Her nose scrunched for a moment as she hesitated. “You sure?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, as long as you don’t leave me here all night.”
With that, she grinned. “Okay, it’s my uncle. It’d be rude of me to not go say hi. Want to come?”
If there was one thing I understood and was all too well acquainted with, it was the politics that went behind big, close families. In mine, you had to tell everyone hi. There was no such thing as a group wave unless you wanted your mom hissing in your ear about how much of an embarrassment you were.
“Nah,” I answered and tipped my head toward the back. “Go say hi. I’ll be here.”
My boss smiled and stood up, patting her cousin on the cheek. “Show me where he is,” she stated… which was kind of weird. The bar was a good size but not that big. It wouldn’t have taken her longer than a couple of minutes to find her uncle, but whatever. The blond man nodded and led her through the small group directly behind us. She carried her stout with her.
I sat there and took a couple of sips, looking up and down the counter at the people sitting there. Really, they almost looked like normal, everyday people, except for all the leather and Harley T-shirts. I had just pulled my phone out of my pocket to check my e-mail—not that there was anything important in there—when I caught sight of a familiar-looking buzz cut and brown hair at the far edge of the bar. It wasn’t until the man turned to face forward that I realized it was my neighbor.
Dallas with the asshole brother. Dallas who may or may not be in a marriage with a woman in a red car. Dallas with a giant tattoo across his body. Dallas who was chuckling as he said something to the person who had been sitting beside him.
What were the fucking chances he would be here?
I hadn’t seen a motorcycle at his place in the days since I’d first started paying attention to his house after his brother got beat up. I’d only seen his pickup truck. Was he a biker too?
Taking him in, sitting there with his elbows on the counter, a smile lingering on his sharp face, his attention focused on the television mounted on the wall… I couldn’t really picture him in this kind of place. With the way his hair was cut short and from his posture, all straight back and strong shoulders, I would have thought military, not motorcycle club.
Really?
For one shameful moment, I wondered what the hell I had gotten myself into by moving to my neighborhood and living across from someone like him. Him with his marital problems that took place outside and his brother who got the shit beat out of him for who knows what. Him who hung out at a biker bar of all places.
Just as quickly as that thought filled my head, I accepted how dumb and hypocritical I was being. What mattered was what was on the inside, right?
One of the people in my line of view moved and I noticed he wasn’t wearing a vest like so many of the men were. Maybe he wasn’t in the motorcycle club, or was he?
It doesn’t matter. At least, it shouldn’t.
He had brought back my plastic container and thanked me for helping his brother. There was no reason to think he was a bad guy now, was there? He had dirt smudged on his neck like Louie sometimes did, and something about that reassured me.
No one was sitting next to my neighbor at that point, and as I looked around, I debated for a minute whether to pretend not to see him or just go ahead and wave to get it over with the lazy way. Then those deeply engraved manners my mom had practically beat into me overrode anything and everything else, like usual. Plus, I hated when people pretended not to see me, even if I really didn’t want to say hi, and he’d been polite when he didn’t need to be. I wasn’t going to count the first day we’d met; no one was ever in a good mood when they’d gotten rudely woken up, especially with some bullshit like his brother had pulled.
After another minute of telling myself that it would be fine to not say anything, I accepted that I couldn’t do that. With a grumble, I finally pushed my chair back and got up, grabbing my stout along the way.
One day I would grow into my own person who didn’t care about doing the right thing.
One day when hell froze over.
The closer I got to him sitting at the other end of the bar staring at the television mounted high on the wall, the more relaxed I became. He was watching a baseball game. It was Josh’s favorite major league team—the Texas Rebels. I only hesitated a little bit as I came up behind him and then tapped him on the shoulder with my free hand.
He didn’t turn around, so I did it again. That second time, he finally turned his head to look over his shoulder, a slight frown creasing the space between his full eyebrows. Pale eyelids lowered over those hazel irises, blinking once, then twice and a third time.
Great. He didn’t recognize me.
“Hi.” I flashed him a smile that was about 98 percent “why did I do this?” “I’m Diana, your neighbor,” I explained, because though we’d met twice, apparently he still didn’t remember me. If that didn’t make a girl feel good, I didn’t know what would.
Dallas blinked once more and slowly gave me a hesitant, wary look as he nodded. “Diana, yeah.”
I blinked at the most unenthusiastic greeting I’d ever been welcomed with.
And then to make it worse, his frown made a reappearance at the same time his gaze flicked around the bar. “This is a surprise,” he said slowly, his forehead still lined with confusion or discomfort, or both. I didn’t know why. My boobs weren’t hanging out and in his face, and I was standing a reasonable distance away from him.
“I’m here with my friend,” I explained slowly, watching as he turned his head enough to glance around me… to look for my friend? Or see where his friend was to get me out of his face? Who knew? Whatever the reason, it made me narrow my eyes at him. I didn’t want to be here either, thank you very much. “Well, I wanted to say hi since I saw you here….” I trailed off as his gaze switched back to my direction, that almost familiar crease making its presence known one more time between his thick eyebrows. Had I done something wrong by coming up to him? I didn’t think so. But there was something in his gaze that made me feel so unwelcome, I couldn’t help but feel awkward. Really awkward.
I could tell where I was wanted and where I wasn’t.
“All right, I just wanted to say a friendly ‘hello.’ I’ll see you later, neighbor.” I finished in one breath, regretting making the decision to come over more than I had regretted anything in recent history.
That furrow between my neighbor’s eyebrows deepened as his gaze swept over me briefly before moving back to the television as he shifted forward in his seat, dismissing me. The action was so fucking rude, my stomach churned from how insulted I was. “’Kay. See you around,” he said.