Faith takes a long, purposeful drink. “He’s yours.” It doesn’t answer my question, and yet, it answers it plenty.
What if he wasn’t mine?
“So you are babysitting me,” I bite out, resenting the fact that she’s here because McCrae called her, not because she wanted to be. Because she pities me too.
“We’ve established you don’t need babysitting. I’m here to have a drink with my friend.”
Her friend.Two words, and I feel the oxygen evaporate. I haven’t been anyone’s friend in twenty years—other than McCrae, but I don’t know if I can even call him that.
My mouth flops like a fish on land. I don’t know how to feel, much less what to say.
Saving me from having to figure it out, Faith leans over the bar top, talking loudly above the twanging music. “Hey Sharron, where’s Jared tonight?”
Sharron shoots Faith a conspiratory wink, her painted lips smacking around gum. “Didn’t you hear? He ran off with some older woman—all the way to Colorado!”
“What? Really?” Faith gasps.
Sharron nods vigorously, her eyes lighting with the realization she’s about to be the one to divulge this particular piece of gossip.
I roll my eyes.Small fucking towns.
“Yes, girl! He followed her there, and then she had the audacity to dump a kid on him and leave.”
“You’re kidding?” I’d agree with Faith; sounds made up to me. But I refuse to act remotely interested in small town gossip—I don’t know who Jared is, and I don’t care.
“Poor guy. He’s only a kid himself,” Shannon says solemnly, wiping the inside of a glass with a rag so dirty, it looks to have been used on a toilet seat only moments before. I fight off a gag.
“Is it his baby?” Faith continues.Why does she care?
“Oh no, it’s a teenage girl. Very strange.”
My eyebrows shoot together at that—a teenage girl left with some man who’s not even her blood relation? “Surely that’s not fucking true,” I interject, memories floating unbidden to the surface of my mind. I feel the familiar icy pricks cover my skin, my lungs aching with the feeling of being full of liquid.
“He’s a good guy,” Faith reassures, patting my arm. She doesn’t look at me, but I have the feeling she can sense my growing panic. “He’d never hurt a soul—as good as they come, really.”
I open my mouth to tell her even the best ones can have secret dark sides when a familiar voice fills my ear to the left. “Sounds like a good thing he’s gone. Less competition for me.”
My skin instantly heats, but I refuse to turn. No one should have this kind of effect on me—filling my stomach with butterflies and making my heart race like I’m some love sick teenage all over again. I don’t believe in such things anymore. They’re weak,and Reyeses have no weakness.
“Santos, what a surprise.” Faith winks at him, but when her eyes find mine, I can’t help but think she doesn’t find it surprising at all. Her eyes are full of knowing, and I hate how deeply she seems to understand me.
“Couldn’t let you girls have all the fun. Can I get three shots of tequila, my lovely bartender?”
Shannon’s smile turns feline as Santos compliments her, and a sudden rush of jealousy wells inside me. I squash it instantly, turning to face the mischief maker with a glare.
“Are you following me too?” I sneer.
His lips twitch, his mustache going lopsided as he allows a sinful grin to twist his face. He leans in closer, his breath fanning across my heated skin. “And what if I am?”
I shake my head, forcing myself to ignore his taunt. It’s all a way to get under my skin—it has to be.
It’s one thing to flirt with him around McCrae—there, it has a purpose, a safety net. But here, it feels far too real, and the truth is, I want it to be real.
I want him to desire me. I want to allow myself to desire him.
But I still know nothing about him, not really, and for the first time, that scares me. What secrets could he be hiding under that perfect exterior?
And how could he use them to hurt me?
