Under Locke(100)

"Meet you over there," Debra said. She hadn't brought her towel down when she came up to me, so I figured she needed to grab one. Besides the remaining kids and Lisa, there was no one else on the beach. Not that I blamed anyone for avoiding the lake.



Just as I reached down to grab my towel, I happened to look over in the direction of the picnic tables to see most of the group standing around the two tables in the center. Just off to the side of those standing was Dex.



He faced me, hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans, facial expression blank.



But he stared—at me.



For what felt like the longest but was more than likely just a few seconds, I watched him back, and then I waved. He didn't wave in return but it didn't matter. He stood there, completely still, watching.



Okay. I grabbed the towel on the sand and shook it out before drying off. I got as dry as I could, pulled the dress on again and shoved my legs into my shorts. When I glanced back up, Dex wasn't there anymore. Thank God.



I rolled my wet towel under my arm and made my way slowly toward the group. There were so many people milling around, trying to get a little of everything from the buffet laid out that there was no rush to sit down. There were too many of us to all fit and since I was one of the youngest besides the kids, and not really family, I figured that I should be one of the people that got stuck standing up to eat, or sitting on the ground.



"What the fu—I mean, hell is this?" I heard one of the Widows ask as he stood over the table, picking at something I couldn't see.



Marie, Dex's other sister that looked like a female replica of her brother, nudged the man over. "Black bean burgers."



"Black bean burgers?" His tone was part disgust, part outrage. "Who the fu—hell eats that?"



Lord. I hadn't heard that in a while.



"Iris doesn't eat meat," Marie answered him.



The Widow scoffed, moving around the table with his plate held high. I was off to the side, behind a couple I recognized from Mayhem, so I knew he couldn't see me. Or maybe he was just one of those people who didn't give a crap. "Who doesn't eat meat?" A dumb question, obviously. "God gave us all these teeth so that we could eat hamburgers, chicken, meat. Not no damn black bean burgers."



The urge to correct him of his ignorance buried itself in my throat, but I was used to it. I was used to people saying things that weren't correct at all. Like this guy. Whatever.



But apparently, just because I kept my mouth shut didn't mean that everyone else did the same.



"How about you just shut up and eat your hamburgers and watch your cholesterol go up, Pete? She can eat whatever she wants to eat without hearin' you babble off your stupid shit."



Oh. Boy. It was Dex. Dex that I hadn't seen sitting at the fourth table.



"Language!" Marie snapped, smiling right before she turned around.



"I'm just saying." The guy I figured was named Pete had his face turn red.



"Nobody cares," Dex cut him off. "Ritz, come eat."



And then, awkwardness descended. The Pete guy finally realized that I was standing pretty much right by him but he had the decency to look a bit ashamed. Not much but something was better than nothing.



I flashed him a jerky smile but made my way toward the table to start putting things on my plate. Sure enough, there were three black bean burger patties piled onto a dish and I took one to put between hamburger buns, adding more things from the multiple dishes on the table. Egg-less potato salad, leafy lettuce, and skewered pineapple.



I started to walk around the three people still serving themselves, heading toward a patch of nearly dead grass to plop down on, but a hand reached out to grab the back of my bare knee.



"Sit right here," the low smooth tone I'd heard so much of over the last few weeks said to me.



Looking over my shoulder, Dex sat on the end of the picnic table bench, straddling it. His legs were wide, his food set on the table, and while he'd taken up more room than one man his size genuinely needed, it still wasn't enough space for two people.



"I can just sit on the ground." I smiled at him.



But he was watching me with those intense eyes. If watching could be considered that simple when there seemed to be a million different things going on in his head. Dex was staring and I didn't understand why. He'd looked at me in that way a few times before but this time was different. It's like he multiplied the look by a hundred. When he dropped his eyes down to my chest—which unfortunately had my dress sticking to my wet bathing suit—I had to gulp.



"I made room." He looked back up at me. "Sit."