After a few seconds of hesitation, Lisa shrugs and gives a small smile. “Sure. Why not?”
Huh. I’ll admit the words surprise me, as does the pang of elation rippling through my gut.
“Besides,” Lisa continues, unaware of the emotional yo- yo that’s bonking around in my brain. “The opera tickets are good through the end of winter. I can hit next month’s show as soon as The Test is over in a few weeks.”
And just like that, I’m annoyed again. It’s stupid, really. This is what we agreed, isn’t it? A temporary fling, a temporary experiment. Nothing more than that.
So why do the words feel thick as I force them out of my throat? “Absolutely,” I tell her. “You can do it next month when your life is back to normal.”
“Thanks, Dax,” Lisa says as Junie steps out of the workshop and heads toward us with her face lit by a smile. “You know how to show a girl a good time.”
The words echo in my head, hollow and taunting.
A good time. A dumb lug who’s good for a fuck. That’s all you’ll ever be.
I grit my teeth and remind myself that’s what I agreed to. Nothing more, nothing less.
“Nice shirt.”
It’s the first time in my life I’ve uttered this phase while admiring an actual shirt and not its contents.
Okay, I’m also admiring the contents.
Lisa plucks the fabric away from her chest and studies her handiwork with a critical eye. “You can’t tell where I singed the edge with the iron?”
I shake my head and skim a finger over the iron-on Mötley Crüe patch she’s affixed to a navy silk polo shirt. “You covered it up with the fancy stitching around the edges,” I tell her. “Bonus points for the umlauts over the O and the U.”
“Thank you.” She smooths her hands down her skirt, which I’ve already been informed is Rebecca Taylor luxe faux leather in cognac with an angled, knee-length ruffe designed to ripple when you walk.
It’s part of their new spring line.
Lisa catches me staring and gives me a fretful look. “Is this not what you had in mind?”
It isn’t. Not even close. I pictured a ripped black muscle tee and a miniskirt so short it could double as a placemat. Lisa looks like something out of a Better Homes and Gardens spread.
But it’s fucking perfect.
“You look great,” I tell her. “The hottest chick I’ve ever seen wearing a silk Mötley Crüe polo shirt with a long leather skirt and shoes that cost more than my car.”
Lisa glances down at her dazzly Gucci gladiator stilettos and shrugs. “It’s not every night a girl gets taken to a biker bar.”
“True enough.”
We both turn to survey the biker bar, which seems oddly smoky. Oregon banned smoking in bars ages ago, but the perma-haze filling the space looks like a mob of Hell’s Angels lit the building on fire.
As we step through the doorway, Lisa clutches my arm. Part of me expects her recoil with distaste at the peanut shells on the floor, the sweaty smell emanating from the leather-clad bikers at the end of the bar, and the two drunk guys shoving each other by the pool table. It’s probably all unpleasant to a woman wearing three-hundred-dollar lingerie under her leather skirt.
Yes, I do know about La Perla. And I can tell she didn’t follow my “no bra” edict, which makes me more eager to get her out of it at some point.
I jump when Lisa yanks my arm and points. “Look. They have karaoke!”
I follow the direction she’s gesturing and frown. This isn’t the biker bar I know and love. “That’s new,” I mutter. “They don’t usually do karaoke here.”
One of the leather-clad dudes gives me an irritated glance, and I lift a hand to let him know it’s all cool. That I’m not some hipster tourist scoping out dive bars from a guidebook. He surveys my tattoos, my ratty jeans and motorcycle jacket, and goes back to nursing his beer.
My date might be a stunning peacock in a cluster of crows, but I look like a guy who belongs here.
I step closer to Lisa and lower my voice. “You do karaoke?”
