I chewed on my straw in an attempt to hide my laughter. For as long as I’d known them, Lila and Pretty Boy were at each other’s throats. The sexual tension between them was so glaringly obvious to everyone else except them.
“What do you want, Pretty Boy?” Lila said in a flat voice. “Unless you’re buying some lingerie, you’re doing nothing but getting in the way.”
Pretty Boy hummed with a smirk and traced the shell of her ear with one fingertip. She swatted his hand with a scathing look.
“If I did do a little shopping, I might need you to model for me,” he said. “So I can make up my mind about what I like. I’m a visual learner.”
I clucked my tongue and shook my head.
"Watch your step, Pretty Boy. You're flirting with fire. Keep it up and you're going to be nothing but a scorching black mark on the earth."
He wasn’t swayed by my warning. Lila swung her head around to look at him.
“Do you like your balls?”
He sputtered at first, then his eyes lit up, blindsided by the bluntness of her question.
“Are you hitting on me, sweetheart? Because if you are—”
“If you don’t leave the premises by the count of three,” Lila continued. “I will remove them and hang them on my wall as a trophy. So everyone in your club will know that you pissed me off and paid the price.”
Pretty Boy laughed and shook his head, backing away with his hands up in surrender.
“My apologies, princess. I just popped in to let Shea know that Brass’s shift ended and I’m on watch now. I didn’t want her to be taken by surprise when a strange man was following her all over town.”
“Thank you, Pretty Boy,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
He nodded with one final sweeping glance over Lila from head to toe. Then he turned and walked out.
“You’re so harsh with him,” I said to Lila. “Don’t you ever let up?”
“Absolutely not,” Lila replied primly. “Besides, his pupils were fucking huge. He loves it when I’m mean to him. He totally popped a boner, I’m sure of it.”
I huffed with amusement and shook my head.
“Now you’re just toying with him.”
She shrugged, unabashed.
“I’m not toying with him. I’m just not pulling any punches. He’s a world-class fuckboy who chases every skirt that crosses his path, and I’m a club princess. Of course he wants to get in my pants. And I won’t let him win, purely out of spite.”
I said nothing while she ranted, angrily jabbing at her milkshake with her straw.
“You aren’t jealous, are you?” I finally asked.
Lila scoffed. “Jealous? Of what?”
I shrugged.
“Hillbilly raised him like the son he never had, didn’t he? Teaching him how to be a biker. Bringing him into the club. Training him to be his replacement one day.”
Her gaze shuttered and she went silent. That struck a nerve. Lila was the one who noticed the pattern well before I did though. It wasn’t news to her.
But it still had to sting.
“I love my dad,” Lila said, considerably softer than before.
“I know,” I replied.
