Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 119548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 398(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 398(@300wpm)
Danny brandished his card. “Are you ever going to open up to me, Delilah?”
“Perhaps in your dreams.” I rang up his order and plugged the price into the card machine which I handed to him with a smile. “Your patronage is appreciated.”
He tapped his card against the contactless reader with a sigh. “I guess I’ll keep dreaming, then.”
“You do that.” I tore off the receipts and handed him his before turning around. “Thank you!”
“What does a guy have to do to get your attention, huh?” Danny asked.
I opened my mouth to reply he’d have to magically become three years older, but I was beaten to it by a very familiar voice saying, “She prefers lilies to roses. She’d rather eat a pizza than a curry, and she likes movies over books. Purple is better than pink, and she’d rather wear jeans instead of leggings. Spin class beats yoga, and given the choice on spirits, she’ll always choose rum over gin.”
Slowly, I turned around, only to see Danny gaping at Fred like he’d given him the cheat codes to my life.
What a load of bullshit.
Spin class beats yoga? What a sadist.
Judging by the look on my sister’s face at the other end of the bar, she shared the sentiment as me.
“How do you know all that?” Danny asked.
Fred leant on the bar, grinning. “We grew up together.”
“Lilies over roses, pizza over curry,” Danny muttered. “All right.”
“Your receipt.” I shoved the slip of paper in front of him and turned to Fred with my best customer service smile. “You must have mistaken me for someone else, sir. I don’t recognise you at all.”
“That’s a shame.” Fred’s blue eyes twinkled. “You hold a remarkable resemblance to my childhood best friend, but your personality is far kinder than hers. She’d never call me ‘sir.’”
You bastard.
“I must be her doppelganger. What can I get for you? I must say, you look like a fruity cocktail guy.”
Danny hesitated for a moment before picking up the pints I’d poured and taking his leave.
Thank God.
I glanced at him and, after seeing his back was to me, gripped one of the tap handles and leant towards Fred, grabbing his collar. “What’s wrong with you?”
My redheaded friend grinned. “I was helping.”
“We have vastly different definitions of the word ‘help.’” I dropped my hand, shoving him away.
“Absolutely nothing you said there was right,” Lucy said, scooting across the empty bar stools to join the conversation. “Do you call that helping?”
“I do.” Jess gathered empty glasses at the end of the bar and sidled up to me, resting her arm across my shoulders. “Between us,” she whispered, leaning across the bar towards Fred. “He’s a little… enthusiastic… in his pursuit of our Delilah.”
Our Delilah?
I didn’t know I was community property.
I didn’t know that I was property at all, for what it was worth.
“Is that so?” Fred’s gaze flickered over towards Danny’s table, and the hint of annoyance that sparked in his eyes sent a shiver down my spine. “Are you interested in him?”
I pulled his usual pint and set it down in front of him. “It’s none of your business.”
“I disagree. It’s very much my business. After all, I did ask you to marry me yesterday.”
A loud smash made me flinch, and I turned to see Jess staring at me with a glass shattered at her feet.
“Now look what you did!” I grabbed a paper straw from the pot and leant over the bar, feebly poking Fred in the cheek with it. “Why can’t you ever keep your mouth shut?”
“You proposed to my sister? Why?” Lucy cocked her head to the side and peered at him.
“He was day drinking. Terrible habit,” I said, still jabbing the straw in his cheek. “Jess, are you cleaning up that glass?”
“Shit, sorry.” She jerked and grabbed the dustpan and brush from its hidey-hole under the bar. “That just wasn’t on my bingo card to hear today.”
Did she think it’d ever been on mine?
“Yes, well, pretend you didn’t hear that.”
“Will you stop that?” Fred snatched the straw away from me, then propped his chin on his hand, staring at me. “Don’t act as if you aren’t seriously considering my offer.”
“Will you shut up?” I hissed and glared at him. “Before I kick your stupid ginger arse out of my bar.”
“I’ll tell Si that you’re bullying me again.”
“When he learns why, he’ll probably agree that you should be bullied.”
Lucy blinked at us both and, when Jess had disappeared to the other end of the bar to serve a customer, said, “But, seriously, why? Why would you propose to my sister of all people?”
That sounded a bit too much like an insult for my liking.
But a very fair question, all the same.
Fred cocked his thumb in my direction. “This one needs a fake lover because her mouth works before her brain does, so being the generous and understanding best friend that I am, I offered my services.”