Six or seven bikers slowed their motorcycles to a crawl in front of the bar as I made my way down the block. Someone close by started yelling, but I wasn’t paying attention to what was being said as I kept my eyes on the bikers. They weren’t wearing leather vests like the rest of the WMC. They also didn’t look relaxed and ready to have a good time like everyone else did either. Instead, their faces were pulled tight as they drove by. Bodies stiff with something that was the opposite of friendly.
And that was my mistake of the day.
I should have gone back inside and asked Trip to walk me out. I should have, but I didn’t.
And that was my second mistake. I should have just looked at the bikers, and then hauled my ass as quickly as possible to my car. But I didn’t do that either.
I moseyed because I was tired. It was then, in my nosey nature and slow feet that two of the men in the street turned to look at me in a way that wasn’t a warm, appreciative gaze. It was a look that took in as much appreciation as a lion held for a gazelle before slaughter. It was a calculated thing.
But I’m an idiot and by that time, though it was too late, I walked faster down the sidewalk to the annex parking lot; Dex and Slim appeared from up ahead. They stalked down the block, keeping their eyes locked on the group parked behind me. Only when they saw me hopping over wide jagged cracks in the pavement, tugging my short, white shorts down my legs, did Dex veer in my direction.
Crap!
His dark eyes were locked on me. Raking me. Grazing me. Swallowing me. But whether it was in approval or just plain annoyance, I had no idea. To be honest, I didn’t care. Dex was a dick. A good-looking dick—a very good-looking dick—but a dick nonetheless.
And he. Looked. Pissed. Well, more pissed than usual and that was saying something.
“What in the fuck are you doin’ walkin’ to your goddamn car alone again?” he growled, swear to God, growled as he cut the distance between us. “Didn’t we just talk about this yesterday?”
It was my hormones. The hormones that raged through my body right before I started my period made me insane. I know it. Every girl knows it.
So obviously, they made me stupid. Because I looked behind me before slowly turning around to face my boss, taking in the angry, pulsing vein lining his neck. “Me?”
Slim paused midstride, looked between the two of us and kept walking toward the bar, throwing up a peace sign at me on the way.
Wuss.
“Who the hell else would I be talkin’ to, babe? You’re the only goddamn person walkin’ to their car at night by her fuckin’ self.” He put way too much emphasis on the last two words.
I whipped the keys out of my front pocket and spun them around my index finger, talking myself back from losing my temper because that was clearly the road I was going down. What I really wanted to do was throw the keys at his face but that wouldn’t exactly be the smartest thing to do. “You don’t have to talk to me like that.” I added a mental ‘asshole’ in my head.
Dex was in my face the second the words were out of my mouth, so close I could feel the heat from his skin. “We just had this talk yesterday. No more walkin’ to your car alone. You hear me? I know you’re still pissed off but it ain’t that big of a deal, babe. I already told you I say and do stupid shit when I’m pissed and you were in the wrong fuckin' place at the wrong time. It ain’t much to get over.”
Maybe throwing the keys wouldn’t be that stupid if it was either that or clipping him with my car’s bumper.
"Did you or did you not call me a fucking idiot?" The strained silence he answered with was enough to confirm what I was already sure of. Thank you very much. "Being in a better place at a better time, boss, you still would've said what you did only I wouldn't have heard you." I ground out. "That doesn't make it better. I haven't done anything to you, and you act like… like I stole your Christmas presents as a kid.”
His right eye started twitching but he didn’t deny the thought.
So I shrugged at him. What else was I supposed to do? “Tell me what I did.”
The pause was dramatic before he huffed out, "No." Dex's lips tightened in a hard line, not saying a word to argue with the fact that I was right. "You didn't do nothin’.”
“What is it then? Because I’m not from here? Did I breathe too loud? Or because —”
“None of that. I already told you, you need to learn to grow a thicker skin, babe. Shrug it off, it ain't that big of a deal."
Someone was going to get stabbed, and that person was named Dex.