No Ordinary Joe. Michelle Celmer

he couldn’t seem to shake. He’d begun to seriously regret offering her the apartment in the first place, and had held out some hope that she would turn him down. No such luck, of course. That’s what he got for trying to be a nice guy. It always had a way of blowing up in his face.

      “In that case, I should probably put together a house-warming basket. It sounds as if she could use a few things.”

      He turned back to his aunt and shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

      “Phyllis mentioned that Reily is quite a looker,” she said with that mischievous glint in her eye that he knew all too well. “Cute as a button, I think were her exact words.”

      “I hadn’t noticed,” he said, feigning disinterest. She wasn’t buying it.

      “It’s been two years, Joey. Don’t you think it’s about time you got on with your life?”

      “That’s exactly what I’m doing. I have a daughter to care for and a bar to run.”

      She propped her hands on her hips. “You know what I mean.”

      He did, but his love life, or lack of one, was nobody else’s business. “I don’t have time for a relationship. Especially with a virtual stranger.”

      “If you got to know her she wouldn’t be a stranger, now would she? Besides, it doesn’t have to be her. There are plenty of other eligible women in town. You’ve been out of the pool for so long, would it hurt to get your feet a little wet?”

      Past experience had taught him that he wasn’t much of a swimmer. Knowing his luck, he would slip on the edge, fall into the deep end and get sucked under.