So I don’t need to listen to the little voice that tells me I’m drinking way more than I used to.
It’s irrelevant.
My mom’s dead. There’s nothing I can do about that now. There’s no going back and saving her. So I’m dealing with it, and the whole shitty situation is going to be temporary. I can handle it.
On the drive over to Boots, I offer Mea a sideways glance. “You’re not worried about what our friends are going to think when we walk in together?”
She shrugs her thin shoulders. “They’re either going to think I’ve lost my mind, or that I’ve finally found it. Either way, I don’t care.”
Smiling at that snippet of straight-up Mea honesty, I pull into the parking lot of the bar.
When we walk in, we scan the small crowd until we find our friends. They’ve snagged a table near the patio door, and we head in that direction. As we draw closer, I place my hand protectively on the small of Mea’s back, and she lets me. Melts into my side like butter. When I glance down at her, she gives me a sultry look that tells me this is going to be a good night.
Four sets of eyes are locked and loaded on us as we approach, and Berkeley’s lips tilt up in a small smile when she notices my hand on Mea’s back. Greta doesn’t even try to hide her grin.
“Hey, you two. Didn’t expect to see you together.” Berkeley is practically shining with excitement for her friend, excitement that I’m pretty sure I can’t live up to. Dare gives me a silent nod, his expression mirroring what I’m thinking.
Sighing, I take a seat beside my best friend and Mea takes a chair beside hers. It just so happens that hers is two seats away from mine, and the loss of her warmth beside me when she goes is monumental. Meeting my eyes across the table, hers turn down at the corners, and I’m wondering if she feels it, too.
I shoot the shit with Dare and Grisham, asking them how work is going. They’re both security professionals on Greta’s father’s tactical team at his company, Night Eagle Security. It’s a pretty sweet arrangement, especially coming from military Special Forces backgrounds like they both do. Grisham was a Navy SEAL until he lost his foot to a bomb in Syria. It was rough for him at first, adapting to life back in the States knowing he was going to have to leave his SEAL days behind. But then he got together with Greta and met her dad. Everything sort of fell into place from there.
I’m glad they both love the job, but I wouldn’t trade my garage for any of it. I left my Special Ops days back in the desert, and the only mission I want to be a part of now is one that involves chrome and grease.
I can’t help watching Mea across the table. She’s chatting quietly with Greta and Berkeley, all three girls’ heads put together. Long blond waves, glossy raven locks, and wild, wild curls all put together in one spot. They’re a beautiful sight. But almost like she can feel my gaze, Mea glances up, and when her eyes meet mine a flame ignites inside me and shoots off like fireworks. She smiles, not her usual bright and shiny smirk, but an almost shy grin that tells me she’s feeling all kinds of emotions she doesn’t understand when it comes to me, just like I am when it comes to her.
I toss her a wink, and her tongue darts out to lick her lush bottom lip. That’s all it takes to send visions of her lying naked in my bed spinning across my vision.
Grisham leans over, his voice quiet. “Sparks are flying. You for real when it comes to her?”
I frown, glancing away from Mea to meet his gaze dead on. “I don’t know what this is yet. But I’m not planning on bringing more hurt into her life if that’s what you’re talking about.”
His blond brow lifts. “More hurt?”
There it is. After the way I saw Mea the night she was trembling from nightmares and tangled up in my sheets, I knew right then and there that something in her past had hurt her. Had changed her. Had made her into the strong, yet closed-off girl she is today. But no one else knows what I saw that night. There’s no one she’s let in to that degree.