Rowdy(13)

“It’s a shame he feels that way. They would make a really beautiful couple.”

Well, that made me feel less like strangling Asa for not only getting an eyeful when Salem had been bent over the bar, but for smiling at her and being so easy around her when she made me feel like I was back to being an unwanted and out-of-place little kid.

“So you just dropped everything—left your entire life—to come help Nash and Rule with the new shop because Phil wanted you here? You didn’t leave anyone or anything behind?”

There was resentment there. I could hear it in my own voice, and I couldn’t seem to help it. My mom had died in a random act of violence when I was a really little kid. I didn’t have too many memories of her. But I could recall that she was nice, pretty, and was always smiling or laughing. I remembered her being happy.

I had gone into the system when I was only six years old. I had no other family or at least no one with my blood willing to claim me, so I bounced from foster home to foster home until I landed with the Ortegas when I was ten. I knew logically my mom hadn’t left me alone in the world on purpose, that fate was a tricky thing and could be really fucking nasty when she wanted to be, but there was no denying that whenever someone I cared deeply about walked away from me it brought back all those feelings I had long since held on to of being abandoned.

Instead of answering my sarcastically asked question, she propped her hip on a bar stool and leaned a little to the side while she considered me solemnly. I always thought she had great eyes. When I was younger I thought they looked like velvet and something soft. Now, while she watched me unflinchingly, I thought they looked dark and enigmatic. I didn’t like that she came across like she knew every secret the universe had and that she was just waiting for me to catch up to her so she could whisper them in my ear.

“Why haven’t you asked me anything at all about Poppy? Not how she is? Not where she’s at? Not what she’s doing? You wouldn’t even let me say her name yesterday and I’m wondering why. I know the two of you had a pretty bad falling-out, but there is something more there. You two were attached like Siamese twins when I left Loveless. So enlighten me, Rowdy. What really happened between you and my sister?”

I couldn’t stop the way her sister’s name made me take an involuntary step back. I didn’t ask because I really didn’t want to fucking know any of that information. This was exactly why I had been avoiding Salem like a coward for the last month. I just wanted to go back to a point where I was happy pretending like the Cruz sisters were nothing but a distant memory I only dusted off when I had too much to drink or sentimentality snuck up on me and gave me a sucker punch.

I was saved from having to choke out a lame response when Ayden popped up at my side and grabbed my elbow. Her eyes were the identical shade of rich whiskey as Asa’s and they were shiny and bright with both tequila and mischief.

“Come dance with me. Jet is being difficult.”

I looked over my shoulder and saw that my friend was glaring at me in warning. Since ruffling Jet’s feathers was at the top of my favorite-things-to-do list, there was no way I was going to tell her no. I wasn’t really a country-and-western kind of guy, but I did have on cowboy boots and I was never going to complain about getting my hands on a girl that was as pretty as Ayden.

I looked back at Salem and could practically see the wheels in her head turning behind her dark gaze, but before I could say anything to her she reached for her drink and pushed off the bar.

“We’re gonna have a reckoning eventually, Rowland. You were always really quick on the field, but off of it you kind of stumble.”

She swished her way around me, her hair slinking across my bare forearm and making my guts clench. I watched her as she wound her way to where Nash and Saint were still talking to Royal and saw her embrace the auburn-haired stunner in a one-armed hug like they were long-lost friends.

I looked back at Ayden and told her before she could even start, “Don’t. Just don’t.”

I let her tug me toward the tiny dance floor and easily fell into a quick two-step with her as David Allan Coe crooned “Mama Tried” on the digital jukebox.

“Rowland?” She giggled a little and I scowled down at her.

“I haven’t been that guy in a long time.”

“Where did ‘Rowdy’ come from, then?”

I grunted but flashed a very toothy grin at Jet over the top of Ayden’s head as he raised both middle fingers up at me and mouthed every dirty word he knew. I pulled his lady closer and smiled cheekily down at her just to rile him up even more.