“You’re dripping,” I said, more breathlessly than I planned.
“Ah, crap.” Colt turned his cone and ran his tongue along the side to catch the running ice cream. And the whore he was, he made eye contact with me while he licked the drip.
I turned my face away to hide my hot cheeks. Right then, a rogue pair of rollerbladers approached us from behind and I had to jump out of the way.
Into Colton’s arms.
How I didn’t dip my elbow in his ice cream cone, I don’t know. But I do know that Colton shielded me with his body and leaned out to bark at the rollerbladers. “Hey! You can’t just run over people!”
One of them flipped him off over his shoulder.
Colt lunged their way. “Oh, you wanna bring that back here?”
“Colt, easy! You never know who’s actually unhinged.”
“That guy almost ran over you, Violet!” he argued with wild eyes.
I had to hold back a laugh. “You gonna Jones a rollerblader on a city street? Is this how it starts at work for you?”
He pinched his lips together and fought a smile. “As a matter of fact, it is.”
“Yeah?” I asked, and there we were again, face to face, his eyes dancing between mine. This had to quit happening. “Come on. Let’s go see what other shops there are.”
We walked on. I was eating my last scrap of waffle cone when we stalled outside a bookstore. I was mesmerized, my eyes bouncing over all the covers, the promise each one held.
And the potential danger within for me.
“You still like to read?” Colt asked.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s go in.”
My stomach tugged. This would be my first time book shopping since I knew what happened to me. I held up my hands and rubbed my fingers together. “I’m all sticky.”
Colt cocked his head at me. “I’m sure they have hand sanitizer or something to de-stick you. Come on. Show me what you’ve been reading. I should read more. I need good recs.”
I hesitated a second longer, then caved. “You’re saying Mr. Partial Literature Degree doesn’t read every day?”
He blustered, “I’m a busy man.” I worked to not let my smile falter. What was he busy with? Women? He strode to the counter and picked up a pump bottle of hand sanitizer. “See? Ready for your patronage.”
I rubbed the hand sanitizer between my hands and startedto wander the tables and stacks. I perused the new releases table, heavy on lit fic and non-fiction. Things I was supposed to like. Things my dad would approve of because they expanded my mind. So-called enrichment. I picked one up to read the back, but zoned out quickly.
My eye was drawn to a sky blue cover with a cartoon man and woman on it. The title was a ridiculous pun:Seas the Day. I imagined what romantic whimsy lay on its pages, whether it was spicy or spice-free. I missed spice. Getting invested in a couple and taking the falling-in-love journey with them. Experiencing the thrill of discovering each other that way: what they like, how to make them feel good. Letting them make you feel good.
The way Colt had me pinned to my couch not that long ago. Every time I looked at my couch now, I had slutty thoughts.
Suddenly, I felt watched, and looked up to find Colt staring at me. I snapped my attention back to the book in my hand, some thinkpiece from an NPR analyst. While NPR was great for my morning commute, I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of that being my bedtime reading.
Colton pulled it out of my hand and set it back on the table. “You want to look at that other one. Go look at it.”
I opened my mouth to give some response and Colt grabbed me by the shoulders, steering me to the romance shelves. On the way, he spoke low in my ear, making the hairs on my neck rise. “You don’t have to be embarrassed about reading some love stories.”
“I’m not embarrassed.”
“Which one?” he asked, letting his fingers hover over each book.
I pulledSeas the Dayoff the shelf for myself and flipped itover.
