I fucked up.
I knew I fucked up the second it came out of my mouth. I didn’t mean for it to, it just shoved its way out of there like a fucking bat flying out of hell.
God damnit.
“I’m not depositing the check,” she finally tells me, shoving me backward with her ass again. “And your threats don’t scare me,giant.”
“They’re not threats, Sugar,” I smile at her. “They’re options.”
•
Sophia hasn’t said anything about my slip up this morning. I watched my phone all damn day for a call or textcalling off our plans for tonight or telling me that this is more than she wanted to sign up for; any sign of her running. As grateful as I am that she’s been quiet, for the first time in my entire fucking thirty-seven years of life, I’m nervous about awoman. I keep one eye on the road and the other on her while we cruise down the road, watching her like she’s a bomb about to blow and take my fucking head off.
The most beautiful bomb I’ve ever seen, but a bomb all the same.
She left her hair alone tonight; she didn’t straighten it like she normally does. Instead, she’s wearing it in the natural, deep waves that it’s meant to be in. The dress she’s wearing hits the floor and hugs her body like skin, the top of it tied into a small bow at the base of her neck. I call it white, but she insists it’s ‘cream.’
When we get to the restaurant, I help her out of the Aston Martin, hand the keys to the valet and drop a hand to the exposed skin between Sophia’s shoulder blades while I lead her into the building.
“Holy shit,” she calls out when we walk in, and her hand flies up to her mouth, like she’s embarrassed.
“I come here all the time,” I chuckle, “they’re used to a little swearing.”
“Mr. Davis,” the maitre d’ greets us as we get closer to the host station, “lovely to see you again, as always. We’ve taken the liberty of preparing your usual table.”
“Thanks, man.”
We follow him to the same table I always use; tucked near a back corner of the room, next to a stone column covered in sculpted grapes and vines. They only left two chairs at the table, like I asked them to, one on either side of it, and a bottle of wine is already waiting for us. I’m not normally a wine drinker, but I can make an exception every now and again.
Settling into our seats, a server comes by to pour us each a glass of wine and he gives us some time to go throughthe menu. There aren’t a ton of options, but every single thing is fucking awesome. I’ve been here enough times over the years to have one of everything, at least once, and I’ve always been happy with it.
Like it usually does when I come in here, the food is brought out pretty quickly after we order it; a good sized spread of shit that I mostly ordered for us, because Sophia tried to keep her own order small and that just isn’t gonna work for me. Food is meant to be enjoyed, not stressed over.
Sophia is distracted while we eat. Her eyes keep flicking between her plate, me, and something off to the side of me; and whatever it is, it’s making her nervous. I watch her for a few minutes, snacking on an appetizer without taking my eyes off of her, until her body shifts. Her head dips and she pulls her body to the side of her chair opposite to the direction she keeps looking. I don’t think she even notices when she does it, but I sure as shit do.
I turn in my chair, following her eyes to a man sitting at a table diagonal from ours, toward the opposite end of the room. He’s a stubby little man, with mostly silver hair cut close to the scalp, except for the patches at the sides of his head that are missing. The woman sitting across from him is the nicer dressed of the two, with long hair pulled up into a twist at the back of her head.
I jerk my head in the direction of the man Sophia keeps staring at. “He one of them?”
She nods, using her fork to push her food around her plate. “Yeah.” She looks the same way she did when I found her that night in Envy.
I’ve seen that look on too many people in my life, and I don’t think many – if any – of them even realize they’re wearing it, but it’s always the same look. It’s a look that says someone’s hurt them before, and whatever they did to hurt them, it’s still deep in there.
And it makes my blood boil.
“What’s his name?”
“Let’s just eat our dinner,” she tells me. “I’ll be fine.”
“What is his name, Sophia. I won’t ask again.”
She lets out a sigh, like she can already tell where my head’s at. “It’s Leonard. But don’t—”
I push myself to a standing position and toss my napkin onto the table, between my plate and glass of wine. My eyes lock onto the balding man and stay on him with a laser focus while I stalk toward him and the woman sitting with him, who I can only assume is his wife.
“Leonard!” I greet him, grabbing the back of an extra chair at the table to spin it around. I throw a leg over the side of it, leaning my chest against the back of the chair. “Can I call ya Lenny? I’m gonna call you Lenny. This your wife?” I say, gesturing toward the woman sitting across from him.
“Excuse me, do I know you?” He asks me.
