Covet Thy Neighbor

in the way, and the next thing you know, it’s been forever since you’ve been out with someone.”
    I nodded. “Oh, yeah. I know how that goes.” I raised my glass in a mock toast. “My last boyfriend and I split, God . . .” I paused, adding up the dates in my head. “Shit, it’s been almost four years now.”
    “Wow, really?” Darren shook his head. “Hasn’t been that long for me. I’ve only been out of the game for two.”
    “Well, I didn’t say I’d been out of the game for four years.” I grinned at him over the top of my glass. “Just said it’s been four years since I’ve had a boyfriend.”
    “Ah, I see.” He returned the grin, and then drained his glass. “You want another?”
    “I could go for one more.” I started to stand, but Darren put up a hand.
    “This one’s on me,” he said.
    “You sure?”
    He nodded and got up. “Same thing?” He gestured at my glass. “The pale ale?”
    “Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks.”
    He smiled. “Be right back.”
    I watched him go, and holy perfect body, Batman. His jeans weren’t quite painted on, but they didn’t leave much to the imagination. If they looked that good from this angle, then I needed to find something to hold my attention when he came back, or I’d be indulging my curiosity about how well they fit in the front.
    Seth. Dude. What the fuck?
    I shook my head and shifted my gaze out the window. It was too dark to see the mountains, but oh well. I focused on them anyway. Totally didn’t watch Darren’s reflection or anything. At all. Not even once. Especially not when he leaned over the bar. Or cocked his hip just a little.
    Dude.
    I rubbed my eyes. Okay, so he’d thrown me off-balance when he’d come into my tattoo shop the other day, and even now just watching him made me dizzy, but he was too perfect. There had to be something wrong with him, and now I caught myself waiting for the other shoe to drop. That one quirk, that one trait or something, that landed him very firmly in the friend zone. Or even the neighbor zone. Something heinous enough to disqualify him from my not-terribly-exclusive “fuck once and call it a day” zone.
    So far? No dice. This guy checked all the boxes. Hot as all fuck. Dry sense of humor. Intelligent. Direct. Presumably employed, if his job had moved him out here. I didn’t believe in bullshit like love at first sight, but the dial in my head had conspicuously turned from I’d fuck you to I could see myself dating you. Which would include fucking, so it’s all good.
    You’ve known him for an hour, idiot.
    That other shoe could still drop. There was still time. It had taken my ex a solid year to reveal his rampant douchebaggery, so there was most certainly still time for Darren to prove he was way too good to be true.
    “One pale ale,” he said, drawing me out of my thoughts and back into his presence. He put the glass on the table before he sat across from me and wrapped his hand around his own drink.
    “So, you mentioned before that work brought you out here,” I said, trying to tread lightly and gauge his reactions since this didn’t seem to be his favorite topic. “What is it that you do?”
    Darren took a long swallow of beer. Then he set his glass down. “I’m a minister.”
    Record scratch.
    “Sorry, what?”
    He laughed. “A minister.” He gestured outside. “Just started working for the New Light Church down the street.”
    “Oh.” I took a drink. A long one. “Well, um, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m an . . .”
    “Atheist?”
    I blinked. “How did you know?”
    Darren smiled. “God told me.”
    “Oh yeah?” I smirked. “What else did he tell you about me?”
    “Well, that you’d be interesting enough to be good company for a couple of beers.” He raised his glass. “I’d say He was right.”
    I eyed him. “Okay, seriously. How did you know?”
    He threw his head back and laughed. “The ‘Professional Skeptic’ sticker on your truck kind of gave it away.”
    “Oh. Yeah. I suppose it would, wouldn’t it?” I gnawed the inside of my lip. “So you already knew about that before you asked me to come out here tonight.”
    “No.” He shook his head. “While the bartender was getting our beers, I ran back to where you were parked and checked your bumper for incriminating stickers.”
    “Smartass,” I muttered into my beer. I rolled a sip around on my tongue for a moment, then swallowed it. “Funny. Most people in your . . .