“We’ll do this again really soon,” he told her. “Promise.”
“Ooh, promises already. Careful with that.” She gave him a salacious wink as she swayed a bit beside him. Yeah, despite her impressive food consumption, the tequila had definitely gotten to her. He hoped he could get her in the truck.
When the check came, she offered to pay her share. Jared wouldn’t hear of it. “But the drinks—” she began, and yes, her drinks had cost more than the food, but still.
“Are my treat,” he finished for her.
“Thanks,” she said quietly, sinking into herself a bit.
“What’s the matter?”
“I didn’t really intend to get plastered on your dime.”
“Don’t worry about it. What do you want to do now?”
She stared at her empty margarita glass, and alarm shot through him when her bottom lip trembled slightly. “I don’t want to go home,” she said softly.
Then she fucking wouldn’t, if he had anything to say about it. “What’s going on at home?”
“Can we leave now?” She’d no sooner asked than the waitress dropped off his credit card slip. He signed quickly, adding the tip, then pulled Starla from their booth with an arm firmly around her waist. She didn’t seem to need the support, really, but he liked the feel of her at his side and, thankfully, she seemed to like the feel of him at hers. Her arm slipped around his waist and her thumb found the belt loop of his jeans; her scent teased at his senses as her long hair tickled his arm. She let him absorb a little of her weight as she shuffled along beside him and…
Dammit. He should have known he couldn’t go anywhere in this town without seeing someone he knew. Shelly’s sister, brother-in-law, and niece were sitting at the table nearest the door. Friggin’ hell. So much for ever convincing Shelly he wasn’t seeing someone—he and Starla were hanging on to each other like a couple of teenagers, and while he had zero complaints on that score, of course, he knew how it looked.
While he’d once shared holidays and special occasions with these people, those ties had been severed by the cruel ax fall of divorce, and he didn’t feel any obligation to go over and speak. They damn sure wouldn’t have walked over to greet him had the situation been reversed. But since he and Starla were already the object of his former sister-in-law’s chilly gaze, he acknowledged them with a wave. She returned it, but not happily. Jared urged Starla on out the door.
“Who was that?” she asked, having not missed the exchange.
“Former in-laws.” He hit the unlock button on his key chain remote.
“Oh. No wonder.”
“No wonder what?”
“She looked at me like she wanted to stab her fork through my eyeball.”
“Don’t worry about it. They never were the friendliest even when Shelly and I were married.”
“Ugh. I can’t stand a bitch.”
Jared chuckled. Starla definitely called them like she saw them, and he bet she hit the mark more often than she missed. “I can’t complain much about them. They’re good to the girls and always around to help Shelly out if she needs it.”
“But so are you, I’m sure. Who’s around to help you out if you need it?”
“I don’t need it.”
“Everyone does sometimes.”
He held open the truck door for her, watching as she climbed carefully inside and mulling over her remark. A strong support system was in place for him. He still had his parents and one set of grandparents. Great friends. A comfortable life. Truly, if he hadn’t had all that, where would he be? Maybe he needed more than he liked to think. And maybe she was revealing more about herself than she thought.
Jared climbed in on his side, but instead of starting the truck, he looked at her. Admired the luminescent fall of her hair and the way it conquered the darkness pushing in around it. The pout of her generous lips. She’d tasted so good last night. He wanted to touch her again, but he didn’t dare—the feeling wasn’t unlike being told as a child not to touch an expensive vase, when all you wanted was to get your grubby hands on it. Feel its cool smoothness, its delicacy. But if you broke it, it would be your ass.
She was beautiful.
Tearing his gaze away when she seemed unwilling to meet it, he started his truck. “My place?”
“Okay.”
“You didn’t answer me before. What’s going on at your house?”
She sighed. “I think I mentioned my roommate and her deadbeat brother.”
“Yeah, I remember that.”
“It’s so bad I’m thinking of moving. No, scratch that. I’m moving. As soon as I can.”
A slither of apprehension snaked through his veins. Jesus. First her job, and now her living situation? “Bad like how?”
“Fighting, mainly. This guy is a piece of shit. No job, no plans to get one. Drunk most of the time, or high, or something. My roommate doesn’t care if he lives on our couch and mooches off us forever. It’s getting ugly.” Suddenly, she growled with frustration and shoved her hair back from her face, holding it in place. “My God, all I do is dump problems on you. I’m a walking, talking, fucking train wreck. Honestly, you can take me home right now if you want to, and I wouldn’t blame you a bit.”
“I’m not doing that. Not unless you tell me to.”
She dropped her hands and met his gaze. The truck rumbled patiently and seconds ticked by while she stared at him. “I should. For your own damn good.”
“Don’t worry about my good.”
“I’m going to fix my problems. New job, new place to stay.”
He gave her one brief nod. “All right.”
“Seriously, I decided that last night. I’ll tell Brian soon—it’s just hard, you know? I mean…it’s like, when I’m not at work, it seems like the obvious solution, yeah, I need to do this, but when I’m there, and I know he’s back in his office and all I have to do is go in and tell him I’m out…I can’t make myself move.”
“You need a backup plan in place first, right? Somewhere else to go?”
“Yeah, but I want to tell him I’m leaving before I start looking. I don’t want to look for another job behind his back.”
“Gotcha.”
“It would help tremendously if I knew what the hell I wanted to do. I love what I do. Love it.” Such passion filled her voice that he didn’t doubt her for a second. “We have friends in Dallas who own a parlor. I’ve thought about going there before, but I don’t want to move that far. But I guess I need to shut up and do what I have to do, huh?”
“Oh, I don’t know. There’s no reason you should do something that makes you unhappy. The idea is to improve things, right?”
“Right,” she said glumly.
“You should talk to Brian, Starla. There has to be another solution. You don’t want to leave that job. I can tell you don’t.”
“I don’t, but…”
“But what?”
She drew a deep breath, held it. Cast her gaze down at her lap. “Getting away from Brian Ross is the only way I’ll be able to move forward with my life.”
He wanted to be sympathetic. He wanted to offer comfort, assurance. But what came out was “Bullshit.”
Starla’s gaze snapped to his, her brows knitted above her dark eyes. He’d expected that anger. Damn if he was going to let it cow him. “I think I know better than you,” she bit out. “I told you we didn’t have to talk about these things if you’re—”
“No, I want to talk about it. Stop letting this dictate your life. He’s never going to love you. Face it. I had to. Macy is never going to love me. You get over it, and you move on.”
“Oh yeah? And that worked out for you how? You let Macy wreck your fucking marriage.”
“I did. I was weak, and I hurt a good woman, and now we have two little girls paying the price. So if you want to go that route, if you want to let this fester and eat at you and doom every relationship you have and every decision you make for the rest of your life, then be my guest. Been there. But I don’t recommend it.”
He glared hard at her as she jerked around and stared stonily through the windshield. “Take me home.”
“No.”
“You said you would.”
“You said you’d fix your problems. I’m giving you the best, the only solution. It’s the only thing that’s going to make you feel better, Starla. I know how hard it is to let go. I couldn’t. For years.”
“How?” she cried suddenly, and it ripped at his heart. “How do you let go when—they’re—they’re the only—one you’ve—” Sobs began punctuating her words, and finally she couldn’t finish. Jared lifted the console between them and scooted toward her, pulling her into his arms. She went, to his amazement—he’d expected her to resist, and he would have let her, would have taken her home if she insisted. Her tears soaked his shirt; her fists clutched at it now just as they had last night…only then, it had been passion driving her, not anguish. He leaned his cheek into her silky hair, stroking her shaking shoulders.