Read Online Bar Crawl by Andrea Randall - Free Book Online Page B

serious, though. Do I really come off like that much of a dick?”
    I waved my hand through the air. “Only to onlookers,” I chided.
    CJ grabbed the dishtowel near him and lightly whipped my hip with it. “Smartass,” he teased. “Let’s start on those scallops. I’m starving.”
    I looked at the clock on my stove and realized more than an hour had passed since we’d been back at my place. In that whole hour he had managed not to hit on me. And I was a little unsure how I felt about that.

CJ
    T here we were, joking in her kitchen together. I think the last girl I joked that much with was my cousin’s best friend, Ember. They’d played in a band together for a couple of years and she thought I was horrid. So naturally, I’d taken every chance I could to remind her of why she thought that. She’d tease me for being vile, and I’d get on her for being such an uptight princess. I’d even called her Rapunzel for a while, which earned me plenty of dirty looks.
    Still, apart from Ember and, of course, Georgia, joking around with girls wasn’t something I ever did. I took women very seriously—despite how it might look from the outside. I couldn’t help it with Frankie, though. Maybe I was relieved that she was finally giving me more than a few minutes at a time to speak, but I finally felt like I had some leverage.
    Now that I had it, though, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Watching her move around the kitchen, listening to her speak, and smelling a sweet and airy fragrance from her skin as she walked by left me with this weird feeling in my chest. I don’t know why I was surprised that I seemed to be falling for her. Even from the first time I hit on her, it felt different.
    “What?” Frankie said, seemingly out of nowhere.
    “Hmm?” I replied, trying to cover up that I’d been lost in thought.
    “You’re staring.”
    “Oh,” I sighed, “I was just thinking.”
    “Is that tiring for you?” She stuck out her tongue for a quick second, then went back to the frying pan.
    I chuckled. “Funny. I was actually thinking about how the night I hit on you…the first time…I was hoping you’d turn me down.”
    I couldn’t read her face, since she was intently cooking the scallops, but I watched her shoulders tremble against a chuckle. “Why were you hoping I’d turn you down?”
    “I wanted you to be different,” I admitted.
    Frankie turned off the stove and moved the pan onto an inactive burner as she slowly slid the scallops onto a plate. She wasn’t laughing anymore. “Oh?” She swallowed hard. “How so?”
    I shrugged in disbelief. I couldn’t keep my damn thoughts to myself around her. “I don’t know.”
    “Maybe Playboy CJ is ready for a little more than a one night stand, and that scares him?’ Her voice was the pitch of a teacher asking a student if they’d like to share their secret with the whole class. She smiled almost mischievously as she turned to the island and handed me a plate full of seared scallops and asparagus.
    I shook my head. “No, that’s not it.”
    “Oh.” Frankie’s lips pressed into a straight line and she seemed to avoid looking at me for a few seconds. Inside her downcast eyes, I swear I saw disappointment. She looked up with a tight smile and gestured to my plate. “Try it. Tell me how you like it.”
    I wanted to correct myself, but I wasn’t sure how. I wanted to tell her that I was, in fact, looking for something more , but I couldn’t, because I didn’t know what more was. Instead, I tasted the buttery heaven of her scallops and moaned in appreciation.
    “You like?” she asked hopefully, sliding a scallop into her mouth.
    “Jesus,” I moaned again, “this is like food porn.”
    Frankie coughed as she laughed between bites. “Always back to the sex with you, isn’t it?”
    I shrugged, refusing to open my mouth any further than necessary to allow food in. It would only cause the grave to grow deeper, and I had to buy some time to figure out