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My blood fucking boils. Every muscle goes tight. I want to put my fist through his smug goddamn face. Want to knock his teeth down his throat just for speaking her name.
He laughs under his breath. “Too loud, though. Couldn’t bring her to shit like this without her turning heads. If she’d learned how to quiet down, maybe I would’ve kept her.”
Fucking kept her? Like she’s a piece of property?
Fuck that.
I’m moving before I think it through. I grab him by the collar, twisting a fistful of cotton in my hand as I drag him closer.
“What the fuck?”
“Say her name again,” I growl. “Go ahead.”
His buddy inches in between us, forcing me to let go. “Whoa, man. Easy.”
This asshole reduced Whitley—brilliant, vibrant, fucking radiant Whitley—to a conquest he couldn’t be bothered to keep.
Navy Suit straightens, working his jaw. “You her new guard dog?”
“I have a better question,” I say, voice deadly calm now. “You want to leave with all your teeth, or should we keep talking?”
He sneers. “Aren’t you that mechanic with a permanent stick up his ass? You came with her?”
The words land exactly as he intended, but before I can respond, he keeps going. “I’m surprised. You really think a guy who spends his days covered in grease is what she wants?”
The worst part isn’t the insult. It’s the buried, poisonous part of me that wonders if he’s right.
Whitley’s brilliant. She lights up every room she enters. She deserves someone who can match that. Someone polished and articulate who doesn’t freeze up at social events. Someone who doesn’t come with baggage.
Someone better than me.
“What, no comeback?” Navy Suit laughs. “Face it, man. You’re a placeholder. She’s slumming it until someone better comes along.”
Suddenly, there’s a flash of emerald-green in my peripheral vision.
“Placeholder?” Whitley’s voice cuts through the tension like a blade.
Fuck.
She’s standing five feet away, clutch dangling from one hand, her face a careful mask of composure that I can see right through.
Navy Suit has the decency to look uncomfortable for half a second before that smug expression returns. “Whitley. We were just—”
“Talking about me?” She steps closer, heels clicking against the polished floor. “Go on, Lance. Don’t stop on my account.”
Lance is this motherfucker’s name. Fitting.
“It wasn’t like that,” he starts, but she holds up a hand.
“No, please. Continue. Have you gotten to the part where you were going to tell Beau here how you’re loud in bed? Specifically, how loud you were about finishing in under three minutes and then asking me to rate your performance like I was filling out a Yelp review?”
Lance’s face goes scarlet. His buddy coughs into his fist, clearly trying not to laugh.
“And for the record,” she continues, voice dripping with false sweetness, “I gave you two stars. One for showing up, and one because your dog was cute.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. This woman is fucking magnificent.
“Oh, and that thing you said about me being too loud?” She tilts her head, copper hair catching the light. “That wasn’t me being loud, sweetheart. That was me faking it so you’d finish faster. I had a Netflix queue, Lance. Priorities.”
