. If he had his way, she wouldn’t have to worry about that jerk any longer.
The door by the bar swung open, and Liz came through, carrying a tray filled with freshly cleaned pint glasses. As if sensing their presence, she glanced in their direction, and a huge grin split her face. She handed the tray to the guy working the bar, wiped her hands with a towel, and made a beeline for their table, her boot heels clicking against the polished floor.
“Hey girl, I wasn’t sure if I’d see you tonight.” Her gaze slid from Fiona to Pinto and then back to Fiona, the question clear on her face.
“Dennis,” was all Fiona said, and Liz’s upper lip peeled back.
“You shouldn’t have to hide from that prick.”
“She won’t for much longer,” Pinto said, and all eyes went to him. “Long story; Fi can fill you in later. In the meantime, what do you suggest in the way of stouts?”
Though she looked as if she wanted to pry him for details, Liz gave him a quick rundown of the beers on tap. They each made their selections, and she headed back to the bar.
Cheers broke out from the group a few tables over, the college-aged guys high-fiving each other as though they’d been the ones to score a power-play goal against the Islanders. On-screen, a fight broke out between two players, their pads flying across the ice as the men pounded each other, while the refs waited for the right opportunity to separate the two.
As the noise settled down, Fiona eyed Pinto with the same level of skepticism typically reserved for unsolicited emails from Nigerian princes offering untold riches. “So what kind of proposition did you want to discuss?”
Cut to the chase—he liked that in a woman. “You don’t trust easy, do you?”
“Nope.” She didn’t elaborate, and he knew better than to ask.
