“I can’t believe you didn’t wait for me,” he said once Silas was gone.
I kept my eyes on his retreating form until he disappeared into the kitchen to place Dallas’ order, and I smiled.
“What are you smiling at?” Dallas asked, putting his arm around me again.
I laid my head on his shoulder as I relished the touch.
God, it felt nice to have human touch.
Wanted human touch, anyway.
“I like him,” I mumbled, gesturing to Silas, who’d come out of the kitchen to stand at the bar.
Dallas squeezed my shoulder. “Yeah, he’s pretty cool.”
I pulled out of his arms when Danni, their daughter, started to cry.
“Past her lunchtime, baby,” Dallas said to Bristol.
Bristol pulled Danni out of her car seat and handed her over to Dallas with a bottle she pulled from the diaper bag at her side.
I smiled as I watched my brother cradle the small girl in his arms and place the bottle up to her crying lips.
“You’re so cute holding her,” I said, smiling at him even wider.
He winked. “I’m cute all the time. Being a daddy just makes me even better.”
I rolled my eyes.
The arrogance!
“Sure, whatever you say,” I said, dipping a piece of steak into the gravy and smothering it.
Not intentionally, though.
My eyes were on the man behind the bar.
I watched Silas move.
The way the muscles in his shoulders shifted with even the tiniest of tasks.
Such as wiping down the bar in front of him with a white rag.
Or when he poured a beer from the tap.
I licked my lips, and he looked up just in time to catch me staring at him.
He winked and went back to pouring his beer, but my heart was frozen in my lungs at being caught.
Shit.
That wink, though, that was sexy as hell.
Oh, man.
I needed to get a life.
“So what happened to you last night? I went to the garage apartment, but the lights were out,” Dallas said casually.
Too casually.
“I went to bed,” I lied.
What I really did was get into the bathtub full of water that was so hot that my skin still burned from the heat and attempted to boil away my memories.
It didn’t work.
I sat in that water for two and a half hours while I stared at my toes lit only by candlelight.
I thought about that night.
Then all the subsequent nights since.
And wished I’d never said yes to going out.
“Oh,” Dallas said, looking down at Danni.
I could tell he thought I was lying, but I didn’t care.
I wasn’t fit company last night.
And he didn’t need to see me like that.
Hell, I didn’t want to see me like that.
“What time do you have to go into work tonight?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
“Six. I work C-shift this week,” he answered, looking up when his food was brought out.
I popped the last fried pickle in my mouth and held my hands out for my niece.
Just as she farted, and then filled her diaper with lord knew what.
“Uhhh,” I said, hesitating.
Bristol and Dallas started laughing.
“Oh, no,” Dallas said when I started to take my hands away. “You wanted her, you have to take her as she comes.”
Dallas got up and ushered me out of the booth.
I rolled my eyes, scooted out of the booth and stood. I took her and the diaper bag that Bristol held out to me.
I took it, looping it over my shoulder and walked with the now smiling little girl to the bathroom.
Where I realized they didn’t have any baby changing stations.
I looked at the non-existent sink area where there was no room to change a kid, let alone set anything down.
“Family establishment my ass,” I mumbled, pulling the door to the bathroom open and walking straight to the bar.
I knew the moment Silas realized I was making my way towards him because his body that was relaxed, stiffened.
Then he turned in my direction, crossing his arms over the top of the bar and watching me come.
“Need something?” He asked, taking in the baby and the diaper bag.
I nodded.
“You have no diaper changing station.”
It was meant to come out as a question, but instead sounded more like an accusation.
He blinked.
“Huh,” he said, turning and making his way around the bar.
I watched him come until he stood in front of me.
“You can use my bathroom. It has a big sink area,” he said, gesturing with his hand for me to follow.
I did, right into the same hallway that I’d found myself in from earlier.
I could smell him over certain other things, and it was wonderful.
Like pine needles and leather… the latter might be explained by the leather vest he had on.
A picture of a creepy woman was on the back, with Dixie Wardens over the top of the figure, and Benton under the bottom of it.
I wondered if he was really as important as everyone was making him out to be.
I doubted it.
A man that was supposed to be important wouldn’t be serving people food at a bar.
He hired people to do that.
Not to mention he didn’t mingle with the masses.