Max pushed himself up, making Starla think of a cat who’d had his fur stroked the wrong way as he smoothed back his hair and snatched his jacket straight. “I see how it is.” He spat on the ground, glaring at Starla and Brian in turn, muttering the sentence over and over as he affected a nonchalant stroll back to the Mustang’s driver’s side. “Yeah. I see how it fucking is.”
He got in. Cranked with a rumble, peeled off in smoke, and laid rubber.
“Thank you,” Starla said, releasing the breath she’d been holding. She shook all over, and her heart was about to beat its way up her throat. “I thought he was—”
Brian turned on her, the look in his eyes almost scarier than Max’s had been. “You can’t run with shit without getting it on you, Starla.” She cringed at his tone, hearing the accusation, the I told you so, the…oh fuck, the disappointment. “Trouble is, it gets on everyone else around you too.” Shame blazed a trail through her as the gravity of his words hit home. Here he was, a family man now, walking the straight and narrow, still fighting her stupid battles with an unpredictable idiot like Max. A year ago, he probably would’ve relished the chance, but now, so much had changed. So, so much.
Tears stung her eyes, but he didn’t hang around to see them. Even as she burst out, “I’m sorry,” he yanked open the door and disappeared inside, muttering curses under his breath. The door swung slowly closed behind him with an anguished squawk, and she stared at it for a good two minutes trying to pull herself together and wondering what the hell to do next. After inhaling two cigarettes’ worth of nicotine into her lungs with shaking hands, she finally made her way back inside with a stop in the restroom to repair any damage her tears had done to her eyeliner.
Business as usual out front. Music, conversation, happily buzzing machines. Either her coworkers didn’t know anything about what had happened, or they were pretending they didn’t. Or, she guessed, they knew and didn’t give a flying fuck. Brian sullenly cleaned up around his station and escaped to his office, where he tinkered for a while and then made his escape home without another word to anyone. Starla only knew he’d left when she heard the side door slam shut. By that point, she was relieved to know he was gone.
As if enough salt hadn’t been poured into her festering wounds, Macy showed up half an hour before Jared was supposed to pick Starla up. Ghost’s grin could’ve lit the room—he looked like an entirely different person when she walked in the door carrying bags of Chinese takeout.
Starla tried not to study the woman who still owned a piece of Jared’s heart—and probably always would—but she couldn’t help it. Long, unbelievably shiny dark ombre hair—the kind Starla often kidded looked like it was conditioned with Jesus’s tears. Always impeccably dressed; hell, she could make sweatpants look classy. Always nice too, if a little reserved. At first they’d all thought she was incredibly stuck up, but it wasn’t so. She gave everyone a friendly greeting but didn’t stop for idle chitchat, as per the norm. Her destination was Ghost, and she zeroed in on him, giving him a quick kiss on the lips before the two of them headed to the break room to eat together.
Jared would see Macy’s car parked out front. That would probably cast a pall over his evening. After the incident with Max, Starla already had storm clouds hovering over hers. Why were they even bothering? She should text him now and tell him—
A flash of red out on the street told her it was too late, unless she wanted to tell him to his face. Through the wide front windows, she watched Jared’s big truck pull easily into the parking lot. For better or worse, this was happening. Sighing, Starla grabbed her purse, told a bewildered Janelle she’d be back in an hour, and went out to meet him.
***
She could tell he knew something was wrong the minute she climbed up into his truck. He didn’t say it, but he studied her a little too closely, took a few too many glances over at her as he drove. She managed to get through the small talk without going to pieces. If he’d noticed Macy’s car, he said nothing about it, and it didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest.
They went for mutually decided upon Tex-Mex, and Starla found her incident hadn’t negatively affected her appetite. She rarely went to restaurants so the tortilla chips and salsa and queso were a rare treat. Jared raised his eyebrows when she ordered a Coronarita. “Aren’t you going back to work?”
“Fuck it.” The decision had been made as soon as she’d eyed the drink menu. Fuck Ghost. Fuck Brian Ross. Tay and Janelle hadn’t done anything to her, but they would probably be better off without her around tonight, even if they didn’t know it yet. “I’ll call in. If they get swamped, they can set appointments like always.”
“Starla. If you take no other advice I ever offer, take this. Don’t burn bridges.” He reached across the table and stilled her hand from grabbing the drink as soon as the waiter set it down, his blue eyes earnest and still brilliant even in the dimness. “You will regret it.”
As she stared at the drink, the urge to get rip-roaring drunk battling with the need to do the right thing, to be a better person, her eyes filled with tears. Horrified, she snatched up a napkin and dabbed at them. Jared abandoned his spot across the table from her and slid into her side of the booth, shielding her from the other patrons of the restaurant. She inched over to make room, so thankful for him right then that she could only cry harder.
“Tell me,” he said, but it wasn’t a gentle request. It was a firm order. Before she could stop herself, the whole sorry story poured out. Max. Brian. Even Macy showing up. Whenever she dared to look at him, his expression had grown a shade darker, brows drawing together, jaw going tight. Eyes so intense it scared her. She didn’t think anyone in her life had ever listened to her the way he did, as if every word that dropped from her lips was somehow precious.
“I’m glad you didn’t cancel on me,” he said at last. “And I’m glad Brian stood up for you. I don’t blame you for needing the rest of the night off, but he should have volunteered it, not jumped down your throat about that asshole almost running you over.”
She noticed he was ignoring her mention of Macy altogether.
“Well…Brian, he…kind of has a temper. He was wound up, and there wasn’t anyone else to lash out at, so he lashed out at me. Anyway, I guess I’d feel safer at work than at home right now.” Sighing with relief that her deluge seemed to be over with, she popped a tortilla chip in her mouth and glumly eyed her untouched drink. “You’re right. I should go back and I don’t need that.”
“I don’t know so much about that now. I didn’t realize you’ve had such a bad shock.”
He’d no sooner said it than Starla’s phone signaled an incoming text. Her heart lurched about two inches downward when she saw it was from Brian, but she sagged in relief when she read the words. Sorry. Take the rest of the night off.
Either the thought had come to him on its own once he’d cooled down, or Candace had introduced it after he got home and told her what happened, but either way, Starla only wanted to put this day out of her mind and focus on the night ahead. She wrote back: Thanks, I will, sighed, and met Jared’s expectant look. “I’m off the hook. Pass me that drink.”
Chuckling, he did so, but she noticed he didn’t move back to his seat across the table from her. She liked that. He radiated warmth and protection, and she soaked it up like an old, dry sponge. She’d been starved of it most of her life, hadn’t she? Maybe it had been her own doing. Maybe she’d deserved it for some of the choices she’d made. But the need for change, for something new, something incredible, pulsed under her skin. It threatened to consume her, to melt away the armor she wore to keep everyone else out, to shed it like an old skin. The memory of the way he’d kissed her burned through her like the alcohol she drank, and her toes curled in her shoes.
Whatever the night ahead held, she was ready.
Chapter Eleven
Just when Jared thought Starla couldn’t possibly drink any more and remain upright, she drank more. But it was fine with him. If he’d ever met someone who deserved to let her hair down, it was her—he’d seen what the kind of scare she was going through had done to Shelly. Starla wanted to put on a tough front, pretend it was no big deal, but he saw those flashes of worry in her eyes when their conversation lulled, when her laughter stilled for a moment. He saw how she glanced up with a little start every time someone walked by their table, as if she expected it to be Max. And why shouldn’t she?
He absently stirred the ice in his sweet tea and thought about having a talk with Brian Ross himself. She’d kill him if he did, but that was only if she knew about it.
“I can’t eat another bite,” she proclaimed at last. Chuckling, he waved for the check, having reached that point long ago. She’d eaten like she’d been starving herself for days, and he felt like an asshole for having let her make dinner for him twice before returning the favor in some small way.