“No, ma’am.”
Her glare is tight and she manages to lean out more so that her head is practically inside the truck. “Sure I do. You’re the new guy. Girls at the beauty salon were just talking about you the other day.” She props her chin in her palm. “Everyone’s dying to know your story. You single?”
My heart races and I struggle for a polite response.
“Ahem!” Shyann waves her hand in front of the woman’s face. “I’m sitting right here.” She turns her body, making herself a human barrier.
I stare in shock at the back of Shyann’s head. She’s protecting me.
My chest expands with a breath of relief.
The woman waves off Shy with a smile. “No disrespect, honey. I was just asking.” She blinks a few times and grins. “Shyann Jennings, is that you?”
She sighs and her shoulders slump. “Yes.”
The nosy woman flattens her palm to her chest. “Mary Beth Stewart. We had history and chemistry together.”
“Oh, yeah. You look so . . . different.” The way Shy said it didn’t make it sound like a good different and I have to bite down to keep from laughing.
Mary Beth pats the ends of her shoulder-length hair. “Thank you, I’ve been trying to stay young.” She cups her breasts. “Got these last year, and—”
“Okay, well . . .” Shy shoves money at the woman. “This should cover it.”
“Oh, right!” Mary Beth smiles and takes the offered cash.
Shy turns to me, shock painting her expression, and mouths, She grabbed her boobs!
Battle lost. Laughter shoots from my lips, the sound so shocking, I turn away to muffle it into my hand. By the time I manage to get control, I find her looking at me in that soft way that I feel in my chest. Our gazes tangle and for a moment I’m trapped in the intensity of it.
“You laughed.”
I clear my throat at the emotions whirling through me and thankfully no darkness. “Yeah.”
“Drinks? Hello?”
Shy blinks and I suck in a breath as she turns to grab our Cokes. I take them from her to put them in the drink holder so she can get the rest of our order.
“Shyann, how is your brother?” She rests her forearms back on the windowsill, settling in. “I always did have the biggest crush on him.”
“He’s fine. Thanks!”
“It was great seeing yo—” We don’t hear what else she has to say because Shyann pulls out of the drive-through and right onto the road back to our part of town.
I turn to see the woman hanging out the window, her lips still flapping. “I don’t think she was finished talkin’.”
“Huh?” She feigns shock and innocence. “Oh, was she talking to me? I couldn’t quite hear her through all the slut.”
I pull down my baseball hat and hope she doesn’t see how much I’m enjoying her jealousy. “She seemed okay to me.”
She rolls her eyes. “Of course you would say that. She practically crawled over my body to get into your lap.”
A tiny smile ticks my lips. “You’re exaggerating.”
“Puleaze.” She holds her palm up. “Don’t even bother defending her. Poor girl can’t help herself. Lord knows you don’t make it easy,” she mumbles.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Besides be insanely charming and handsome? No, you’re right, you didn’t.”
I direct my face-aching smile out the side window.
This woman, Shyann Jennings, smart, funny, kind . . . She thinks I’m charming and handsome and if I’m not mistaken she implied that she and I are a couple. “Thank you.”
She digs her hand into the bag set between us to fish out a cluster of French fries. “You’re welcome.” She smiles, then shoves the fries into her mouth.
I gaze out the window and watch the darkness fly by, gratefully aware that the pitch-black only lingers outside of my head.
Gage is distant for now and Shyann is safe.
All I have to do is keep it that way.
SEVENTEEN
LUCAS
The ride back to the river house is silent, which is surprising considering the woman I’m with. There’s a longing I haven’t felt before, an urge to ask her a question just to hear her voice. I don’t, though, committed to holding back and squelching urges in order to keep myself under control.
She pulls her truck up to the river’s edge, rolls down both windows, and cuts the engine. Handing me my food just like she did with the fry bread tacos, she settles in with one fluffy boot resting in her open window.
I stare down at the burger and fries in my lap, building up the courage to eat.
“What’s the story behind that?”
I turn to find her probing eyes darting between my face and my food.
I shrug. “Already told you. Got food—”
“Poisoning, I know, but it must’ve been pretty traumatic to turn you off food how many years later?”
I clear my throat. “Fifteen or so.”
She whistles. “Were you hospitalized or something?”
“No.” My mother would’ve rather us drown in our own vomit.