My Grumpy Old Bear - Jayda Marx Page 0,3

enough.

Of course, like I told him yesterday, I know there’s more to him than he likes to portray. Sure he’s grumpy, but I don’t miss the way his lips twitch when I tease him, or his eyes sparkle when I tell him he’s handsome. I was able to pull a little information out about himself yesterday, but I’m hungry for more. I know there’s a big, beautiful personality behind his tough exterior, and I want to be the one who cracks his shell.

My attention was caught by the sexy man himself walking past the window and taking a seat at the only vacant table outside. He loved sitting in the sunshine while he enjoyed his lunch. There’s no way a ‘cranky bastard’ as he called himself would do that. I smiled as I watched him look around for me. He always searches for me when he sits down, even though he snaps his eyes away when they meet mine. He likes to pretend he’s totally chill and uninterested, but I’ve got him all figured out.

I walked out onto the patio. When my gaze locked with Brooks’, he quickly turned his attention to the menu in front of him. The man had the menu memorized and only ever ordered three things, so he wasn’t fooling anybody.

“Hey, honeybear,” I greeted him sweetly. He tried to scowl at me from under his thick brows, but his twitching lips gave him away. He loved the name.

“Oh god, you haven’t forgotten about that yet?”

“Forget about you? I could never!” I teased. He scrubbed his hand over his mouth, and I knew he was fighting a smile. Damn, I wanted to see him smile. “But unfortunately, I’m not gonna be able to make our lunch date today since it’s so crazy here. I can’t take the time to sit down and eat right now. I was thinking, though; if you give me your number, I’ll call you when I get off and we can plan a nice evening together.”

Brooks sighed and dropped his eyes to the table. “Noah...we need to talk.”

Oh god. That doesn’t sound good. My face went cold and tingly as I sat in the chair across from him. I didn’t think I could stay standing for this ‘talk’. “What is it, Brooks?” This didn’t seem like the right time for a cutesy nickname.

His pretty gray eyes looked into mine. “I’m not sure where you got this crazy idea that we’re dating, but Noah...we’re not. Honestly, we’re not even friends.”

His words were like a knife to my chest. Not only was he shooting me down and not reciprocating the growing feelings I had for him, he didn’t even want to be in my company as a friend. For weeks, I’d been wanting this man, imagining how great we could be together once I knocked down some of his walls, but he wanted nothing to do with me. Pain bloomed in my chest, and I rubbed it away with the heel of my hand. How could I have gotten this so wrong?

“Oh,” was the only word my suddenly dry mouth could form.

“Listen, it’s not you. It’s-”

“Please don’t say it,” I begged. I couldn’t handle hearing an ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ breakup speech right now. He’d already ripped my heart out; the generic old line would only make things worse. I stood up from the table and pushed in my chair without even looking at him. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“Hey,” sounded from the next table over. I looked to the voice and found a man who appeared to be in his late thirties. He was handsome with slicked-back black hair and bright green eyes, but his looks paled in comparison to Brooks’. “Come here, gorgeous.”

I shuffled over to the man with my head still hanging, assuming he was going to either request something dining-related or feed me another tired line of ‘there’s plenty of fish in the sea’ or something equally as shitty if he’d overheard the embarrassing conversation between Brooks and me.

“Don’t worry about that asshole,” he instructed, taking my hand. I knew Brooks could hear the man, but at the moment, I didn’t care. Brooks was kind of being an asshole. “Any man would be lucky to take you out. In fact, if you give me your number, you and I will plan a nice evening together. How does that sound?”

“I don’t even know your name,” I whispered. It was all I could muster right then.

“Forgive me, gorgeous. My name is Kevin.