Under Locke (32 page)

“Good food, babe,” he finally muttered after twirling ribbons of pasta around his fork, gaze leveled on me.

I smiled at him, taking a few more mouthfuls of food. I glanced up again only to see him still looking at me.

O-kay.

“Is there spaghetti sauce on my face?” I asked.

He shook his head, stringing more noodles along the tines of his fork.

I let it go until I caught his eyes one more time. “I’m not kidding, what’s on my face?”

“Nothin’.”

I narrowed my eyes in his direction but kept watching him. Until he did it again.

Oh dear God.

I put my hand over the middle of my face. “There’s a booger in my nose, isn’t there?”

He looked at me for a long moment, a moment that stretched light years and galaxies. Time-wrinkled centuries  and possibly eons. Generations—

And then Dex was laughing. Laughing and laughing and laughing. Muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, “You’re the goofiest fuckin’ girl,” between bellows of barrel-shaped laughs.

And I might have had a booger in my nose, though I’d probably never know for sure, but that laugh coming from that man.

So worth it.

Chapter Eighteen

“That’s fucking outrageous!”

Dear God, what in the hell had I been thinking working at a tattoo parlor? A tattoo parlor that was right around the corner from a body shop. A body shop that was owned by the president of a biker club. A biker club that owned a bar, which seconded as headquarters for said club, who were enemies with stupid asses that beat up innocent—err, pretty innocent—people.

Where had my quiet life disappeared to?

And why hadn’t I insisted on going with Sonny?

With the exception of Rick, the drunk guy who had yelled at me and called me a bitch, every other client had been incredibly nice. Even when they had to pay the steep rates that the shop charged—with good reasoning. The reason
s
w
ere
framed all over the shop in printed acclaims.

The first time I heard how much Blake charged his client, I had to stop myself from choking. The prices could be down payments on
used
cars. I’m not exaggerating. But it was standard practice to agree on a fee before any piece got started so the customer didn’t have a fit at the end.

Obviously, not everyone functioned on the same wavelength.

This customer had been in once last week to talk to Blue about having some detailed script done on his ribs. Blue had drawn out the idea, spoken to the guy about the pricing and the
man
had scheduled an appointment to come in and get it done.

So why
the would-be client
was now standing in front of me while I was trying to take payment and having a fit to end all shit-fits—and this included the year I worked at a daycare—was beyond me. “Blue had already spoken to you about the pricing last week,” I reminded him.

Blue stood directly behind me, silent.

“You never said it was going to be that expensive!” the guy shouted at Blue, completely ignoring me.

Yes. Yes, she had.

“Sir, before we schedule anything in advance for custom artwork, the rate is agreed on,” I told him.

Pissed Off guy just shook his head. “
Fuck t
hat. I’m not paying that much for a goddamn tattoo.”

Blue and I looked at each other and shrugged. “Okay.”

There were payment options that Blake had told me about, but that consisted of the customer paying in advance for artwork or doing bits and pieces at a time as they could afford it. But if Blue wasn’t going to say anything about it, then I wasn’t either. I think we both could be perfectly happy having one less belligerent customer coming in over a period of time.

“Fuck that and fuck you guys!”

Blue and I glanced at each other again and shrugged.

“Fuck this place! You fucking thieves. Your shit ain’t that good.”

We just stared at him.

“You short little shit.” He pointed at Blue.

Blue blinked like she didn't give half a crap what he thought, but I did.

"Hey, that's unnecessary," I snapped back. Why did people have to be so rude?

And then the pissed off man moved his finger in my direction, ignoring my outburst. “And you, you—“

“Get the fuck out, man.”

Blue and I both whipped our heads over our shoulders to see Dex come prowling down the hallway from his office.

Oh snap!

With the mood he'd been in all day, I'd been relieved when he'd locked himself in his office as soon as we'd gotten to the shop. That morning he'd come out of his bedroom with his lips pursed, jaw locked, angry at the friggin' world. He'd snapped at me for just asking if he'd heard from Sonny. Sheesh. I wasn't sure what had gotten him so ripe but even I knew better than to ask.

So when the man yelling looked relieved, I didn’t understand why. Obviously, he’d never spoken to Dex before because if he had, he would
ha
ve known the look on his face was the opposite of anything that could resemble salvation or relief of any kind.

“Bro, your two drones here are trying to charge me an arm and fucking leg for my piece!” Pissed Off Guy said with that same relieved smirk on his face. “Can’t I get a hook-up for being a new customer?”

Dex had closed the distance between his office and my desk by the time the guy finished talking. At that point, he was standing right next to me, seven inches of space between us. If I moved my arm, it
would
touch the muscular tattooed thigh he’d shown me days before. The muscular thigh then made me wonder, for all of a microsecond what kind of piercing Dex had on his penis before I snapped myself out of it. Somehow I'd gone from a
relatively
content virgin to a woman who was constantly thinking about pierced genitals and nipples.

“No, bro, I
w
on’t, and if I did, I wouldn’t give it to someone who comes into my fuckin’ shop, hollerin’ and callin’ my employees little shits and whatever the fuck you were gonna call Ritz,” he ground out with a slight g
rumble
to his voice.

Pissed Off Guy sagged, shaking his head in a way that told me he didn’t think this conversation with Dex was over. “Aww, c’mon, bro.”

“Get the fuck out before I throw your ass outta here,
bro
,” The Dick warned.

Ooh, wheee. I somehow caught Blue’s gaze and we each made our eyes wide.

Dex inhaled a long, deep breath through his nose. “You got five seconds to get the hell out.”

There was no room for interpretation. I would
ha
ve left and taken my carbon footprints with me. Dex was pretty scary when he was pissed off—though Dex on a daily basis was pretty scary. I used to think it was all that ink on his arms but it totally wasn't. Since he usually wore t-shirts, his tats were always visible. All that black and gray on tanned skin was the first thing your eyes went to when speaking to Dex. Now, the more I got to know him, the more I realized that it wasn’t just the tattoos that made him intimidating.

Dex was a scary asshole period. He just radiated this pure “I-don’t-give-a-fuck” attitude, and that was scary. You couldn’t control or anticipate a person who didn’t care. They were wildcards. Add that in with his Dyna and his tattoos, and yeah—intimidating on the outside.

When the Pissed Off Guy held his arms out in a what-the-hell gesture, Dex shook his head.

“Five,” he started counting. “Four, three—“

“God. Fuck you guys and fuck this fuckin’ overpriced bullshit!” Pissed Off Guy’s voice had taken a slightly shrieking edge to it.

“Two—“

With all the class in the world, the guy shot us a
one-finger
salute and got the hell out.

Well.

Long, warm fingers wrapped around the back of my neck as Dex dropped down to his haunches, eye level with me. “You
all right
, Ritz?” His bright blue eyes were on mine, all traces of annoyance gone from his features.

“Yeah,” I told him. “He was just pretty dumb and rude.”

The smile he gave me in return was so soft it was hard to understand how his mood went from one side of the linear line to the other in seconds. It also reminded me of exactly what I’d told him on the ride back from Houston. The kindest, grumpy ass man in all of Texas.

“Yeah, he was,” he agreed.
Dex’s fingers gave my neck a squeeze. The action made my throat close up momentarily.  “C’mon, I’ll buy you a Coke.”

Like I was going to tell him no.

“You want a pop?” he asked Blue as he turned around.

She scrunched up her nose and shook her head. “I’m good.”

I followed after him, wait
ing
patiently while he put in the dollar bills to get our drinks. He popped the lid for me, handing
over
the drink with a frustrated smile.

"I can't stand assholes like that," he grunted. "What I wanna do is go beat his fuckin' ass."

Both my eyebrows went up. "Calm your horses. It's not worth you getting into trouble," I reminded him of what Shane had hinted at back in Houston.
“Or messing up your hands, dumb-bum.”

“Dumb-bum?” He blinked.

I shrugged. “Yeah. What would you do if you broke a couple fingers?”

“Babe, you only break fingers if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Blinking slowly, I opened my mouth and closed it. “I know you’re not kidding and yet…”

The corner of Dex's mouth tilted up, but it wasn't a smile of amusement exactly, it was more of a knowing smirk. "Ba
be
."

“I’m being serious. You have to take care of yourself. Keep that rage under control.”

“I’m good.”

The look I gave him was half disbelieving, half resigned. Then the opportunity hit me, and I stopped caring. “You weren’t good this morning.”

He scowled. I hit the battleship!

“What happened?”

“Nothin’ important. Don’t worry about it.”

What was it about that saying that grated on my nerves? I should shut up. I should mind my own business. The only thing was, I didn’t want to. “Did a bird poop on your bedroom window?”

Dex’s cheek ticked up in agitation. “Smart ass.” He blew out a long breath from between his lips. “My pa called my sis askin’ for money to buy new shoes.”

“Okay…”

Then he burst out unexpectedly, “And the dumbass gave it to him!” He squeezed his eyes shut, thumb and index finger pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t get what the hell is wrong with ‘em. I can sleep at night knowin’ he’s runnin’ around with holes in his shoes.”

Well, what could I say?
Don’t be mad?
Please. No way. If he disliked his dad half as much as I disliked mine, then...yeah. That didn’t mean I had to let him wallow in his frustrations even if it seemed to have passed. “There’s nothing you can do about it now though, is there?”