Page 89 of The Accidental Innkeeper

I exhaled. “Fine. I might’ve kissed him.” Shit. The secret was out.

Becca froze mid-sip. Her eyes slid to mine. “You might’ve kissed him?”

“I kissed him,” I corrected. “Briefly. Accidentally. With enthusiasm.”

Her glass lowered slowly. “Did he kiss you back?”

I hesitated. “Yes.”

Becca’s mouth fell open. “Oh,” she breathed. “Ohhh.”

“Don’t do that,” I warned. “That sound implies expectations.”

“That sound implies hope,” she said. “Big, manly, inconvenient hope.”

I leaned against the bar, suddenly very aware of the buzz around us—the laughter, the plotting. “I don’t know,” I said quietly. “It just… happened. But it didn’t feel like nothing.” No, it didn’t. I’d felt something. And by the way Dust-guy kissed me back, he felt it too.

Becca studied me over the rim of her glass. “You’re smiling.”

I immediately wiped my face. “No, I’m not.”

“You are,” she said. “That’s your ‘maybe something good is happening but I refuse to trust it’ smile.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Well,” she added, lowering her voice, “I know for a fact that every woman in this room would gouge out your eyes if they knew you kissed him. Alex has always been… separate.”

I looked at her. “Separate how?”

“He doesn’t get involved,” she said. “Not with anyone in town. Polite. Friendly. Keeps his distance. Shows up, does the job, leaves.”

That shouldn’t have made my chest tighten. Yet…

“He showed up for you,” Becca continued. “A lot.”

“Maybe.”

“So,” she said lightly, lifting her glass again, “either you’re imagining things—which I doubt—or you’ve managed to crack the one man in Maplewood Falls who doesn’t crack.”

I laughed softly. “You’re crazy.”

She clinked her glass against mine. “Just… crazy enough.”

“Here we go, ladies,” said Lola as she swept back into the room, a plate of hors d’oeuvres balanced effortlessly in one hand.

I caught a glimpse as she passed me. Tiny skewered sausages, glossy and pink, each one carefully shaped with a disturbingly anatomical enthusiasm. A rounded, mushroom-like tip. Two olives positioned with unmistakable intent.

My brain stalled. Was that…

Oh. Hell. No.

Lola stopped, turned, and beamed like she’d just cured loneliness. “I call them Dicks on a Stick,” she added with wide eyes.

The room exploded in oohs and ahhs as women lined up for a bit of “dicks on a stick.”

I was in hell.

I watched them for a moment before glancing down at my glass.