She looked at him. They were on city streets, moving at ten above the speed limit down the empty main drag, yellow lights turning red as they flew under them. The breeze tossed his hair around his battered features, blowing the reddish strands flat against his broad forehead, then back from his face, which had tuned again to unreadable as he drove. In the dark he looked like the kind of guy who’d take what he wanted without a care for her feelings. She wasn’t above choosing a bed partner based solely on physical response. Her body rarely led her down the wrong path. But something about Chad’s wavering resistance set off an alarm, a distant one.
Chad braked the Jeep to a halt in front of a twenty-four-hour diner near the interstate. Once inside, she slid into a booth and shook off her sandals, propping her tired feet up on his bench seat with a sigh. He reached for the laminated menus tucked behind the napkin dispenser, then shifted one bare foot into his lap and massaged it with his free hand as he scanned the menu. Eve slid further down in her seat and rested her head on the back of the booth, her eyes and brain completely unfocused by the deft, deep strokes.
“So here’s what I want to know,” Chad said without looking up from the menu. “Bust many couples in that alcove?”
Laughter pealed into the empty diner, the sound startling a curse from the fry cook in the kitchen window. Chad looked up, humor gleaming in his eyes.
“Oh, more than you’d suspect given that it’s a completely public space right next to the bathrooms. That’s why I installed the mirror, so Natalie or I see them before we’re all really embarrassed.”
The waitress arrived, pen poised above a blank notepad. Chad ordered four eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, and orange juice. Eve, her head back to its position on the back of the booth as he worked his magic on her other foot, ordered one egg, an English muffin, and a side of sausage.
“Coffee?” the waitress asked, stifling a yawn.
Eve shook her head. “I’ve got to get some sleep in a couple of hours.” Chad declined as well.
“So here’s what I want to know,” she said when the waitress left. He stiffened, but she continued. “What did you do to your hands?”
He closed up, bricks layered and mortared before her eyes. The massage faltered, then resumed. “What do you think?”
“Boxing. Workouts, not fights. Not anymore,” she amended.
“What makes you think that?”
“No marks on your face,” she said, studying his eyes, the muscles in his cheeks, the tightness around his jaw. “Or on your ribs, but you’ve taken some hits in the past. Now the hits are all inside, hidden away. No weakness allowed. The workout’s how you deal with it.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw as he glanced at the pies in the glass case, then back at her. “You can tell all that from looking at me.” It wasn’t a question.
She shrugged. “You said bartenders should be good listeners. So are cocktail waitresses, but men don’t talk with words. They talk with their bodies, and what they don’t say during three hours of sports or stock market bullshitting. Am I right?”
He shrugged, neither confirming nor denying her assessment, then shifted his attention to her other foot. The pressure of his thumb against her arch made her jaw go slack and nearly had her purring when he said, “My turn. Here’s what I want to know. Who’s the guy you took upstairs tonight?”
Nice right cross. It was her turn to freeze. She sat up straighter and unintentionally tugged at the foot trapped in his strong grip. He tightened his hold, pushing one strong thumb against her arch in a move that made her entire body relax as he watched her with those all-seeing hazel eyes.
“Why?”
“No one goes upstairs except you and Nat. That’s smart when you’ve got thousands of dollars in the bar at the end of the night. But he went right upstairs with you, like he belonged.”
She hadn’t told her family, her brother, her best friend about making herself the bait for a sting operation on Lyle Murphy, so she wasn’t about to involve a near-stranger, no matter how well he could handle himself. “He’s a friend. We went to high school together and he’s looking for investment opportunities here in town.”
“So I might have another boss besides you,” he said, his finger lightly caressed her skin.
No way in hell. “More of a silent partner,” she said. “I want to buy the building across the alley from Eye Candy, knock it down, and put up an outdoor seating area for live music and parties. I can’t afford it without a loan, but my credit’s maxed. He needs somewhere to put some cash. We’ll see.”
All of that was true. It would be so easy to take Lyle’s money, go after her dreams, compromise herself and everything she believed in. She could tell herself that she’d use his money to improve the East Side and put him out of business, but she knew better. The East Side needed big, bold moves resulting in arrests and prison sentences to discourage the dealers and encourage people to force them out. Community activism started at home. It started with her.
The waitress slid platters of food in front of Chad, and a single plate in front of Eve. Relieved the conversation was over, she sat up straighter in the booth and reached for her silverware, her feet cooling against the scratched linoleum. He dug into his food with the focus of a big man coming off a twelve-hour fast.