No, I don’t. That’s ridiculous. He’s an oaf. Can barely carry on a conversation. He’s completely rigid and closed-off.
Except when he’s running his hands over your bare ankle and making you an ice pack at one in the morning.
I slammed the dumpster shut and walked back inside. Enough ruminating about my bodyguard. I had a job to do. Despite what had happened the other night, I was pretty sure Rafe looked at me as an assignment and nothing more. Case in point: he hadn’t said a single word to me all night. He’d barely looked my way.
Typical for a Friday night, the bar got busy so fast that I didn’t have time to talk to Angela again. I barely had time to make her and Dani one more round before they were settling their tab and saying goodbye.
“Thanks, Tori!” Angela called over the noise of the crowd. “See you at yoga next week?”
Oh, Christ.“For sure!” Well, I’d made some headway into the friendship zone. Now I’d just have to buy a month-long package at Breathe Free to seal the deal.
“‘Tori’?” Charlie asked me later, when the bar was quiet and we had time to talk.
“It’s my mistress dispeller name.”
He laughed. “Okay.”
For the first time all night, Rafe walked over to the bar. Before Charlie or I could say a word, he reached over and poured himself a beer. Then he dropped a five on the bar and tucked another single into my tip jar.
“Hey, man, you don’t need to pay.” Charlie returned his money.
Rafe shrugged. “Suit yourself. Thanks.” He drank the beer in one long swallow. “You make any progress tonight?” he asked when he was finished.
“Some.”
He nodded and looked around. “Nice place. A little lacking on the security, but still nice.”
“I’ve been thinking about hiring some extra muscle for the weekends,” Charlie said. “Got any friends built like you?”
“I might. I’ll ask around.”
“Great. You can go, Vic. I can finish up,” Charlie said.
“I don’t mind staying.”
“You’ve been favoring that ankle for the last hour.”
“No, I haven’t,” I lied. A few times I’d thought about sitting down and icing it, but there hadn’t been a second of downtime. Now my whole leg pulsed with pain.
“Go home.” He emptied my tip jar into my hand. “I’ll see you next Friday.”
“Okay, thanks.” I untied my apron and pulled on my hoodie. I’d walked to work earlier, the weather being so nice, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t glad Rafe was there to drive me home.
“Here,” he said when we got outside and offered me his arm.
I wrapped my hand around his biceps, unsteady, a little uncertain, until the warmth of his skin seeped through me. Into me. I swallowed away desire. “Why did you become a bodyguard?” I asked, both to shift my thoughts to safer ground and because I wanted to know.
He grunted. “Just kind of ended up in the field.”
“I don’t believe that.”
He stopped. “You think I’m lying to you?”
I scrunched up my shoulders. “Notlying, exactly. I just think there’s more to the story.”
“It’s not a story. After high school I went military then law enforcement then ended up as a bodyguard. It’s pretty common, but yeah, that was the general trajectory of my career. Wanna see my resume? Maybe call up a few of my references?”
I huffed out a loud sigh. “Now you’re just being a wiseass.”
