I never should have checked my phone.
Easton must sense the change in my mood. “Need me to handle her?”
I roll my eyes and cut him a sharp look. “Easy, Superman. Save the hero complex for another day. Pretty sure she’d roll over in her perfectly manicured grave if you called her.”
Surprising me, Easton’s head falls back, chuckling the loudest I’ve ever heard him laugh. “I’m flattered, but that’s not what I meant.” He must see my confusion because he holds his hand out flat toward me. “Hand it over.”
“Hand what over?”
“Your phone.” He nods to the hot pink phone I tucked into my purse. “Give it to me.”
“Why?” I pull it out and hold it to my chest, refusing to go along with his plan until he fesses up to his intentions. “What’re you gonna do with it?”
“Stubborn fucking woman,” he gripes, pulling me toward him and snatching the phone from my grip. When his hands find my hips, all logic from before flies out the window. I’m right back where we were just minutes ago, his voice teasing me and his touch stirring a fire inside of me.
At this point, he can have it all.
He unlocks my screen with a single swipe—my fault for not putting a damn lock code on it—and eyes the text conversation between my mom and me. An odd intensity replaces his muddled brown eyes as he reads our messages. “Is Easton Voss, whiskey drinker, superhero by day, lineman by night, snooping?”
“Sure as fuck am,” he snaps before locking my phone and tucking it into his back pocket. “What kind of mother talks to her daughter like that?” I start to speak, but his finger covers my lips before I get a chance. “Don’t answer that. It’ll just piss me off even more. Time for another game, lost girl.Wanna know what it’s called?”
Just when I think Easton couldn’t astonish me anymore than he already has, something new happens, and I’m back to square one with the guy. “The suspense is killing me. Truly.”
“It’s called Mother Trunchbull getslost.” He winks, and suddenly everything with my mother is forgotten. “See what I did there. Out of sight, out of mind. Be with me right now, Collie. Don’t let her lies get to you. You are doing so great. Right here with me. Exactly where you’re supposed to be. You hear me?”
I nod, whispering in response. “Okay. Yeah.”
But Easton’s not done yet. “I said…do you hear me?”
“Yes,” I rush out, laughs bubbling out of me in contagious waves. “Yes, I hear you.”
“I said…” Easton chants loud enough for the entire bar to pause. He never brings unwanted attention to himself, but for me, he is. To make me happy and smile. “Do. You. Hear. Me?”
“I hear you!” I yell at the top of my lungs, wrapping my arms around his neck in a tight hold and drinking in his intoxicating smell of coffee and leather. He returns the hug in seconds, his big frame relaxing against my small one.
“Just be here with me, baby.” His voice and term of endearment send goosebumps across my skin. “I can’t have you upset. I can’t promise what I’ll do.”
To Easton, his comment may have multiple meanings. One of them being the thing he claims to be his biggest downfall. But from where I’m standing as the recipient of his care, it’s the grandest gesture of compassion I’ve ever witnessed.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good.” He kisses my neck softly before hyping himself up, my mood already dialed in on the reason we’re here. “Time to get your ass beat, beautiful. Take a seat. Take a drink. Steal a photo. Whichever you’d prefer to help soften the blow.”
I tap my pool stick to the table, meeting him step for step as we circle each other. “We’ll see about that, Ranger. I’m putting everything I’ve got into this game, and I’m not giving up without a fight.”
He centers the cue ball. “Atta girl. You break.”
23
EASTON
I misjudged her.Big time.
Collie is a boss at pool. Not quite enough to beat me—at least I’m hoping not. But she’s good. Really good.
“Kinda sexy watching you bend and shoot.” Not sure where my confidence comes from, but I feel like a new man because of it. Long gone is the Easton that lived for everyone else. Let’s just hope it sticks.
“Oh yeah?” she challenges me. “I kinda like you better quiet. Maybe then I wouldn’t hear the shit talk I know is coming after I kick your ass.”
