“It’s country music.”
“Uh, no.” I was teasing her. I couldn’t care less what she listened to, even if I might need to bleach that sound out of my brain later.
“Uh, yes,” she said, turning to me with wide eyes. “You drive, I choose the music. If you’d let me drive”
“No chick drives a car when a man is in it. It’s un-American.”
“Then the passenger gets to choose the music. It’s only fair, and fortunately for you, you’re in luck,” she teased back. “Because I’m patriotic and country music is the most American thing you can listen to.”
I thought of a thousand rock bands that were more American than the crap making my ears bleed. The Doors, Eagles, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rolling Stones, just to name a few off the top of my head.
“Whatever. I’ll deal.” I looked back out the front window, keeping my eyes ahead.
But a smile stretched my lips as her light, tinkling laughter filled the car, making the country bullshit she was forcing on me bearable.
Almost.
Trina eyed the check in my hand and I watched her fighting back tears.
“This is the smartest thing you can do.” I draped my arm over her shoulders, pressing her to me. “If he’s following you, you know he’s got someone trying to find your car.”
“I know.” She sniffed and nodded, swiping her fingertips over her cheek. “I’ve had that darn car for so long, it’s hard to say goodbye.” She looked up at me, eyes glimmering with more tears, and whispered, “Boomer and that car are the only things I have…from before.”
Which explained why she was driving a car several years old and not brand-new. I would have thought Kevin wouldn’t want her in anything except the best. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe she drove something better around town in Kentucky. But the fact that she kept hold of this one thing just proved how much fight she had in her when it was important. I never wanted to ask about the car before, but hearing it from her then made it feel like a wrench was tightening around my heart.
I held out the check we’d just gotten for her car. With as much as it was, she could buy anything she wanted. “Think of this as a fresh start. Leave everything behind”I smiled“except for Boomer, and move on from the past.”
“Right.” A spark of determination gleamed in her shining eyes and she wiped away more tears. “We’re moving on.”
I pushed down my smile. “Yeah, we are.”
Because we were. Together. At least for now, and if she continued to make me feel the way I had every minute since I’d met her, I was hoping it was for a lot longer than just a brief moment in time.
A taxi pulled into the run-down dealership we’d found in East Chicago. I hadn’t wanted to go too far into the city with the car, and I figured that if she’d come up this direction from Kentucky, she would have been on a similar route. I was hoping that once we sold her vehicle at some dumpy dealership willing to give us half what the car was worth, it’d make it that much more difficult for Kevin to find her.
So we ditched the car, but needed a way to get to the Loop in downtown Chicago, where we would catch a train to Milwaukee at union Station.
It was only three o’clock, and the last train to Milwaukee didn’t leave until eight at night, giving us some time to kill in the city before we headed to our next destination. We could have rushed it and tried to catch an earlier train, but I also wanted to take some timeeven if it was just a few hoursto give Trina a break from the worry and fear I knew she was feeling.
“So,” I said, dropping my hand from her shoulder to grab her hand. I started walking toward the waiting taxi and looked down at her. “Is there anything you’ve ever wanted to see in Chicago?”
She shrugged, one side of her upper lip curling. “Not really. I’ve always pictured it as a big, dirty, cement jungle.”
I barked out a laugh and pulled her against me. She almost tripped, and her free hand landed on my stomach.
“What?” she asked, eyes wide and looking up at me.
The sun hit her eyes, making her light-brown eyes sparkle like they were spun from gold.
“Chicago’s not ugly.” I pushed down the burgeoning lust I felt every time she smiled at me and opened the rear door of the taxi for her. “It’s beautiful and perfect. The best city anywhere in the world.”
“Even better than Latham Hills?” Her eyes lit with wonder and amusement.
God, I loved that she loved my city.
“Trust me,” I told her, leaning in and brushing my lips against hers. I didn’t know if she felt the same need and desire as me, but I hadn’t been able to keep my lips off her today. Small, teasing brushes of my lips against her skin, anywhere I could taste her. She hadn’t pushed me away, though. “Let me prove you wrong.”
She squeezed my hand with hers and leaned in, our noses brushing against each other. “I do trust you,” she finally whispered, her lips lingering just a breath away from my own.
And it was that moment, with the taxi pulling into Chicago’s rush-hour afternoon trafficbecause it was always rush hour hereand her golden eyes fixed on mine, letting me see the pure sincerity in her four simple words, that I completely fell for her.
The outside of Reglatti’s Pizzeria was less than impressive, but it was the location and food inside that kept the small restaurant crammed full at almost all hours of the day. Just a half block south of Wrigley Field on Ashland Avenue, Reglatti’s was famous to local Chicagoans for their delicious, deep-dish pizza, as well as their own form of Sicilian pizza that had an exceptionally light crust. Just before four on Monday, the place had a steady stream of customers and very few tables available, although there wasn’t yet a line.
Give it an hour. Even with the Chicago Cubs playing an away game, there would still be a line of customers wrapped around the corner of the building waiting to eat a Monday-night slice of pie while they watched their beloved Cubs on the big screens scattered throughout the restaurant and cheered them on.
A twinge of jealousy hit me in the chest while I glanced around the packed restaurant. This was what I wanted Fireside Grill to become. A beloved icon in a city with a fanatic customer base in a small area of Detroit where people took pride in their community. I just had to figure out how to bring them in.
I shook off the thought and focused on Trina.
She took another bite of her first slice of deep-dish and closed her eyes.
“So what do you think?”
She groaned, swallowing the large bite. I’d been fighting to keep my dick from going hard the entire meal, yet hadn’t wanted to stop the quiet, pleased sounds she made.
Grinning, she wiped her lips with a napkin. “It’s not too bad.”
I glanced down at our almost fully devoured pie, then back at her.
“You’ve eaten twice as much as I have.”
Her cheeks paled and I pressed my lips together, watching as the fear and embarrassment flooded her features.
I swore. If I ever ran into Kevin Morgenson III, I was going to wring his fucking wiry neck.
She opened her mouth and I knew an apology was on the tip of her tongue. I cut her off.
“Don’t you dare apologize,” I said with a quiet voice, biting back my desire to rage like an animal. “I was kidding. Eat however much you freaking want, Trina.”
Her breathing faltered before she took a sip of water. “I know…some things are hard to forget.”
She licked her lips and looked away, ashamed.
I suppressed the growl rising in my throat. “Tell me about Kentucky,” I said instead, changing the subject. Based on the way her shoulders dropped, relaxing, it had the desired effect.
She looked directly into my eyes. Light brown mixed with flecks of a darker color around her irises. I almost forgot to breathe when she tilted her head to the right. So innocent. Pure. Damaged, but fighting. “Like what?”
“Anything you want. Weather, what you did, what you liked.” I gave her time to think and picked up another slice of pie and dove in, chewing while she appeared to run through her memories until she found the best one.
A strange burning sensation lit in my chest.
I didn’t realize that I had needed that. I didn’t realize that the entire time I was with Mara, I didn’t have that…someone who cared enough to take the time to give me the best parts of herself. I saw it in Trina’s eyes as she worked her way through her memories.
When she finally grinned and set down her pizza, that burning in my chest grew deeper, more fierce.
Because I knew I was looking at a woman who would give me her best, every day of her life, as long as I deserved it.
I’d never wanted to fight for anything more.
As she spoke about high school, telling me about being a cheerleader and homecoming queen, shopping trips to the malls with her friends and visits to amusement parks, I soaked up every word, my thoughts never straying. I never lost interest, and hung on every word. While doing so, I picked up little nuances, storing them in my memory bank.
Like the way her grin went a little lopsided when she was truly excited. The way she ran her left index finger against the corner of her lips when she thought. How her hands became more animatedlong, thin fingers and small palms waving in the air like twinkling starsthe more into a story she was.