Asshole just had to dig it in.
“Fuck you, man.” Yanking my arm back, I cocked my head to the side so I could glare at Lyrik who was having way too much fun at my expense. God, the one drawback of having friends who knew you so well? They picked up on absolutely everything and figured every bit was their business. Weren’t a whole lot of secrets between the four of us. Usually that shit didn’t matter because I had nothing to hide from them.
But this?
This felt private. Like I needed to protect Shea from their prying minds and misplaced assumptions. Just one more thing about her that left me feeling unnerved.
“What was that about, anyway?” Ash asked.
And there we go.
I shrugged. “Wasn’t about anything. Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Incredulous laughter thundered from him. “Right. You should see your face right now. Don’t try to tell me it was nothing. You hittin’ that? Thought there was something going on between you two the last time we were in here.”
I almost growled. “Isn’t any of your fucking business who I’m hitting.”
He just laughed harder and jerked his thumb my direction, amused eyes bouncing between Lyrik and Zee. “Holy shit, I think our boy here has a crush. I do believe the sky is falling.”
Zee chuckled, but he was watching me, trying to get inside my head the way he always did. “Fucking hot, man. Nothing to be ashamed of there.”
I scowled. “I don’t have a crush and I’m not hitting anything, so just drop it, all right?”
Motherfucking crush. What bullshit. It was time I gave up whatever irrational ideas I had of taking this girl, anyway. Because she belonged to something bigger, needed more than I could ever give her.
Only thing I had to give her was more fucking heartache.
And from the depth of those bottomless eyes, from that protective stance she’d taken when she’d stood next to her little girl, I knew she needed no more of it.
Ash cracked a smile. “Whatever, you just keep telling yourself that.”
I’d been telling myself that for weeks. Apparently I wasn’t all that convincing.
As the night grew long, I sat and tried to keep my cool while the mood in Charlie’s escalated.
A furor of energy lit the air as people continued to pack into the bar. The lights were low, casting faces in obscurity, a thick mist of ambiguity. Crammed wall to wall, so many bodies had flooded the cavernous space that I was having a hard time keeping track of Shea. Half of Savannah had to be here tonight. There weren’t close to enough seats to go around, so hordes gathered around tables, standing in the walkways, and pushing forward to get closer to the stage. The area where the long row of pool tables taking up part of the opposite side of the bar was completely jammed full of good ol’ boys out to shoot a round.
Tonight the country band was loud. Their front man had a deep, raspy voice that reverberated through the speakers, strains of a guitar coming up behind it, the quick beat of drums ushering it along. Voices lifted to be heard above the heavy twang, the din rising to a steady roar as people seemed to grow rowdier and rowdier by the minute.
Shea slipped by, brushing passed me like the tendrils of a midnight breeze. Caramel eyes sought out mine as she passed, her dark calling me home.
She was quick to turn her back.
I stifled a groan when she stopped at a table in front of ours. The sweet sway of her ass nothing but a temptation as she leaned over to try and pass drinks to a couple of women whose table was blocked by a group of guys gathered in a disordered cluster behind it, their voices obnoxious and loud enough I could hear them above the music.
My fists curled when one of them edged forward, pawed at her side and leaned his face in close to her ear, asshole acting like he had something important to say to her when it was as obvious as the tremor that suddenly ripped through my body that he just wanted to cop a feel.
“Down boy,” Ash taunted through a chuckle, giving voice to what I’d been trying to deny all night. But it was damned near impossible when the bastard let that hand wander down to grab the swell of her perfect ass.
Knew those types. Saw them everywhere I went. Reaching out to take whatever they wanted whether it belonged to them or not. Assholes who thought the world owed them something. Those who played with people for entertainment.
Guys like Jennings.
A flare of hostility lit up my insides, and I clenched my jaw just as tightly as I pressed my fists into my thighs, trying to snuff out the spike of aggression that jumped through my veins.
Discretely, Shea unraveled herself from his hold. Her face—that had become impossible to purge from my mind—tipped back just enough that I saw that same feigned smile she’d used on me the first time I’d seen her. But when she used it on this guy, it was pained, a forced pleasantry used to ward off attention she most definitely did not want.