“Nope,” I tell her again. “Because we’re not fucking talking about the team.”
She freezes, halfway onto her stool.
Then I watch the steel gird her bones, grim determination come into her face. But, as I knew she would, she doesn’t back down from the challenge in my words.
Instead, she finishes her assent, plunks that lush ass onto a stool, and glares at me.
But, a moment after that, the call of the wonton soup gets her and she starts eating.
Fuck, I like that about her.
She’s not shy with her food, not worried that I’m going to judge her over what she’s eating.
She just dives in.
But now I wonder how much of her always plowing forward is because she’s running from the past.
“You going to stare at me?” she mutters through a mouth full of lo mein. “Or are you going to eat?”
So you can get the fuck out of here.
Though she leaves the last sentence unspoken, I sure as fuck don’t miss the thought crossing through her mind.
And it has me fighting back a smile.
Considering that I don’t want to end up with a fork protruding from one of my eyeballs, I stop staring and turn my focus to my own plate.
Fuck but Dragon is the best.
Who would think that high in the Sierra Nevadas there would be a kickass Chinese food restaurant?
I’m just happy to reap the rewards of that tonight.
And happy it means I won’t have to hear Joey’s stomach rumble again.
“I thought you said you were going to talk,” she mutters after we’ve chowed down for several minutes.
This time I lose my fight with my smile. “No, Red. I saidwewere going to talk.”
“LikeIsaid”—it’s still a mutter, but now it’s a mutter bordering on a grumble—“I have some videos for you to review and?—”
“And likeIsaid—” I swivel in my stool, bend down until we’re face to face—“we’re not talking about the fucking team.”
Her eyes narrow and I can see that she wants to ask what in the fuck all we’re going to talk about then, but instead, she turns back to her plate.
I wait until she’s consumed enough wonton soup that I deem it safe to speak again.
“You grew up in the Bay Area?”
She freezes, a wonton speared on her fork, the bite suspended an inch from her lips. “Yes,” she says slowly before shoving the food in her mouth. “Why?” she asks as she chews and swallows.
“You grow up with your mom and dad?”
She sets the fork down, goes back to her spoon, and starts slurping broth. “Why?” she asks again.
Stubborn woman.
“Ky and I grew up in Maine with just our mom,” I say, offering up shit I don’t normally offer, but knowing it’s a necessary evil, especially if I’m asking Joey to share. “Our dad skipped out when she was in diapers and I didn’t hear fuck all from him until I got my first big paycheck in the league.”
