“Well, we moved all over when I was a kid. My dad was in the military. But once he retired they settled in Georgia.”
“That’s nice.”
“How about you?”
“Oh my parents are in Cheyenne,” she replied. “And my brothers move too often to keep track of.” She laughed and we waited as the waiter dropped off house salads in front of us.
I scowled at the green concoction in front of me.
“You don’t like salads?” she asked with a laugh
“Hardly worth it to chew it,” I muttered. “I like my food more calorie dense.”
“You can’t tell,” she said.
I looked up and caught her eyes on my chest. When she felt my stare, she glanced up and a blush worked its way over her cheeks. I grinned. She liked my muscles. Strength and impressing women was the entire motivation for me busting my ass in the gym, so I was glad she approved.
“I mean…” She trailed off, not knowing what to say since that thought had apparently escaped without her permission.
“Thanks,” I said, then moved on before she steeped in her embarrassment too long. “What do you like to do for fun?”
“Um…I read.”
I nodded, shoving a forkful of lettuce in my mouth. Chewing, I waited again for her to elaborate, but she just looked down at her plate and started eating. It was like pulling nails.
Frowning, I tried to figure out why she was being so mysterious. It was like she didn’t want to talk about herself. But wasn’t that the point of these dates? Testing my theory, I said, “Warrant mentioned you were a medical examiner in Boston. Did you like the work there?”
“It was okay. I like it here better. When did you move here?”
She was being evasive. She was good, too. In the military you had to be trained to be this evasive, to naturally change subjects without it being too obvious.
“Couple years before you.” More like ten. “You ever kill anyone?”
Her head snapped up. “No. Of course not.”
She didn’t ask if I had, which let me know she was likely aware of our reputation as a MC.
“How about your favorite color?” I asked. If she wanted surface level chit chat, I could do that. For now.
The waiter dropped off our food. “Green,” she answered when he’d left again. “How about yours?”
I shrugged. “One’s as good as another.” I kept the conversation light. Easy, first date kind of questions, even though I would rather be finding out more about her. Not just her favorite of everything and her sign. Stupid astrology bullshit. But I didn’t want to scare her off either. I was unwrapping a bomb here, only instead of exploding, she might up and run away. And it would be my own fucking fault if she did for waiting so long to make up my mind and change directions with my life.
We spent the evening discussing trivial things. I could easily have Glitch run a background check on her. Find out some of what I wanted to know. Hell that guy could figure out pretty much everything about her, right down to the brand of deodorant she wore. But I didn’t want to give any of my brothers a free pass to interfere.
Glitch may spend most of his time with his nose pressed to his computer screen, but he was still a Berserker. And he was just as much trouble as the rest of those assholes. Not me, of course. I was practically a fucking saint.
I was relieved when we finished dinner. Not because I was tired of spending time with her, but because I was irritated Icouldn’t ask the things I wanted to. That I needed to be patient. She’d be worth it though.
Plus, I was about to get the answer to one of my questions at least. I drove her home and I enjoyed the ride in the cool night air. It gave me a minute to relax and not have to come up with anything else to talk about. There were only so many irrelevant questions I could ask her.
“Thank you so much. I had a wonderful time,” she told me as she got off my bike.
“Good. So did I. I’ll walk you up.”
“Oh you don’t need-”
I was already striding up the walkway with her. She walked beside me, watching me with those gorgeous eyes. I couldn’t read the emotions I saw in them, but she seemed to be trying to figure me out. That made two of us.
