I should have known it would be him before I even heard him speak up. “That would be me, Ayda Hanagan.” Drew’s body rose in his seat as he leaned back to look at me with a small, one-sided grin on his face. “I can’t seem to decide what I’m in the mood for. Rough night last night. What would you recommend?”
“We have some fantastic humble pie, or apple if you’d prefer, but if I were you, I’d go for something greasy, really soak up some of that alcohol.” I put the tip of the pen to paper and cocked my hip, my eyebrows raised as the table suddenly went silent.
Me and my fucking mouth.
He didn’t react at first, but it didn’t take long for that grin of his to fall and for him to narrow his eyes on me. I felt my blood chill, my own mental reprimand drowning out everything but his voice. “Tempting, but I fancy something bloody. Some fresh meat.”
I swallowed compulsively and found myself counting before responding. “We have a great T-bone steak. Steak and eggs is the chef’s specialty. He will cook the steak to order.” I didn’t add the ‘Hopefully it will sate your thirst for blood, you animal,’ I wanted to as I forced a smile at him.
I heard some of the guys mumble under their breath on either side of me, but I kept my attention solely on Drew. I had no idea what he was going to say next, but I knew all I wantedto do was disappear behind those doors and catch my breath. I didn’t know what I’d been thinking, insulting him like I had.
“The T-bone. How much does it weigh?” he asked sharply, speaking right at me as though there was no one else in the room but us.
“Six, eight, or twelve ounce. Your choice.”
His hand reached up to his face again, his fingers almost massaging the side of his beard in thought. “Not enough.” Drew’s eyes dropped from mine, rolling all the way down my body as slowly as they possibly could before he eventually started to lift them again. “I’m feeling like I could eat around a hundred and twenty pounds of meat, right now.” His gaze snapped up to mine and once again, his smirk broke free. “Maybe I should go somewhere more… accommodating.”
The rat bastard. I was only a hundred and eighteen pounds; he’d put weight on me. Not that two pounds even mattered. What bothered me the most was his need to goad me into an argument—one he would ultimately win because he had his own little audience to play for. I rocked forward with a sugary sweet smile on my lips, pulling the menu down and pointing to one of the special offers.
“We have the big man triple special. It’s only thirty-six ounces, though. I would say if that’s not enough, you might have an iron deficiency you should probably see your doctor about.”
The new chant ofshut upinside my own head was now deafening, my ears ringing with the sound of it, while my stomach took a leap and lurched to my throat. If I hadn’t been on some MC hit list before, I was sure as hell etching my name onto it now. I wasn’t just insulting him anymore. I was insulting him in front of his friends and peers, and I had thedistinct feeling he was about to hand me my own ass. Verbally, here with an audience, but it was later, when I sat in my house in the dark, that I was truly worried about. He knew where I lived. He knew my one weakness in life was Tate.
I felt the blood drain from my face as I rocked back on my heels and stumbled a few paces away from the table, my apology mumbled as I shook my head. The only words that were in my head now were a prayer: Leave Tate alone.
Chapter Ten
Drew
She was cute.
Even when the blood was draining from her face and her eyes were widening with fright. It was almost a shame to have to be this way with her. With Maisey off the market, I was definitely looking for something that was more than just a pair of tits to get me by on a Friday night—and every other fucking night for that matter. The iron deficiency comment had made my lips twitch, and a few of the grunts and suppressed snuffles from the other guys hadn’t gone unnoticed, either. But Ayda… she was too far gone to hear any of it.
Raising a brow in her direction, I tilted my head to one side and studied her some more. She was hard to read, but easy enough on the eye for me to spend some time at least trying. Her eyes were pretty amazing as far as color went, the blue of them popping out from her ivory skin like they were made purely to be fucking noticed.
And here I was noticing.
Slater’s foot slid into mine under the table before he cleared his throat to try and break the silence. I stayed completely still, even though his nudge had been enough to snap me out of my Ayda-inspired thoughts.
Scowling back at her, I dropped every ounce of humor from my face and pressed my mouth into a thin line. I could feel the air around me shift as all the boys sat back slowly, while I leaned forward, bringing both hands together on the table.
“Would you dare to repeat that last part for me, Ayda?” I said carefully, keeping my voice low so only she and my fellow brothers could hear what came out of my mouth.
She shuffled her feet, her eyes darting around the table, down to the pad in one hand, while the other, with a bandage wrapped neatly around it, lifted to push her hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry. I was being pedantic. Did you want the steak?”
My eyes flashed briefly at the wrapping on her hand. I tried to recall seeing it last night, but who was I kidding? Everything about last night was hazy. Closing my eyes, I only opened them when I knew they were blazing back at hers. “No. I want you to repeat what it was you said to me.”
“I… I said that if that’s not enough, you might have an iron deficiency you should probably see your doctor about. Or something to that effect.”
“Were you trying to be cute?”
Switching the order book from one hand to the other, she rubbed her unbound palm on her apron in discomfort. “Sure?”
My brows rose higher. “Are you still trying to be cute?”
Her hand moved over her stomach, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip, making her look younger than her twenty-five years. “Mr. Tucker, I’m just trying to do my job. I spoke out of turn and I’m really sorry for that. If you haven’t decided, I can go and get your coffee first.”
“No, you weren’t, sweetheart. You weren’t just trying to do your job. Doing your job would be too easy. You weretrying to be smart, when in fact, what you were being was incredibly stupid. You see, there’s a damn good chance I could well have iron deficiencies, given the fact that I’ve just spent the last five years eating food that wouldn’t be served to pigs and living in the filth of a very lonely prison cell. I guess that's what you get for being responsible for the death of a man. My body isn’t quite as strong as it once was because of that very fact. There are a lot of things that might need putting right and that might take a while. And I'm not just talking physically; I'm also talking mentally. I'm more fucked up than you could evenbeginto imagine. The last thing I need is some jumped-up, big mouthed, apron wearing piece of short skirt telling me what I might or might not have. Do you hear what I’m saying? That’s not a good move on your part. You've pointed out my faults. You’ve made me angry. And do you know what happens when people make me angry?” I held her attention with nothing but a steely look as I paused and took a small breath inwards. “I get real fucking hungry for a lot of things. Power. Revenge. Pussy. The need to show people just who the hell they are messing with. So in trying to do your job, you’ve managed to create a whole new one for me. What happens from here? Who knows? All you can do now is run on back to that kitchen, think about how epically you’ve just fucked up, and grab me that little coffee you mentioned. When you get back, I’ll put my order in, and you can pray to every God you know that it doesn’t include your ass on my plate.”
