ThisTimeNextDoor by Gretchen Galway Page A

watched him with those big blue eyes. “Won’t take you all the way, huh?”
    “Something like that.”
    She flipped through the book, scanning the pages, sipping her drink. “I’ll read this tonight. You got anything on Illustrator and Photoshop?”
    “No, why?”
    “They think I’m a graphic designer.” She laughed.
    “And you’re not?”
    “Can’t even draw a straight line.”
    He groaned into his cup.
    “Don’t look at me like that. I was desperate.”
    “Did you tell them anything that was actually true?”
    She wiggled an eyebrow. “I’ll make sure the direct deposit info is right.” She propped an elbow on the table and leaned forward, flashing her cleavage. “How hard could it be?”
    He fixed his gaze on her face. “Very. You’re doomed.”
    “Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Positive.”
    “Why not tell them you’re a biochemical engineer? Snag that higher hourly wage from the temp agency,” he said. “Maybe even get some vacation time.”
    To his surprise, she didn’t fire back a retort. Slumping over the table, she stared forlornly into her glass. “You’re right, I am doomed.”
    “Now you’re making me feel bad,” he said.
    “I do know a little Photoshop. And I’ve poked around a few websites. I thought it would be enough.”
    “I’m sure it is.”
    “Liar,” she said.
    “You’re one to talk.”
    Smiling, she stood up. “I need to pee. Be right back.”
    He watched her weave through the crowded tables to the back of the café, her blond hair flowing down her back in long, golden waves as she passed the artistic porn hanging on the walls.
    Other eyes, male eyes, followed her. A guy wearing headphones big enough to DJ a dance club looked up from his laptop and tracked her, even craning around in his seat to check out her ass. Another man, sitting with a pretty redhead glued to her smartphone, watched Rose out of the corner of his eye, scanning her head to toe, his gaze lingering at chest level. And the guy near the back, whose long legs were blocking her way, actually leaned back with a grin and said something to her, something that made her laugh and touch her hair as she stepped over him.
    Guess she has a little something for everyone, Mark thought sourly, draining his cup. He was developing a little crush on her himself, if you could call nagging lust a crush.  
    Some people just had it. Sex appeal. Nicki Cameron, his high school’s class president, had it, in such excess that three guys were willing to endure the others dating her at the same time. No matter that she was a sociopath, cruel and dismissive; she was hot .
    Not that Rose was a sociopath, in spite of the lying. But he was looking for something more than sex, someone who made him feel a deeper wanting—primal, protective, profound. When he’d seen Blair the first time, he’d felt it, this masculine urge to step in and beat the world away with a club and cherish her forever.
    Rose just made him want to tear her clothes off.
    When she came out of the bathroom, the excessively extroverted, long-legged dude stood up and said something to her. She flushed pink, laughed, and shook her head, her gaze drifting over the tables to where Mark sat.
    Long-legged dude looked over, saw Mark, and frowned, but then he said something to Rose and she laughed again. When she finally rejoined him at the table, Mark gave her a sour look and said, “You’re popular.”
    “It’s the hair. Next time I’ll wear a hat.”
    He didn’t think it was the hair. “What did that guy want?”
    “To have sex with me,” she said.
    “He said that?”
    She gave him a raised eyebrow.
    “Fine,” he said. “Don’t let me stop you.”
    “I won’t, sweetheart, but at the moment I need a job more than I need to get laid.”
    “I’ve got the opposite problem,” he said, instantly regretting he’d said it out loud.
    She smiled. “Let’s get out of here. I can’t concentrate and you’re grumpy.”
    “I’m not grumpy, I’m