my face and he murmured, “We better get on the road.”
His quiet words pulled me from my haze.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll drive,” he told me and tagged my hand.
Next thing I knew we were in his truck and he was backing out of his driveway.
What just happened?
13
Shiloh hadn’t lied; she was oddly good at miniature golf. She was also hilariously sexy every time her ass wiggled when she sank a ball under par. It was becoming increasingly difficult to remember four members of her team were with us, especially when she smiled brightly and looked totally carefree. I, of course, now knew that was a façade. But she was goddamn stunning in her charade.
Dinner at LuLu’s had gone as I’d expected. The inquisition had started as soon as my ass sat down. A man called Gordy took the lead and immediately started grilling me. It wasn’t aggressive but it was assessing. Much like I’d done when I had my run-in with River and Echo, I reminded myself that these men cared about Shiloh and I set aside my anger. They were simply looking out for her.
Shiloh might’ve told me she didn’t have friends but that was untrue. Not that she lied—it was like she had a mental block when it came to the word friend. The men she worked with respected her, treated her like she was one of them without reservation. They joked and teased her the same way they did each other. The same I did with my team. It was Shiloh who held herself apart. Yet she did it in a friendly way. It was the oddest shit I’d ever seen and before I’d witnessed it firsthand I would’ve said it was impossible to be friendly and distant at the same time, but Shiloh pulled it off.
So there I was standing at the seventeenth hole of the game, one Shiloh was going to win by a long shot. She was dancing around smiling, the guys around us were giving her shit, and she was completely fucking oblivious to what she meant to them when she should’ve known down to her bones these men cared for her. They didn’t hide it.
Shiloh’s ball slowly rolled into the cup, her second putt on a par four hole. Her head came up, her gaze slid through the men watching and stopped when it reached mine and she smiled.
Fuck, she was gorgeous.
“I don’t know how you’re doing it but you’re cheating,” Chip boomed.
Earlier I’d learned that Chip’s name was Allen. But he’d earned the nickname Chip after he took an elbow to the mouth during a takedown, chipping his front tooth. He’d refused to get it fixed. As the story went the suspect was nearly seven feet tall and three hundred pounds. Chip was five-nine and maybe one-eighty. Further, the story went Chip had taken the guy down by himself, thus keeping the chipped tooth was a reminder he was a badass. The story sounded like a fish-tale if I ever heard one but I said nothing at the exaggeration.
“I’m not a cheat,” Shiloh retorted, with mock affront.
“It’s his fault.” Andy pointed to me. “She’s showing off for her man.”
I’d put two and two together and figured out Andy was Andy Riddle, the Head and Shoulders shampoo guy.
“Why does it have to be someone’s fault? Admit it, I’m better than you,” she went on.
“Stop bitching and take your shot so we can move on,” Valentine called from the green. “I got shit to do.”
“Is that what you’re calling your dating life now, shit?” Gordy put it. “I keep telling you those apps don’t work, brother. It’s best to meet a woman the old-fashioned way.”
“Listen, old man, I know this is a hard concept for you seeing as you got married in the Dark Ages before the internet was invented but I’m not interested in trading sheep for a bride. I don’t want a bride, I want a…” Valentine paused, looked at Shiloh, then went on. “Fun. I’m just looking for fun.”
Something I’d noticed, all of the guys teased and joked amongst themselves and with Shiloh and she returned the jabs. But she didn’t tease with them the way she did with me. There were no flirty undertones, no innuendo, and the men went to great lengths to keep their comments clean. There was plenty of shit-talk—they cursed in front of her—but the topic of sex or anything that could make her or them uncomfortable was clearly avoided.
Gordy flipped Valentine off then swung his putter, taking