Under Locke (12 page)

"Baby, trust me, it's a pleasure."

I gave him a lopsided smile. "Bye, Trip."

Wiggling my fingers at him in goodbye, I hopped off the barstool and shimmied my way through the thick crowd of strangers.  I'd barely pushed through the doors when the loud roar that could
ha
ve only come from a group of motorcycles filled the air. The small group of people hanging outside smoking cigarettes were murmuring, but the louder the roar got, the louder their voices did too.

Six or seven bike
rs 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
ha
ve gone back inside and asked Trip to walk me out. I should
ha
ve, but I didn’t.

And that was my second mistake. I should
ha
ve 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 l
i
on 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 t
h
ey 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.

Unfortunately the same person that needed to get stabbed was the same one who would sign my paychecks. I had to grit my teeth. I wasn't going to apologize for not having a thick skin, as he put it. "I can't shrug off you being a jerk," I snapped. “Obviously, you don't really like me and that's fine. You’re pissed right now again for some reason, so I’m going to
leave,
” in hindsight, I should
ha
ve ended the sentence right then. But I didn’t. “Before you make me cry, your perfect highness.”

Two things happened to Dex’s hard face. I could see him physically flinch at the same time he sucked in a low, barely audible breath. Then he just stared at me. Eye to eye. Me having to look up at him because while I wasn’t short, he still towered over me.

Dex lifted a hand to press his fingertips to his upper lip. Silent. His odd shade of blue eyes were penetrating mine, probably hoping that I’d go back to my state of being a quiet, avoiding wuss. “Look...I'm
sorry.”

Did he say he was sorry?

"I can be a fuckin' asshole sometimes," he kept going.

Well, I wasn't going to argue with him on that point, though I wasn't exactly positive why he felt obligated to care whether or not he'd hurt my feelings. Probably because of Sonny. I could only imagine what he'd threatened him with.

"You're impatient and you're mean," I corrected him, not bothering
to
admit that I'd called him an asshole in my head at least a dozen times. A dozen times an hour that is.
“You’re rude—and forgive me for saying it, but you make some dumb friggin’ decisions. And you think I’m stupid? Why the hell would you risk hurting your hand by getting into fights with people?
That’s
stupid.” Should I have stopped? Yes. Did I? No. “What do you have to be so pissed off about anyway?”

It took me a second before what I said really hit me. What had I just done?

Stood up for myself. Sort of. It wasn’t like I could take it back either.

Dex's nostrils flared, his face still impassive. "Said I
didn’t mean it
," he repeated in a crisp tone.

"It's not that easy." I stood there, waiting for something I wasn't even sure of.

"Yeah it is
. I said sorry, now you can
quit bein' pissed," he said the words like a command.

Oh my God. "No." I narrowed my eyes at him. "
It doesn’t mean anything if Sonny had to threaten you to be nice.”

That same muscle in his neck quivered again as he stared back at me.
“Look…”
That burning blue gaze made a slow trek from my face down my body and up again. Slow, slow, slow. Under the thick black stubble of his neck, his throat bobbed. The texture of his voice got rougher. "I'm sorry,
all right
? Ain
’t that enough?
"

This was pointless. I loved words. I
’d always loved words. I loved the freedom you could find in them. I loved manipulating them. I loved the way they sounded and the power they held.

But sometimes,
sometimes
, they weren’t enough.

Sometimes strings of letters were meaningless in comparison to actions. Actions held the power of a choir versus the strength of a solitary singer. My bones recognized that this was all I would get, this one person a cappella.

“Be the bigger person,”
my mom would have said.
I didn’t really want to but
I lifted a shoulder anyway. My breath came out shaky. "
Saying that you’re sorry doesn’t take back what’s been done, at least in my book
. I can
’t just forget it overnight.
"

Dex's throat bobbed again, those eyes beamed a hot line straight into me. "
I wanna ask if you’re bein’ serious, but I think you are.
"

When I didn't say anything in return, he licked his bottom lip, looking down my length one more time.

“Say somethin’
."

I didn't.

He stared at me for a minute, the tension in his shoulders tightening before he let out a whoosh of air. Pure exasperation. "
C’mon
."

Was I that resentful that he could see that I wasn't happy with him? That I'd rather sit in a portable toilet than next to him? I'd spent the last few years trying my best not to stress about things, trying to take care of myself, and the first time someone was genuinely mean to me–upset me—I crumbled?

I could still be hurt, but I didn't want to let that linger in me too long. Not anymore.

"
Ritz
?" he asked in a low voice.

I shrugged. God. There really wasn't a point in being bitter forever. Constantly raging against him went against
the majority of the cells in my body.
“Forget it. Apology accepted. I won't say anything to Sonny again.” Words, words, and more empty words. I wasn't lying, I was going to find another job and never say a word about Dex again.

Beeping the doors unlocked with the key fob, I lowered my eyes to his throat, noticing for the first time that Dex had put on his Widowmakers vest at some point.

I cleared my throat and eyed his Adam’s apple. “See you Tuesday.”

Dex didn’t say a word as I got into my car. He only took a step back when I turned the ignition.

When I glanced back in the rearview mirror after pulling out of the lot, he was still exactly where I’d left him.

Chapter Seven

“Son, on a scale from one to ten, how mad would you be if I quit my job?” I asked over breakfast.

And by breakfast I meant we’d both gotten up well after noon, but since it was the first meal of the day, I figured it was still considered breakfast. Wouldn't it? I didn’t have a clue what time he’d finally gotten home. I was in bed by three and promptly passed out before the backlight on my cell phone was out.

Sonny made a noise that sounded like a muted chuckle in his throat before peering up at me, chewing on a piece of bacon while raising a tired auburn eyebrow. “More trouble in paradise?”