“I’m sure!” She was going to come up with something else. She closed her eyes so she could concentrate.

Potential Wishes That Had Nothing to Do with Sawyer Collins’s Stupid Beard

1.

She stood there for a really long time. Come on. Focus.

“What are you ladies wishing for this time?”

“Ahh!” Eve shrieked.

Maya cracked up. “I think maybe it just came true.”

“That right?” Sawyer asked Maya, but he kept his eyes on Eve. Could he tell what she was thinking? One corner of his mouth quirked up. And then. He stroked. His beard.

“We have to…go do that thing.” Eve glared at Maya until Maya got the hint.

“Yep, gotta go! Do the thing!” Maya threw her flower in the water and saluted Sawyer. “See you, Chief.”

Eve flung her flower over the railing and tried really, really hard to empty her mind while doing so, to not make a wish at all.

She did not succeed.

“Why don’t you just do it?” Maya said later when they were settled in at the bar.

“Do what?”

“Do Sawyer.”

Eve choked on the Diet Coke she’d ordered on account of the fact that she was never drinking again. “What?”

“You.” She pointed at Eve. “Sawyer.” She pointed at the empty stool next to Eve. “One night of passion.” She gestured dramatically between Eve and Imaginary Sawyer.

“Okay, two things.” Eve hopped off her stool and picked up Maya’s wine. “One. If we’re going to talk about this, we’re not doing it here.” Honestly. Law was seven feet away. She led Maya to one of the booths in the back. This was where they’d retreated the first night Eve had come to this bar. It felt like a lifetime ago.

“And what is two?” Maya prompted once they’d sat.

“Two is did you not see him hoovering Jeannie Wilkerson’s face off in front of the entire town?”

“I did indeed see that. Ten years ago. When we were children.”

“Right, but the point is he broke my heart,” Eve said quietly. “I can’t let that happen again.” Saying that out loud, even just to Maya, made her feel way too vulnerable. She pressed her palms against her face.

“Who said anything about your heart?”

Huh? Eve splayed her fingers and peeked through them.

“I don’t think you really heard me before. I said you”—Maya pointed at Eve—“and Sawyer”—she pointed at Imaginary Sawyer, who had apparently followed them from the bar—“and one night of passion. One night.”

Eve spread her fingers wider. “You mean like get him out of my system?”

Maya shrugged. “Wash that man right out of your hair? Or, you know, wash that man’s beard hair out of your nether regions—ha!”

“I don’t think the ‘We’re only going to do this once, and then I’ll magically be over you’ thing actually works outside of romance novels.”