Almost in Love by Kylie Gilmore Read Free Book Online Page A

see some of these parents at school events.
    This was getting truly embarrassing, and she wasn’t even the one dancing in a cow costume.
    And then suddenly he grabbed her hand and pulled her to the center of the shop, doing a fast tango with her from side to side, his giant cow udder pushing between them. She went from embarrassed to mortified at the titters and whispers from the parents she knew she’d have to see at school. She was about to pull away when he grabbed her by the waist, lifted her, and twirled her around.
    She smacked his arm. “Put me down,” she hissed.
    He set her down with a grin. “My lady.”
    She slowly backed away and watched in horror as a large boy got overly excited and belly-bumped the dancing cow when Bare’s attention was still on her. Bare lost his balance, knocking into a table full of preschoolers. Fro-yo and candy spilled everywhere. The kids started crying. Bare kept slipping on the fro-yo.
    “Little help here?” Bare called.
    One of the dads helped him up. Amber rushed over. “Are you okay?” She took in his formerly white with black spots costume now covered in pink, orange, and brown. “Your costume is ruined.”
    Bare looked down at himself. “No problem. I’m sure the dry cleaner can get it out.” He grimaced at the crying kids and told the parents, “They can get whatever they want no charge. I’ll get this cleaned up in a jif.”
    He walked behind the counter and sent a teenage employee out to clean the floor. Amber joined him behind the counter, grabbing some napkins to help him clean up the sopping mess on his costume as best she could.
    Bare’s mouth formed a flat line as he also worked to sop up the mess. “No need. You just go back and enjoy your treat.”
    “Let’s get you out of this,” she said.
    He hung his head and shuffled to a back room. She unzipped the costume in the back and helped him step out of it with minimal damage to his clothes underneath.
    “My mother made that costume special for me,” he said quietly. “She was so proud when I opened my own shop. It was the first thing I ever did that she could enjoy. She’s a technophobe.”
    Amber’s heart squeezed. Bare was a software engineer and had made a really cool app too. His app, Giggle Snap, was hugely popular. People all over the world used it to share sounds. She knew very well what it was like to be good at something your family just didn’t understand. She grew up in a family of physicists—her dad, stepmom, and half-sister—who thought her painting was a complete waste of time. Her mom, an artist, had dropped her off with her father’s new family when Amber was thirteen so her mom could take a trip to Paris to find herself. Amber figured she never did find herself because she hadn’t seen her since.
    “We’ll fix it,” she said. “Let’s soak it so the stains don’t set.”
    Bare took the costume over to the sink, put the stopper in, and filled it with water. He dumped some dish soap in. His always rumpled hair fell over his forehead as he stared down at his ruined costume.
    “Not much of a date, huh?” he asked.
    “It’s been…memorable.” She searched for something nice to say. “Unique.”
    He turned to her. “I guess we should just…I dunno. Stop.”
    She nodded. “I think we’ve done plenty. That was a lot of date you packed into one morning.”
    “Come on, I’ll take you home.”
    She didn’t protest, merely followed him to the parking lot. She never wanted to hurt Bare’s feelings, but she was starting to think maybe the spin cycle of the washing machine had more to do with that amazing kiss than Bare. They were just so…different. I mean, sure they both liked to watch Zombie Bonanza, but beyond that…not much in common. She was a watercolor artist/art teacher, and he was a brilliant computer guy with a fro-yo shop on the side. Artists and techies didn’t mix all that well. Just look at her and her family.
    Bare was uncharacteristically quiet on the