Always Only You by Chloe Liese (z-lib.org).epub

He’s a ginger.”
Lo cackles. “Frankie’s such a freak for redheads.” I kick her under the table.
“He likes to read,” Annie continues. “He cares about his community. After
this you’re going to go take video of him reading to sick children, for goodness’
sake!”
“Your point?” I shove a bite of pizza in my mouth and chew.
Annie blinks at me, owl-like through her glasses. “My point is he’s special.
He’s sitting in a café, clearly not because he’s hungry, but because he’d rather
deal with being ogled by an entire restaurant so he can carpool with you, rather
than avoid this bullshit and meet you there. I think he’s not just a fantastic
human. I think you mean something to him.”
“That’s…that’s… It’s a work thing.”
“You know in science,” Annie says, “the logical principle called Occam’s
Razor.”
I eyeball her. “Yes?”
“Well, it says that we must accept, until we have reason otherwise, that the
simplest explanation for your data is the most logical and thus likely one. It
applies broadly, I think. To life. To feelings.”
“Annie. I’m not a scientist. Ren and I aren’t an experiment.”
“Well, you’re right of course.” She steals a slice of my pizza and takes a bite.
“But this is the simple truth: you and Ren like each other and feel comfortable
around each other. Don’t you?”
“Yes,” I grumble.
“So, explore it. I mean, if you want to. Which I think you seem to… Am I
wrong?”
I stare down at my pizza and sigh. “No. I mean, I do like him.”
Like him. Okay, maybe I more than like him. But it’s just carnal, isn’t it? I’m
so sexually attracted to that sweet cinnamon roll of a man, it’s crazy.
Annie leans in. “And you’re attracted to him?”
“Yes,” I admit. “But, I really don’t think he sees me that way, and we work
together—”
Lorena claps her hands. “Hallelujah, she’s gonna get laid. Then maybe she
won’t be so salty at book club.”
My pizza gets the brunt of my emotions. I bite down viciously and tear off
another mouthful. “I wasn’t being salty. That book was trash. Nothing happened
for, like, six hundred pages.”
Lorena sucks in a breath.
“What?” I follow her glance back toward Ren’s table and nearly choke on
the pizza making my cheeks chipmunk full.