Love After All
Page 32

Yet she felt no attraction to him in the least. While she appreciated the masculine vibe and the way he looked, there was no ping to her feminine radar.
Clearly, there was something wrong with her, because as eligible bachelors went, Reid was definitely a catch. And while she was firmly rooted in Hope, she could definitely while away a few hours with a very attractive man. As she listened to him talk about the renovation he’d done in Boston, it was clear he was intelligent, as well as passionate about his work.
“That’s fascinating,” Samantha said, turning her chair toward his, since she was the one who’d ended up sitting next to Reid. “I’m not sure if you’re aware of this or not—you’re probably not since you no longer live in Hope—but the old mercantile building on the corner of Fifth and Main is due for demolition.” She looked around at everyone. “You all know that old building? It’s been standing as long as I can remember. It’s just around the corner from my flower shop. And from Carter’s auto repair shop as well.”
“We all know the place,” Luke said. “It’s one of the first places that was built in Hope. It’s got to be … what? A hundred years old?”
“Why are they tearing it down?” Megan asked.
“You know the mayor. It’s all about newness and progress.” Sam rolled her eyes. “But this building is beautiful. Do you remember the one I’m talking about, Reid?”
He leaned back in his chair. “Yeah. The place has great bones.”
Sam wriggled in her chair. “It does, doesn’t it? My Grammy Claire did her banking there. Her parents did as well. She’s upset about them tearing it down.”
“I think Dad banked there, too,” Logan said. “And Grandad.”
Carter nodded. “Probably generations have. I don’t know what kind of shape it’s in or if it’s even salvageable. The outside still looks good, but who knows what’s going on inside. Maybe Reid could take a look.”
They all turned to Reid. He shrugged. “I’ll drive over there tomorrow. Since it’s Sunday, I can take a look, at least at the outside.”
Samantha laid her hand on his arm. “That would be great. Thanks so much.”
Reid definitely looked back at Sam. “It’d be my pleasure.”
And that, Chelsea thought, as she saw the way Sam’s eyes sparkled when she looked at Reid, was the chemistry she didn’t have with him. But the way his lips rose when he made eye contact with Sam? Yeah … right there.
Chelsea locked gazes with Bash at just that moment, and his lips ticked into a knowing smile. The one that said, Yeah, I got your chemistry right here, babe.
Or maybe that was all in her head.
Des gave her a very subtle shrug, but Chelsea just smiled at her.
It was either there or it wasn’t. And with Reid, she’d known it right away.
It wasn’t there. Which was fine. She was content to party tonight with her girlfriends. They all ended up kicking off their shoes and joining Molly, Emma, and Jane on the dance floor. It felt good to release a little tension and not worry about her list, or a man.
Tonight, she just wanted to enjoy herself and celebrate her friend Des, who ended up in the center of a circle, surrounded by all her girls, while they danced like crazy until Chelsea couldn’t breathe. And when a slow song came on, all the guys came out to dance with their women. Chelsea started to make her exit off the dance floor, until a pair of arms encircled her waist.
“Not so fast.”
Before she had a chance to object, she was in his arms, the two of them dangling at the edge of the dance floor.
“I was going to get a drink and catch my breath,” she said.
“You can catch your breath in a minute. I’ll take it slow.”
Was anything with Bash ever slow? Whenever she was with him it always felt like her heart rate doubled its beats per minute. Fast. Faster. A little out of control, and a whole lot of breathless.
Why couldn’t she have felt this when she talked to Reid, or to Jeff? Why did she have this incendiary chemistry with Bash, who was all wrong for her?
Maybe that was the problem. It was just chemistry, and she needed to get past it so she could move on. Trying to ignore it wasn’t working, because they ran in the same circles. They had the same friends. He was always going to be around, and though they’d known each other for years, there hadn’t been this intense … desire for him before.
Now there was. And it was getting in the way of her goals.
Maybe she should just sleep with him and get over it. Get over him. Then she could focus on Mr. Perfect. Who she knew—even Bash knew—wasn’t him.
The problem was, she wasn’t a one-night-stand kind of woman. She wasn’t into casual sex. She took sex pretty seriously, and it usually came attached to a relationship.
So could she scratch that sexual itch and then walk away?
“I’m surprised smoke isn’t coming out of your ears right now.”
She tilted her head to the side. “What?”
“You’re staring holes through me, and I can hear the gears turning in your brain. What’s on your mind?”
“You, actually.”
“Yeah? What about me?”
“I’m pondering having sex with you because you keep showing up on my radar and it’s preventing me from finding the perfect man. So if you and I have sex, maybe I’ll get you out of my system and I can move on.”