She reaches for him, but he’s already heading towards the car, gait stiff and irritated. “Gage-”
“You don’t know me, Minnie.” He isn’t looking at her. His throat works hard and Minnie can’t understand what has him in this state. It can’t possibly be just from running into her deeply unimpressed father. “You don’t know the first thing about me. Who I am, what I’vedone-”
Telling herself to be bold, Minnie hops into the car after him and twists in her seat to face him. She’s going to put an end to his self-loathing nonsense. “I don’t care what you did. I know that I like who you are now. That I only wantyou.”
His face softens slightly as he gazes at her. He slowly cups her cheek, hand warm and callused. “Princess. You can’t say shit like that to me.”
She nuzzles into his rough hand and kisses the palm. She wants the strange guilt in his eyes to go away. “Of course, I can. You can’t stop me from saying it. And if you try, I’ll write you a poem about it. It will be extra flowery.Ha!”
Those hazel eyes darken with something akin to hunger. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Yes, you do. Stop being such a turd.”
“How can you be sexy even when you’re calling me a turd?” He growls as he leans over the center console, stealing a kiss. “Doesn’t seem fair.”
Minnie is glad he’s no longer thinking about the unpleasant interaction with her father. “Hold your steamy horses. We have a cookout to join first, remember?”
Smirking, Gage leans back and starts the car and saying, “Yeah. Yeah. But we can always have a snack before that, right?” He winks.
He’s such a beast! Unthinkable. “No! It’s the middle of the day, your housemates will hear-”
“Well, yeah. They’ll hear regardless of the time it happens.”
Minnie flushes and covers her face in embarrassment. “How am I supposed to look them in the face? Oh, they think I’m a hussy.”
His chuckle coils low in her belly, pulling all her strings. “The same way you’ve looked them in the face before, I suppose. They aren’t your sister, princess; they don’t care.”
Hah! As if that alleviates her embarrassment any.
This will be the first time Minnie has really ‘hung out’ with the group as a whole, and her nerves are already high.
She remembers the one unsavory character, the one with the creepy tattoo on his pale arm. The ginger with the mean blue eyes. She tries not to shudder; he was awful that night she first went to Gage’s house.
Minnie could do without meeting him again.
Maybe he’ll be nicer this time,she thinks, trying to stay positive.Nothing this day throws at us can be any worse than Daddy. I hope.
Chapter 5
Harrow’s Row is the buttcrack of town. That’s what folks always say.
The neighborhood looks shot to hell in broad daylight, and at night, it is a place few want to walk alone. From the cracked streets littered with unpatched holes, to fire pits on random corners with garbage burning, to the unkept lawns that would have resulted in furious neighbors where Minnie grew up.
Her gated community in Uptown Gold certainly wasn’tthis.
When they arrive at the single-family house where Gage and his housemates reside, they walk into the backyard through the side gate, Minnie carrying the meats while Gage carries the beers. The backyard is a nice size, with a small patio and a worn-down fire pit. A fire already crackles, music bumping from a wireless speaker, 2Pac doing his thing.
A blonde man that Minnie hasn’t met yet is on a lounge chair, singing along, with a pile of empty beers next to him. He brightens a bit when he sees Gage. “’bout time, I’m almost dry.”
With an eyeroll, Gage sets down the various twelve packs he’s carrying. “You drink more than a whale, Chase.”
“That’s what happens when you’re used to Big House Hooch. Nothing else quite does the trick,” Chase replies as he saunters over, cracking open a new beer. His eyes dance over Minnie curiously, but not rudely. “Hey.”
Minnie gives him a shy smile, noting his tattoos and the various eyebrow piercings. “Hey. I’m Minnie. Nice to meet you, Chase. I’d shake, but, I’m holding-”
“You’re holding all of Marlin’s Meat, that’s what you’re doing,” Chase replies without a single slur, despite the pile of libations he’s demolished. Minnie would be in her grave if shedrank like that! He points with his beer over towards the grill and the gigantic man lording over it. “You best bring that over to him; he’s just finished cleaning it off.”
“Right,” Minnie replies faintly, chewing on her bottom lip. She’s holding Marlin’s Meat. Got it. Better get it over to the mountain of a man a few feet away, who appears to be scrubbing the grill to perfection. She glances at Gage and sees him cracking open a beer, so Minnie starts on her way alone over to the apparent Grill Master.
