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Category: Erotica/Romance
Description: What was a nice Italian girl doing in an Irish Pub on St. Patrick's Day?

Whatever Angelina Marinucci had thought she'd be doing, it certainly was not what she is doing, which is hiding out in the ladies' room to delay her best friend's sneaky matchmaking machinations!

After stalling for as long as possible, a resigned Angel dodges her way through the crowded bar to face the inevitable, but before she can rejoin her friends, she runs smack into,literally, Declan Harrigan. Fourteen years ago Deck had been one of the coolest and hottest guys in high school: star pupil, star athlete, star everything, including star of Angel's secret teenage dreams. Hopeless dreams because Angel and Deck had only ever been friends.

Things have come easy to Declan all his life; good grades, money, a career as a professional athlete, girls, and later, women. Back in high school, he'd been too shallow, too superficial and too concerned with his own popularity to date his friend Angel, the overweight girl, despite the fact that he'd liked her--really liked her. But Deck is a different person now.

They haven't seen each other in a dozen years and now it's Angel who's starring in Deck's very adult fantasies. But can he convince her to give him a second chance?
eBook Publisher: Whispers Publishing, 2011
eBookwise Release Date: April 2011

2 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [63 KB]
Words: 11795
Reading time: 33-47 min.

A sudden sense of deja vu washed over him. He'd first met Angel in a crowded room like this, those big brown eyes had flashed the same way, and she'd looked as happy to see him then as she did now.

Hadn't he been hot for some girl? And Angel had offered him advice? Advice that, if he remembered correctly, he'd been too cocky to think he needed but hadn't said so. Declan couldn't remember the girl's name now, and only had a vague memory of blonde hair--he thought he'd even dated her--but he most definitely remembered Angel.

"Angel! It's great to see you again!" he said with a grin, meaning it. He glanced down at the green stain on his shirt, which wasn't all that noticeable since he'd managed to dodge most of the beer, then back at her as he teasingly added, "You rushing to meet someone? Or have you got a few minutes to catch up with an old friend?"

"Oh, God, Deck, I'm really sorry!" She snatched some cocktail napkins off the bar and started dabbing at the stain and then stopped abruptly, as if suddenly realizing what she was doing. "And embarrassed," she added. "And it's great to see you too." Her gaze darted behind him, and then she wrinkled her nose as she looked back at him with a grimace. "Actually, it was more like rushing to not meet someone."

"Hmm, in that case, I can help. Let me buy you a drink, and we'll find a quiet corner where we won't be found for a while. You have me intrigued with that that mysterious statement. And I really want to hear what you've been up to all these years."

Angel scanned the overcrowded room. "A quiet corner might be easier said than done in this place, but we can try. But...no green beer, please. Somehow, there's just something wrong about that," she said with a little shudder.

He smiled. She hadn't changed; for Angel, there had never been any pretending to like something she didn't just because she thought it was expected. "You got it. Guinness okay?"

At her nod, he ordered two from the bartender, grabbing the handles of both pints in one hand after he paid for them and his cane in the other. Angel had watched silently, but she hadn't offered to help, which he appreciated; too many people pitied him and though he was helpless now simply because of the cane.

"After you," he said, with a tilt of his head to indicate the back room, which, luckily, was in the opposite direction from the area of O'Malley's Angel wanted to avoid. He was just being polite. The fact that it gave him an opportunity to check out the greatest ass he'd ever seen again--an asset he and most guys in the vicinity had noticed when Angel had picked up his cane--was of secondary consideration.

Uh-huh. And Gretzky never played hockey.

So, shoot him, he was still a shallow, superficial guy.

The back room was far less crowded and much quieter, and they found an empty high-backed booth along one of the walls.

"Okay," he said, with a grin, once they were seated. "Who exactly are you trying not to meet?"

She gave a little half shrug and wrinkled her nose again. "It's not really important," she answered, avoiding eye contact as she concentrated on tracing a pattern on the table with her fingertip. "It's just...my best friend, Nu--oh, that reminds me," she said, looking up with a grin. "Don't be surprised if a crazy, red-headed, Irish, virago comes charging in here to hunt me down. Anyway, she's trying to set me up with her boyfriend's brother. No big deal really. It's not the first time. You know how it is. People in love get stupid, and they want everyone to be stupid with them." Her grin got wider, and she let out a delicate, little snort. "Well, no, actually, I don't suppose a hotshot jock does know how it is."