Dex's hand whipped forward to grab the hem of my shirt, stopping me. “Ritz.” His tone was insistent.
“That’s not my name.”
He chose to ignore that. “Will you look at me?” he growled, exasperation dripping from his words. That soft voice disappearing in an instant.
I looked at him but felt a million miles away.
Dex cut the distance between us, towering over me. His brilliant eyes searched over my face, resting on my mouth for a brief moment before looping back up to my eyes. "Son already bitched me out."
I tugged on my arm. "Goodnight."
“Babe," he said, tugging on my button-down. "I got a bad temper and that was a crap day for me. I say shitty things when I'm pissed."
Sure, because it was that friggin’ easy. He had a shitty day so he could call me names behind my back. Right. Made total sense. Not.
Dick.
I just stared back at him.
“Just let it go, 'kay? It drives me fuckin' crazy you won't look me in the eye,” he breathed. "I don't do this awkward shit, babe."
“If I look at you from now on will you leave me alone?” I asked him in a whisper.
Something shuttered across his eyes. “You’re not gonna let this go?”
My chest flared with white hot anger. Getting fired would be better than quitting if I was standing up for myself, wouldn’t it? Sonny was my brother, he’d understand in a heartbeat if I explained. Then afterward, some kneecaps would be busted.
There was always the job at the damn strip club. Lord.
Schooling my features, I leaned forward to close the short distance between us to a microscopic one despite the near foot in height difference.
“It’s not everyday someone I don’t know calls me a fucking idiot, then insults my clothes and my time management.” I looked him right in the eye, not caring that he winced. “I’d say I’m sorry that I had to ask you for help, and that I can’t pretend you didn’t hurt my feelings, but I won't. If you would've showed me what to do slower or not rolled your eyes each time I wrote something down in my notebook, I wouldn't have had to. I'm not stupid or an idiot or a moron or whatever else you've called me.” In all honesty, I hadn’t intended to tell him he’d hurt my feelings but once the words were out in the universe it was a done deal. Whatever. I couldn’t take them back so I had to stand by them. “And now, I’m just pissed off, and I want to go home.”
And Dex, Dex just looked at me with those irises the same shade as a crayon. “You don’t know what it’s like to have a shit day, princess?”
Princess?
Princess?
This dickwad had no clue.
I sucked in another breath, steeling myself. I wasn’t going to be a pushover again. No. Friggin’. Way. I was done. If I could get fired, it’d be better than leaving on my own. So I laid it out on him as politely as I could. “When I have bad days, princess,” I whispered, opting at the last minute to leave out the Duke Dickface teasing my tongue, “I cry. I read. I clean. I eat crappy things. I swim or do the yard. I don’t make people feel like crap, your royal highness.”
Chapter Six
“Are you sure this won’t get you into trouble?”
Sonny’s upper body had disappeared beneath the car minutes ago with tools and a pan. I plopped down on top of a tire that was sitting off to the side of the bay at the body shop he worked at, watching him because I had no idea how to help. “It’s fine, Ris. Trust me.”
Well, shit.
The shop was closed on Saturdays; there was a very clear sign by the gate that we’d come through. Personally, I’d rather not get arrested for trespassing but Sonny didn’t look worried even a hundredth of a fraction. Plus, I’d spotted three bikes and two cars parked alongside the big adjacent building to the bays, so I figured we either weren’t alone or somebody was using the space as a parking lot.
Only I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not.
“You trust me, don’t you?” he asked in a teasing voice when I didn’t respond.
"No." I extended my leg out to nudge his knee with my toes. “Yes.”
Because I did. A lot. Sonny had never let me down when he knew I needed him.
Regardless, I still didn’t want to risk him losing his job all because I couldn’t change my own oil. “You're positive?”
A dirty blue rag went airborne and smacked me in the face. “Quit asking.”
"Sheesh," I muttered but made a face and picked the rag up with my index finger and thumb before tossing it back at him.