“Okay. I got your back.” He picks up his bourbon and raises it to me in salute before he downs the rest of it.
“Fuck.” He pulls out his reading glasses from his pocket. His bad eyesight is his only weakness.
“Now,” he says without looking up, “what’s a mean motherfucker like you going to do with a girl like that?” He puts the menu down and looks at me with a grin on his face. “She’s one of those so-called good girls.”
He looks at her again, and I do the same. Eden whispers in her friend’s ear, and they put their heads together and point at something on her phone.
“What do you want with her?” the pushy motherfucker asks.
“What do you think I want with her?” I snap. The answer to Dax’s question is easy. After fighting a war with myself for the past few days, I made my decision tonight. I want everything with Eden Rose, but I’m not about to tell him that.
“You want to fuck the sheriff’s daughter to piss him off?” he asks.
I glare at him.
“I’m disappointed. I thought you’d know me better than that. I’ve had the sheriff’s balls for years now. I don’t need to use his daughter to get to him. You know I don’t use women.”
“I know. I also know you’re not a pussy chaser. Does this mean you have real feelings for Rose’s daughter?”
“I’ve answered enough questions about my personal life,” is all I say.
“Oh, so it’s personal with you and Eden?” Dax snorts. “Got it. Does her daddy know that? Forget her daddy. Doessheknow that?”
I don’t answer, and thankfully, he says no more. We order dinner, and I watch them as they get more drinks. They talk and laugh as if they have no worries, and I wonder how they can be so irresponsible.
That same gray Ford Explorer is parked outside, so how will they drive home when they are all drunk? They didn’t learn their lesson the last time they had too much.
She ignores my table, and that irritates me. Who the hell is she to ignore me? They talk, laugh, and drink some more. The scared one looks flushed, but I don’t care about her.
The one I care about sits at the end of the booth and laughs at something someone says. She laughs like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
Dax doesn’t speak another word, but every few moments, he’ll look from me to the other table and shake his head in either shock or amusement.
“Thank you, Dori.” Dax smiles at the waitress as she brings our food; she smiles so wide that all her teeth show. “This food smells almost as good as you.”
Dori bats her eyelashes. “Aren’t you sweet?” she says.
“I bet not as sweet as you.”
She laughs and rubs his shoulder before walking away.
“If you’re not serious, leave her alone.” Dax’s words come suddenly and sound like a warning. He’s never used that tone with me, but I’ve heard him use it before.
“You’re overstepping,” I warn. “She’s my business. This is personal and has shit to do with what we have going on.”
“She seems like the type of girl who will want a boyfriend. She’ll want to emulate the love story that she thinks her parents have,” he warns.
I snort at that. Love story, my ass. If only Rose knew the truth about his loving wife.
“A mean fuck like you won’t know what to do with that.”
“I’m the mean fuck?” I ask, gesturing at him.
“People don’t shit their pants when I walk into a room.” He picks up his water glass, and for once, I hope he chokes on it.
I don’t reply, and he drops it, but I don’t like his warning. My personal life has always been off-limits, even to him, so I don’t understand why he feels compelled to speak on this. But I don’t dwell on it. My mind’s made up, and no one can talk me out of this, not even Eden Rose herself.
She has her hands covering her mouth while her body shakes uncontrollably. Her friends are also laughing. One of them is leaning back in the booth while she holds her stomach.
