I took a bite of my rib and wiped my hands on the paper towels they put on the table. I tapped my finger against the edge of my plate, looking around the room.
“Something wrong with your food?” he asked, eyeing my hand.
Austin had rolled his short sleeves over his shoulders because the ceiling fans did nothing to cool things down. A few of the women were gawking at him, and the tats were working in his favor.
“I hope you know all the women in here are sizing you up for dessert,” I pointed out while sipping my draft.
Austin laced his fingers together with a lazy grin spreading across his face. “I hadn’t noticed.”
On cue, a woman’s black heels clicked on the floor and stopped at our table, just to my left.
“Well, well, Austin Cole. Been a long time since I last saw you, honey. I hardly recognized you with all the tattoos.”
There was a soft vibrato in her voice—the kind a woman uses for dirty talk, which must have been on her mind by the way she slowly twirled her necklace between her fingers. I didn’t have a clue who she was, but I wondered if the two of them had been intimate, because his eyes slid up her body and met with hers as if he were remembering something.
“Life’s treating you good, Bonnie. You still live around here?”
She jutted her hip in the painted-on jeans that threatened to rip apart if she bent over.
“Mmmhmm. Just up the road a ways. Where you been hiding all these years?”
I began to feel invisible, because Bonnie was hitting on Austin like I was nothing more than restaurant décor. It shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did, but I stopped eating and looked out the window.
“Had to get away and live a little,” he answered.
“I’d love to hear all about it,” she said with a lift in her voice. “I remember when you used to come in here with those troublemakers back in high school. Shoot, I can’t even remember their names anymore.”
And then, all of a sudden, Austin’s hand slid across the table and rested on mine. He still kept his eyes on hers, engaged in conversation, but he held my hand and stroked my fingers with his thumb. A flush of heat touched my cheeks and I turned to look at Bonnie and caught her smoky eyes staring at our hands.
“Did you ever settle down?” he asked. “Kids?”
Which threw a wet towel on her parade of whoredom. “I married a few times, but I just got the one kid. He’s with his grandma now. You got kids?”
“Seven,” Austin replied with a straight face.
“Lord have mercy, you’re kidding me!” She looked horrified.
“Always wanted a football team,” he said with a wink. “Just divorced the wife, so I’m looking for someone to fill that spot and help me achieve my dream. Are you a team player, Bonnie?”
I spit out my beer and quickly set my glass down before I spilled it.
“Good running into you, Austin. I’ve heard of sacking the quarterback, but I think that’s a little bit much for me. Good luck at the playoffs,” she said, clearly not amused.
Bonnie sauntered off and the heat from Austin’s hand was the only thing that registered in my brain. I don’t even think I heard the music playing until Austin sat back in his seat, shaking his head at Bonnie as she strutted her stuff right out the door.
I chewed off a few bites of my rib and wiped my fingers with the paper towel again, deciding it was better not to ask him why he’d held my hand. Obviously, he wanted Bonnie to think he was taken so she’d clear out. Austin resumed devouring his rack of ribs. Except men didn’t hold theirs daintily like women did, using their fingertips. He held them caveman style.
Maybe it was strategic so he could sexily turn up his hand and slowly suck off the sauce from his thumb.
Or maybe I had an overactive imagination and shouldn’t have been noticing such a thing.
“Seven?” I asked.
His black lashes winked over his wolfish blue eyes. “Wishful thinking.”
I was seconds away from bringing up the topic about my boss when I remembered April sitting in a pile of taffy. A laugh began to bubble. Then there was my mother and sister being kidnapped, staying in a house full of strange men, realizing I was a Shifter (and going into heat, no less), discovering my brother was a murder victim, and then my father being a criminal on the run for diamond theft.
My unbelievable life finally erupted into a burst of maniacal laughter. It graduated only briefly to the infamous Beaker laugh before tapering off into tears. Austin watched me with apprehension, because nothing was funny. He must have sensed it was one of those moments when a person has a very public display of a nervous breakdown. A few people turned to look, but he ignored them.
“You okay? Shit, I’m really sorry, Lexi. I haven’t been the most sensitive person with everything going on.” He set down his rib and wiped off his hands. “Ivan should be calling me tonight. He said if I didn’t hear from him by midnight, then either he was dead, or Hell had finally frozen over.”
“I hope so,” I said.