friend.
“Ralphie, what’s going on here?”
Dave thrusts his arm toward the barred door. “Gina took my wallet after I broke up with her!”
Wyatt’s big, bald partner speaks a low rumble, the kind you feel in your chest like sub-woofers. “Did you hit Gina?”
“No!”
“Did she hit you?”
Dave balks, “No! She just took my fuckin’ wallet and won’t give it back.”
Gina’s voice comes through the wood, “He took more than that!”
Wyatt holds up his hand. “Washington, let me handle this. Hey, Gina, am I to understand you got your heart broken?”
There’s silence.
Total.
Complete.
Everyone waiting.
He continues, “…so you decided to steal his wallet to make him stay here and pay more attention than he was paying? So he would literally pay?”
I swallow and frown.
Wyatt’s wiser than he looks. That was a quick jump yet he nailed it.
The door opens and a feminine hand juts out, ransom no longer wanted. “Here.”
Dave falters and takes it, “Thanks,” before he trudges off toward the back door.
Gina appears — this dark-haired slip of a girl — and shouts with both fists pointed at the scuffed floor, “You didn’t say you’re sorry!”
He spins around. “For what?”
Shaking she’s so mad, Gina snaps a disappointed, “Forget it!”
Dave stares at her, and walks out of her life. Maybe forever. I wouldn’t know. But it’s not a fun ending for the crowd to enjoy, and the despondent feeling is palpable.
Ralphie exhales another night of unpredictable bartending and tells the cops, “Lemme buy you guys a beer.”
Wyatt and Washington head over, the latter rumbling, “I wish we could take you up on that,” as the former locks eyes with me while Ralphie nods and strolls off to help customers who finished their drinks during the drama.
Wyatt Cocker has an easy humor in his eyes that makes me like him instantly. “You have that red Bronco, don’t you?”
I turn on the seat to face him. “That was me, yeah.”
“You were with my cousin.”
“I took her home after—”
“—I know. My brother and sister told me about it when I walked in. Saw the douche, too.” Wyatt shakes his head, muttering, “Can’t believe that’s the guy she’d been hiding all these years.”
“Hiding?”
Meeting my gaze, he notes that behind my feigned casualness I’m genuinely curious, and his brown eyes narrow on me.
I bet that, as a cop, Wyatt’s probably learned how to read people since most lie to him.
“What’s your name?”
“Gage Holbrook.”
He’s sizing me up, Washington waiting next to him until Wyatt says, “Hang on a sec.”
We both watch as he walks off, tapping away at his phone.
What’s he doing?
I glance to Washington, but he’s in the dark, too, with an amused smirk like his partner is unpredictable and that’s part of the fun.
Wyatt scans the crowd like he’s searching for something — or just biding his time. Suddenly his phone lights up and he inspects the message. Tucking it back into his pocket, he strolls up. “Nice to meet you, Gage.”
They leave with me wondering what the fuck was that about?
Chapter Twelve
GAGE
“Another beer?” Ralphie picks up my empty one. “You nursed this bad boy pretty good.”
Over the loud conversations I tell him, “One’s enough. I gotta go home.”
“Already?” comes a female voice on my right. Ralphie’s eyes light up as Lexi mounts the empty barstool beside me with an all-too-casual smile. “I just got here. Keep me company? Ralphie, can I get a Transmigration draft?”
“You got it, Lex,” he grins, tapping the bar and glancing to me, wondering what’s up with us.
Ralphie also delivers a new bottle of mine without asking again.
Since Lexi and I haven’t said another word to each other yet, he unloads his curiosity with nothing else to stop him, “You come here alone?” There are ulterior questions in his eyes: Why would she do that? Where are her accomplices? She here for Gage?
I’m wondering the same things as I hold my ice-cold bottle, her presence melting it more by the second.
Lexi smiles, “Samantha’s on her way, Ralphie,” adding with an innocent lift of cherry eyebrows, “Why so curious?”
“No reason. I was just askin’,” he stutters, heading off to help customers that probably don’t need him. Even with her feigned innocence it was clear she saw right though the guy.
I lift my bottle. “To meeting again.”
A quick lip-bite awakens my cock, followed by a smile that awakens the rest of me. “To meeting again.”
She’s so fucking beautiful. That knowledge of her worth is why her appeal is so strong. Self confidence is a potent ally.
“What’re you smiling at?” she asks.
“You.”
Licking beer from her fingers —