“What the hell are you doing here?” Tag asked shortly. A more important question occurred to him as paranoia scratched at his brain. “And how did you know where to find me?”
His mind raced as he tried to remember if Bass had any access to his phone that first night. Not that he’d need it. Tag had downloaded, opened, and played everything Bass had sent him before what happened at the bar. If Bass had put some sort of exploit into one of them, it could have copied any data he wanted from Tag’s phone.
“Calm down,” Bass said. He glanced over his shoulder toward the deputy, who had briefly stopped work on his pumpkin to look over at them. “I saw you at the beer tent. It just took me a while to catch up.”
Tag snorted. He didn’t believe a word of it. Of course, from Bass’s careless shrug, he didn’t expect him to. The explanation just left Tag with no reason to call the deputy over.
“Sorry,” Joe said as he put a hand on Taggart’s shoulder. The touch made Tag start in surprise. He’d actually managed to forget Joe was there, or least push him to the back of his mind. “Is this your ex?”
“No,” Tag and Bass said at the same time. Irritation made Tag clench his jaw. He was the one who’d been fucked over, the one who hadn’t read… most… of the texts, so he should get to be the one to go “Hell no” to the idea they’d been in a relationship.
He glared at Bass.
“It’s not important,” Tag said to Joe. “I just didn’t expect to see him. Here.”
“He slapped you on the ass,” Joe pointed out, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
The reminder made Tag shift, the memory of heat a tingle under the skin of his backside. He cleared his throat.
“He’s not my ex, but he is—”
“His mechanic,” Bass said smoothly. He thrust out a bruised, scraped-up hand to Joe and grinned as they shook. “Doc’s just trying to avoid admitting that cherry-red pile of rust he calls a car belongs on the scrap heap.”
Tag clenched his teeth. He wasn’t the sort of guy who bristled over insults to his car as though it were an extension of his penis. The Mustang had spent the last five years under a tarp in the back of the garage because itwasa piece of crap. He’d threatened to get rid of it every public holiday.
That didn’t mean that Bass got to bad-mouth his car.
“Maybe I just need a better mechanic,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Nobody else has complained.”
There was something suggestive in the rough, dark note to Bass’s statement. Heat flushed up from Tag’s stomach, and this wasn’t a fight he needed to have with his imaginary mechanic.
“Anyhow, this can wait,” he said abruptly. “Joe, why don’t we get out of here. Leave Bass to enjoy the fair on his own.”
Joe still looked skeptical, but Tag dragged him away. He glanced over his shoulder once as they wove through the crowd, and he told himself he wasn’t at all disappointed that Bass hadn’t followed him. He tossed his empty plastic cup in a sack of trash as they passed it on the path.
“So,” Joe said very casually. “Your mechanic slaps your ass?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, he’s a bit of a dick,” Tag said tensely.
Except that wasn’t entirely fair, not to Joe, anyhow. He was a lawyer, so he didn’t need Bass and his… associates… even peripherally involved in his life. Especially when Joe wasn’t someone Tag could see himself with—not right now, when all Tag wanted was cheap, nasty sex to soothe his ego, and probably not ever.
There was nothing wrong with Joe, but someone who’d decided not to be a doctor because they wanted a work/life balance? That was someone who didn’t need to date a trauma surgeon.
“It was complicated,” he admitted as they reached the edge of the park. Tag scratched his eyebrow and tried to think of the right way to put it. He sighed. “Actually, no, it was simple. Right now I think I’m the one who’s complicated. And you’re not.”
“You mean I’m boring?” Joe said bluntly.
“I mean you’re nice.”
“Same thing.”
“Not to me,” Tag said. “I’m just not ready for a relationship that might work out. That’s way too much pressure. I’d just screw it up so that at least I’d be the one in control when it fell apart.”
This time.
Joe started to shrug but then stopped himself and ran his hand through his hair. “Look, this isn’t…. This was a first date. No pressure. No commitment. So walk away if you want. I won’t spend the night in tears. But sabotaging something before it can fail is kind of exactly what you’re doing now.”
