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  And he whispered the one word that had sent them spiraling down this beautiful, brutal road: “Soon.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Six months later

  “Soon” apparently meant half a year and 600 miles. Who would’ve ever guessed? Not me, that was for certain. The pub was quiet before the dinner rush. Two of the servers and one line cook were sitting at the end of the bar and playing video games on their phones. I had an anthropology handout loaded up on my tablet and propped up on the register, since I had no open checks and ample time to study. A mix of ‘70s and ‘80s classics was playing on the digital jukebox. So, naturally, it was during this idyllic stretch of minutes—when I would least expect it, or expect him—that my life shifted course again.

  I’d changed it the first time. By realizing that Mom was well enough, and the restaurant was stable enough with new hires, that I didn’t need to stay in Eastville any longer. Mom and Dad had given me their blessing to leave—with nary a hint of passive-aggression to be found. “Beta, it’s okay. We are doing fine. Go finish your studies.” I’d contacted my adviser and my department chair and asked if I could re-enroll in my Master’s program for the next term. So here I was back in Chicago, back in school, and working part-time behind a bar my parents didn’t own—Deconstruction, one of many trendy brewpubs that had sprung up just off the Loop. These were all sound decisions I’d made after a certain man had walked out of my life. It only figured that the next upheaval was him walking back into it.

  Tyler Buchanan Barnes—who’d once gone by another name—was still six feet three inches of pure, unadulterated trouble. He still filled a doorway, with his massive arms brushing the frames, and still commanded attention when he strolled into a room. His hair was blond again, I noticed dimly, as I fell back against the wells and my anthro reading clattered to the mats. And he’d grown back his facial hair. He looked like Chris Hemsworth after the makeover in the third Thor movie—not my Chris of choice, but not one I’d kick out of bed either.

  I drank him in as I got a hold of myself and swiftly retrieved my tablet from the floor. The winter coat he shrugged off and hung over the back of a bar stool. The green Henley shirt stretching across his chest, two buttons undone. The new lines around his mouth and his ridiculous blue eyes. The jeans that hugged his powerful thighs. Why did he still have to be so hot? I’d hoped, in some weird irrational way, that I’d imagined his appeal. Built him up in my head just because good-looking men were thin on the ground in my hometown. The Legend of Trucker Carrigan. That legend, both fortunately and unfortunately, had every basis in fact.

  “Hi,” he said as he slid onto a bar stool to my immediate left, a veritable wizard with single syllable sentences that fried my brain. “What have you got in an IPA?”

  We had two IPAs of our own, plus one guest tap. That was what I would tell a normal patron. The man I’d last seen in a rural Indiana motel room after some of the most mind-blowing sex of my life...? Yeah, I had a few different answers in mind. Most of them not fit for polite company. “What are you doing here?” I demanded instead of deploying them.

  He had the grace to look a little embarrassed...that endearing red tinge flushed his cheeks. “Having a beer?” he offered, hesitantly. “And reuniting with an old flame. I hope.”

  Oh. The breath whooshed out of me like I’d been socked in the gut. All of a sudden, I was back there on his last morning in Eastville, clinging to him with desperation and determination—saying goodbye to him by not saying goodbye. “I’m not going to let this be the end. I’m going to pretend we’ll see each other again, okay?” I had pretended. For weeks. Then months as I prepared to move and pick up my degree coursework again. I’d spun fantasies of happily-ever-afters. Imagined a dozen different ways he could come back to life and to my life. And then I’d put those fantasies to bed, locked those dozen scenarios away, and gotten on with the business of being Pinky Grover, future anthropologist.

  Future anthropologist Pinky Grover had no idea what to do with Tyler Barnes, current seeker of renewed connections. “Why now?” I asked, grabbing a pint glass and starting his pour. Just so I’d have something to do besides gawk.

  He hunched down a little in his seat, crossing his arms in front of him on the bar. “They transferred me to the Chicago field office after my mandatory R&R and some therapy sessions. I felt like it was a sign.”

  He’d never struck me as the woo-woo type. “Big believer in signs, are you?” I snarked before I could stop myself.

  “Not actually my favorite M. Night Shyamalan movie,” he said almost immediately, his brows quirking upward. “But I really liked The Village.”

  I bit back a groan. This was how he’d reeled me in at Walmart all those months ago. The easy manner, the earnest geekiness. “You have a favorite Shyamalan movie?” I gasped theatrically. “I’m sorry you came all this way. We’ll never work out.”

  “No. We can work out.”

  The vehemence with which he spoke stripped the awkward attempt at lightness from our exchange. It made my breath catch in my throat. It also made Rian, Julio and Max put down their phones and immediately go into protective mode. I shook my head and then followed up the gesture with an “it’s okay!” before they could shove aside their stools and stomp over in a show of solidarity that would probably just end with their asses kicked. I adored my new coworkers, but they were lovers, not fighters. Lovers who would probably demand a full recap of this heated conversation.

  I set Ty’s IPA down in front of him— it seemed easier to think of him as “Ty,” because he’d been born “Tyson”—and I tracked back to something he’d said before our digression into terrible genre films. “Why were you in therapy? Do you mind me asking?”

  He shrugged, pulling the pint glass a little closer to him. “Some standard deprogramming. But also because they thought I might be holding onto some things from my assignment.”

  “Were you?” I tried to play it casual. To look anywhere but him. Glancing around the taproom to see if any other customers had walked in. No. For better or worse, we were basically alone.

  “Just one thing,” he said softly. “One person.”

  Damn. I sucked in another ragged breath. What was it about this man that was turning me into an asthmatic? The intensity of his eyes? His big hands batting the pint glass back and forth? The way he could sell a cheesy line?

  I stepped back a little, giving myself some room. “Did you expect that one person to just be waiting around for you?”

  Ty winced. “She kind of gave me the impression she might be...but, no, I didn’t expect it. I hoped, but I’m not the kind of guy anyone should wait around for. Not the kind of guy you bring home to Mom.”

  Of all the things that I wanted—needed—to hear from him right now, self-deprecation ranked pretty low on the list. “My mom’s already met you and approved of you,” I pointed out. “And that was when there seemed to be very little to actually approve of.”

  While the Eagles had run most of the area, and my mother was just a tiny brown woman with no discernible power, it was because she’d okayed it that the bikers had begun regularly hanging out at the Taj. I’d always had the feeling that if she’d told Trucker no, he would’ve stayed away. That he would’ve respected her wishes. “Better they eat here and sit with full bellies than cause trouble somewhere else, na?” she’d said when I asked her about our suddenly reserved six-top in the back. Indian moms held this unwavering belief that feeding someone solved just about every problem. She hadn’t been entirely wrong. Her cooking had charmed this man in front of me, had even ensnared the bigoted meatheads he was trying to take down. And whatever she’d seen in him, whatever had convinced her that keeping him around was acceptable...well, I’d fallen for it, too, hadn’t I?

  Tyler gently tapped his fingertips on the bar, bringing me back to the here and now. To today and potentially tomorrow. “What about the other part, Pinky? Have you moved on? Are you seeing anyone? Because if you have a boyfriend, I totally
understand and will walk out the door right now.”

  “Moved on” was such a trite phrase. Yes, I’d put him behind me. Yes, I’d focused on my future. That didn’t mean I’d forgotten the taste of his kisses or the feel of his mouth between my thighs. And they practically clamped shut at the mere thought of letting anyone else between them. So, no, I hadn’t done more than go on a few lackluster Tinder dates. They’d been an exercise in futility—just like Ty’s wishes of reuniting with an old flame.

  “If I tell you to stay...what will that accomplish?” Because the thing that had separated us six months ago...it hadn’t really changed. He was still a federal agent with a brand-new identity. “I thought you were supposed to cut ties with everything from ‘before’? I’m still from ‘before.’ I can’t imagine your superiors would approve of this.”

  He sat up straight, losing the relaxed posture, swapping it out for a touch of swagger. “You’re a pretty bartender I just met,” he suggested. “We hit it off instantly.”

  I had to laugh at his audacity. “Oh, really?”

  “Uh-huh.” He grinned back at me, blue eyes glinting. “You couldn’t keep your hands off me.”

  That I could believe, since I’d already proven it a few times. “There are no Walmarts nearby, just so you know.”

  “Plenty of other nice parking lots in the city,” he countered without missing a beat. “Target. Mariano’s. Jewel. Also, I have this amazing thing now. It’s called an apartment in Hyde Park. The shampoo bottles in the bathroom are regular size.”

  I was going to cave. I was absolutely going home with him. There was no question about it. We were going to kiss on the sidewalk. Make out in a car. Stumble our way up or down some stairs. Shred each other’s clothes to ribbons. I’d probably realized that the minute he made the crack about The Village. Hell, if I was being truly honest with myself, the minute he’d walked in. Luckily, I had five more hours on my shift. Five more hours before I had to follow through.

  And maybe—just maybe—days and weeks and months and years ahead with a man I was pretty sure I loved.

  ***

  He watched Pinky flit back and forth behind the bar, drinking her up with far more enthusiasm than the IPAs she’d poured. Her dark hair was swept up in some sort of complicated knot. The traffic-stopping red lipstick she’d favored back home was definitely still in rotation. The navy-blue brewpub-issue T-shirt stretched across her chest whenever she reached up for a top-shelf liquor or one of the glasses hanging above her head. He was hardly the only one noticing that, but he was fairly sure he was the only person utterly star-struck over the bony points of her elbows and the dip of her back, too.

  Because he didn’t need to be stealthy anymore—no undercover assignments tonight, or for the foreseeable future—she totally caught him gawking at her. “You haven’t stopped staring at me since you got here. Aren’t your eyes tired?”

  “I’m making up for lost time. And even if I wasn’t, I’d never get tired of staring at you.”

  He’d waited months to see her again. The hours of her shift were practically a blink. A blink that showed him everything he’d missed and everything he had to look forward to. A Pinky Grover in her element. Handling more patrons in a half hour than the Taj got overall on an average weeknight. The evening crush had hit and hit hard, surrounding them with an equal number of tattooed hipsters and Michigan Avenue suit-bros. Pinky managed them all with a deft combination of friendliness and firmness. Maybe even a little flirtation.

  Ty—as he’d finally gotten used to thinking of himself—wasn’t remotely jealous. No, in fact, he was the exact opposite. He was impressed. Proud. Pinky was a natural at reading her customers, at connecting with people. Spending five minutes discussing the best breweries in Chicago with one dudebro and then navigating a convoluted argument about video game strategies with her coworkers—all of whom were still giving him serious side-eye after he’d raised his voice earlier. She tirelessly doled out beers and cocktails and shots, surreptitiously swapping out her own with ginger ale before she clinked with anyone. Occasionally, she’d catch his eye across the bar and grin.

  He hadn’t realized just how stifled, how lonely, she’d been in Eastville. Maybe that was why she’d turned to him so easily? It was an unsettling thought, and not the first time it had crossed his mind. She had so many more options now. Men who hadn’t been total punks in high school. Who hadn’t run with violent, bigoted, bikers. Who could still use the names they’d been born with.

  Men she didn’t want. Because she’d chosen him. She was going home with him. She hadn’t said it outright, but he was pretty sure he was reading her signals correctly. Plus, she hadn’t told him to leave. He nursed his third pint, ate some soft pretzels with Wisconsin beer cheese, and counted down the minutes until he could take her in his arms.

  When that time came, just after 11PM, he could hardly believe it. No more customers. No more bar between them. Just her closing up on the register, stashing her cash tips in her purse, grabbing her winter gear, and then coming around to throw herself at him. It was an easy catch. The best catch. All of her softness against his chest. She smelled faintly of booze—you couldn’t work at a pub without ending up wearing some—but mostly of Pinky. Warmth and spice and practical shampoo. He could’ve stood there forever just holding her...except he definitely needed just a little bit more than that.

  As if she’d read his mind, she extricated herself from his embrace just enough to look up at him with some serious come-hither eyes. The kind that told him she was making up for lost time, too. “Let’s get out of here,” she murmured, her tone just as hungry. “Because I really want to kiss you...but not in front of an audience.”

  There were still a few servers milling about. Flipping chairs up onto tables. Doing their own nightly closing routines. “Don’t you need to help?”

  “I’ll owe them, and I’ll probably have to give them lurid details of our passionate reunion. It’s fine,” she assured with a grin.

  Well, who was he to argue? Without further ado, Ty helped her don her coat and hustled her out to South Michigan Avenue. Into a freezing cold Chicago night. And then back into his arms. No need to delay the passionate reunion any longer than strictly necessary, right?

  They practically stumbled against the bricks of the brewery’s façade. He made sure to take the brunt of the force...while giving her the brunt of his kiss. Lowering his head to hers. Taking her mouth. Swallowing her needy little sounds like a starving man. And he was starving. He’d been starving since she walked out his door. Pinky’s family restaurant may have fed his body, but meeting her, getting to know her, and making love to her, had nourished his soul.

  She must have sensed the shift in him from seduction to contemplation, because she broke the kiss and tipped her head back. Her slender black brows pulled together in a furrow. “You’re thinking about food, aren’t you?” she accused. “You just can’t help it.”

  “You caught me,” he confessed with a laugh. “This entire night was just an elaborate campaign to regain access to your mom’s samosas.”

  Pinky cracked up, fisting her hands in his parka and playfully shoving at him. “I knew it!”

  The words spilled out of him almost automatically. His truth. The real core of his identity. The fundamental fact that had led him here to her. “I love you.”

  “I knew that, too,” she said without missing a beat.

  It was their thing. Banter. Jokes. Constant volleying. Like a tennis match. And, yet, Tyler knew they were both suddenly serious. He felt it in her body. The way she curved into him. He saw it in her gaze, and heard it in the tiny catch in her voice. She knew he was in love with her. She believed it. She believed in this, in what they could be together.

  He reached down for her hand, interlacing their fingers. “Any chance you’ll say it back?”

  A brilliant smile played on Pinky’s lips. Her dark brown eyes teased him and dared him and asked him to take a chance. But it was her one-syllable re
ply that told him everything he needed to know. Everything he would hold dear for the next hour, the next day, the next six months and the six months after that. She arched up on her toes and mouthed it against his skin, rasped it along his beard. A whispered promise. A husky vow. A trailer for the splashy, over-the-top, comic-book movie of their lives.

  “Soon.”

  About the Author

  Editor, writer, American desi and lifelong geek Suleikha Snyder is an author of contemporary and erotic romance. A passionate advocate for diversity and inclusivity in publishing, Suleikha is frequently ranting when she should really be adding to her body of work—which includes multiple Bollywood-set romances and several shorts and novellas.

  City dweller Suleikha finds inspiration in genre fiction, daytime and primetime soaps, and anything that involves chocolate or bacon. Visit her online at www.suleikhasnyder.com and follow her on Twitter @suleikhasnyder.

  Also by Suleikha:

  Spice and Smoke (Bollywood Confidential #1)

  Spice and Secrets (Bollywood Confidential #2)

  Bollywood and the Beast (Bollywood Confidential #3)

  Ishq Factors: an erotic collection

  Seared (Master Chefs #1)

  Dil or No Dil: a story collection

  Copyright

  © 2018 by Suleikha Snyder

  Cover design by James, GoOnWrite.Com

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.