Between his daunting glares and her body’s crazy intense reaction…yeah, she’d been uncomfortable.
“Ooh, do tell.” Mackenzie looked so eager, Andie couldn’t resist. The words came out in a girlie gush. “Oh my gosh, you guys, he was so hot.”
“Tall, dark, and brooding?” Jenna said, not surprisingly since that description fit Hunter to a tee. Hunter was Jenna’s boyfriend. He was also the man who’d outed Andie when she’d thought she was being so clever. After finding out her birth mother was a name partner at a law firm, she went to work there as a receptionist and tried to do some digging to figure out who her father was. She ended up learning two important lessons—her father was Jenna’s dad, Donald Knight, and she had absolutely no knack for being a spy.
She grinned at Jenna. “Not exactly. More like big, brawny, and bald.”
“Bald?” Jenna repeated.
“Well, shaved head.”
“Ooh, like Jason Statham,” Mackenzie asked.
“More like Vin Diesel on steroids,” Andie said.
“That’s a frightening thought,” Jenna added.
Andie shrugged. She couldn’t explain the attraction—every guy she’d ever dated had tended to be the wiry, artistic type. Not a muscle between them. But with him…
“So what’s his name?” Mack asked.
“Dagger.”
Jenna’s eyes widened so quickly it looked painful. “Dagger? Did you say Dagger?”
Andie stared at her in shock but Mack just rolled her eyes. “Relax, Snow White.”
Jenna shook her head. “Uh uh. No way. My sister is not dating a guy named Dagger.”
Mackenzie spoke up before she could. “You do remember that Andie is technically your older sister, right?”
“Only by a year,” Jenna said. Andie opened her mouth again but Mack was too quick.
“My point is, she’s a grown woman, not a little kid.”
“She might as well be.” Jenna turned to her. “No offense.”
Andie was torn between laughter and a sigh of exasperation. “None taken.” She got it—people always seemed to think she was too nice for her own good. And someone like Jenna who had defensive walls built up around her a mile thick? She definitely wouldn’t understand that being open to people wasn’t a weakness, trusting strangers didn’t make her naïve, and having faith that good would win out didn’t make her an idiot.
She’d long ago figured out that there were two ways to live. She could either go through life wary of strangers and putting up defensive walls…or she could learn to trust herself. One of the perks of moving around so much as a kid was that she’d learned to pick up on vibes. Reading people and their motives became something of a specialty, and she’d learned to trust her instincts. They never steered her wrong.
Mackenzie turned to her. “She doesn’t think you’re stupid.”
Andie nodded. “I know.”
Jenna leaned over and grabbed her hand. “Just not jaded like me. That’s a good thing.”
She was outright grinning now. “I know.”
Mackenzie reached across for the popcorn, breaking up the hand-holding. “So when are you going to see him again?”
“Who, Dagger?”
Jenna groaned at the sound of his name.
“Later this week, he’s going to do my new tattoo.”
That had them both staring at her like she’d grown a second head.
“You have tattoos?” Mack asked.
“Yeah, on my back.”
“I didn’t know that,” Jenna said.
Andie shrugged. “It wasn’t a secret.”
“So this Dagger guy…he’s a tattoo artist?” Jenna clarified.
Andie nodded and Mackenzie laughed. “Oh this keeps getting better and better. I can’t wait to meet him.”
She found herself shifting uncomfortably. “Yeah, well, don’t get your hopes up. He didn’t exactly seem taken with me.” If anything, he’d seemed to outright dislike her if his constant scowl was anything to go by. At the very least, he was uncomfortable around her. Which was weird because most people tended to like her. She’d been told more than once that she was easy to be around.
The chirping of her phone had everyone staring at the hot pink device. For one ridiculous moment she thought it might be Dagger, as if her talking and thinking about him could summon his text.
No such luck. She frowned down at the phone. Anthony. He’d entered his name and number into her phone himself, as if she wouldn’t be able to spell the name Anthony or something. She hated when people did that. But he’d been nice and flatteringly interested so she’d let him. That didn’t mean she was going to respond.
“Who is it?” Jenna asked.
She briefly told them about Anthony, the nice, handsome, well-dressed man who’d followed her into Dagger’s shop.
Mackenzie let out a whistle. “Whoa, Rose Red. You snagged two men in one day? Good work.”
She rolled