Tonic by Staci Hart Page A

lot.”
    Great. Appreciated. These were not the words of a woman head over heels in love with me, and I felt my smile fall. “Yeah, sure. I wouldn’t have left you on your own like you were.”
    “It was so nice of you.”
    I almost flinched at the least productive adjective in the English language. “Well, you know me. I’m just a nice guy.”
    “I just hope I didn’t give you the wrong impression. I know I can come off as a little … frosty , but I like to think that I’m not a terrible person. I’m just cautious, is all. And I know yesterday my guard was down, so I just didn’t want you to think I was …” she trailed off, and I picked it right up.
    “Into me? Defrosting your cold, black soul?” I inched closer, and she leaned toward me just a degree, just enough to give me permission. I pressed the opening. “Waiting for me to kiss you?”
    “Joel,” she said, her voice layered with warning and yearning, and I couldn’t help myself. I leaned in closer still.  
    “Or were you waiting on this? Were you waiting on me?” I breathed the words, my nose filled with the scent of her — honeysuckle? No, that wasn’t it either—
    She put a hand on my chest, her face hardening. “Stop.”
    The word was a punch in the gut, stopping me immediately, and I drew a breath at the sting. I stepped back.  
    “I was concussed. Whatever I said or did the other day, I wasn’t in my right mind. Literally. Nothing has changed. I still don’t want you hit on me. This isn’t going to happen, okay?”
    But her eyes — her eyes, her tone of voice, her hand on my chest like it was connected to me rather than trying to push me away — they told me a different story than her words. So I put on my best smirk, because she could say she didn’t want me all day long, but that wouldn’t make it true. “Okay, Annika. Whatever you say.”
    Her brows dropped, the tension broken. “Don’t say that like I just challenged you.”
    I shrugged. “You’re the boss, boss.”
    She rolled her eyes and huffed, reaching for my hip again. I resisted the urge to lean into her hand as she turned my battery pack on and brushed past me. I turned and followed, taking my seat in front of her. She wanted to play it this way? I’d play along, back down, let her be the boss. Let her take the lead.  
    I had a feeling that if I did, the payoff would be well worth the wait.

    Annika
    I sat in my chair across from Joel, clipboard in my lap, heart thumping like a kick drum against my ribs.  
    That hairy bastard smirked at me from his chair like he knew a secret. I could practically hear him singing neener-neener-neeeee-ner like a child, hands clasped between his parted thighs, like he knew exactly how sexy he was, how right he was.  
    What a dick.
    I slipped my pen out of the clipboard’s clip and smiled as Randy nodded to me from behind the camera.
    “So, Joel,” I started, “have you always been an insufferable horse’s ass, or is it a more recent development? Something acquired in your old age?”
    He laughed, and the sound was so hearty, so full of life and pleasure that I pursed my lips, determined not to laugh back.  
    “Oh, no. I’ve been insufferable since my exit from the womb. It’s only sweetened with age.”
    I’d been doodling absently on my blank page and realized with a smile that I was drawing a dick as I thought through my questions.
    “Noted. So, tell me a bit about how you got started in art and tattooing.”
    He began to talk, his eyes taking a far-away look back into his life, and I listened, making notes, drawing what looked like scratchy pubes on the balls of the dick, giving the crown a beard and a smirk, trying not to listen too deeply. Because everything I learned about him piqued my interest even more. And that stupid interest pissed me off. I didn’t want to be interested, but there I was, listening to it all, trying not to think about how he’d almost kissed me. How much I’d wanted him to.
    He told me