Therefore, I declared, “Glad we did this, Zano. It’s good we didn’t leave it as it was. Where this is at right now is much better. But after I help you with the dishes, I gotta bounce. I have to get to work.”
As I spoke, his gaze went from my ass to my eyes, and when I was done talking, he announced, “I’d like to take you to dinner tonight.”
Shit.
I’d like that too, but that wasn’t going to happen.
I shoved the last tater tot in my mouth, jumped off the counter and turned to the sink. I rinsed my plate, put it in the sink and turned to him.
Leaning a hip against the counter, I caught his eyes and gentled my voice when I told him, “Listen, this is good and I like it. But I just got out of a somewhat long-term relationship and I gotta sort my shit before I move on from that.”
This wasn’t exactly a lie. Carl and I were close. I missed him. I wasn’t pining for him; I knew I’d made the right decision. But it wasn’t like we ended things six months ago. Our break was recent.
But it wasn’t just that.
I went on.
“And you’ve got the Ava thing.”
Now that was definitely not a lie.
His head cocked to the side, his eyes went guarded, and he asked, “The Ava thing?”
I wasn’t going to go there, but also, I didn’t want to take him there. Things were settled with Luke and Ava. They were all kinds of happy. Ren probably knew that and I shouldn’t remind him of it. In fact, I shouldn’t have said anything.
I moved us around that. “What I’m saying is, if you’re cool with it, I’m cool with this being casual.” I smiled at him. “In fact, I’d be way cool with that.”
He studied me a moment before he moved into me, getting close. He leaned around me to put his plate in the sink, straightened, caught my eyes again and stayed close.
He was talking as gently as I did when he replied, “Had women say that to me, honey, but they didn’t mean it.”
“I’m not like other women.”
His gaze moved over my face before locking on my lips and he murmured, “I’m sensing that.”
I didn’t know if that was good or bad, but I was taking it as good by the heat in his eyes.
“So if we continue to hook up, I’m down with casual. Yeah?” I pressed so I could get away from the heat of his eyes. And also, the heat of his body. Both were doing good things to my happy place, which would mean I might not get my take of the tip jar at Fortnum’s because, if I jumped him, I had a feeling I wouldn’t want to come up for air.
As answer, he said quietly, “I like you.”
Oh fuck.
There it was. My happy place got happy. My stomach dipped. But my heart squeezed.
“I like you too,” I stated in a defensive matter-of-fact way. “But I’m not ready—”
He cut me off. “No, Ally, what I’m sayin’ is, I like you. And if all you got in you right now is casual, I want more of you so I’ll give you that. But women say shit they don’t mean. I get that they do it to protect themselves and mean it when they say it. Then they get trapped in a place they created. This guy you had, you need time to get over that, I get you gotta take it. I’ll also give it to you. But if the casual we got shifts and you get stuck and don’t communicate with me the shift you want, which means I hurt you when I have no intention of doing that…” He took in a breath. “I like you and I don’t want that to happen. So I’ll take casual, honey. Just as long as, along the way, you’re straight with me. And in return, I’ll be straight with you.”
I could be straight.
Mostly.
I nodded and asked, “So, do we have a deal?”
He smiled.
My heart again squeezed.
Then he answered. “Yeah, baby. We got a deal.”
Chapter Three
Fucked Up As Love
Rock Chick Rewind
Two months later…
I was sitting in another bar; not like Club. This one was seedy and I didn’t like it.
But I was all over finding out what the fuck was going on. I’d had an informant tell me she worked that bar, although I didn’t know what “worked that bar” meant and only got the response, “you’ll see,” so I was there.
Informants sometimes sucked. A lot of time they were full of shit, and a lot of other times they got paid even better than me. Fortunately, this wasn’t my problem. My “clients” coughed that up.
But the case I was on was confounding me.
Usually, I loved a bit of confounding. Finding a piece, fitting it into the puzzle, making the picture become clearer.
But with this chick, things never came clear. They just got fuzzier. And it was annoying.
I didn’t get it.
But I would.
See, a friend of a friend of mine came to me, needing my services. He’d talked to his girl and his girl told him everything was a-okay.
But, according to him, she was totally lying.
Since her family didn’t have any money, he was saving up for the wedding of his girl’s dreams, seeing as he was gone for her. So he couldn’t go to someone like Lee because Lee was seriously pricey. But he was worried and he needed answers.