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Adam pulled his phone out and sent a text—hopefully to the entire fucking SWAT team—and then shoved it back into his pocket.
I’d just taken a right onto the aisle that would lead me to the mascara when Rogan hissed again.
This time in pissed off fury.
He obviously did not like being ignored.
“I said I’m talking to you!” Rogan bellowed.
I sighed when Adam stopped and put himself in front of me, then faced Rogan head-on.
“I think,” Adam said, “you need to turn around and go back home. Wherever you came from would be nice. But if that’s not going to work, back to your fancy house where my girl’s nowhere near.”
“Your girl is following me,” he countered. “Right, boys?”
Hilton, who got my boot in his face, nodded once. “Pretty sure that’s my understanding.”
“Uh-huh.” Adam shook his head. “Maybe you should call the police.”
Rogan narrowed his eyes. “Maybe I will.”
“You do that,” Adam said, then turned, but not fully. He didn’t put his back to the men. “Baby, grab what you need.”
So I did, speeding through the aisles as if I were on Supermarket Sweep—man, I loved that show.
I had everything I needed and was in the self-checkout when the police came through the door.
Rogan, who’d followed us the entire way, looked smug.
I, on the other hand, could’ve gone with punching him in the face again. The bastard could use a good ass-kicking. And wouldn’t it be even better if it came from a girl?
I’d just swiped my last thing across the scanner when Adam swiped his card.
I rolled my eyes but let him do his thing, very aware of his alpha male tendencies, and knowing when to choose my battles. Putting my things in the cart, I was just about to turn around when my arm was grabbed hard from behind.
“This is her!” Rogan growled.
Except, it wasn’t Rogan doing the grabbing, it was Adam.
He’d seen Rogan reaching for me when I had not, and had moved until I was behind him and he was pushing me practically onto the counter at my back.
“Don’t. Touch. Her,” Adam snarled.
“That’s her!” I heard cried from somewhere beyond Rogan. “She punched me in the bathroom! I’m pressing charges!”
“I did see her punch her,” an elderly lady said. “But that was only after that girl pushed her. Though, I don’t think that kind of reaction was quite necessary.”
I pressed my forehead against Adam’s back.
“Really?” I heard Rogan say. “She’s a menace to society!”
And that was how I found myself in handcuffs for the second time in a matter of a week.
***
“Mackenzie.”
I stood up, stiff from my uneasy perch on the edge of the bench I’d been occupying for the last hour, and walked to the cell door that was being held open for me.
I didn’t spare the officer a glance as I made my way out the door and to the man that was standing behind him.
“I will completely understand if you want to break up with me,” I murmured. “But, I swear to God. That girl had it coming.”
Adam grinned, flashing me a row of straight white teeth, and pulled me into his arms.
I groaned and rested my head against his pectorals. “I need food. Like, thirty minutes ago. But the officer didn’t want to listen.”
Adam stiffened and I knew he was staring at the officer at his back.
“She’s diabetic,” Adam said to the officer over my head. “If she’d have had low blood sugar in there, I would’ve had your ass.”
I heard the officer start to shuffle. “Listen, man. It’s not like I don’t hear all kinds of excuses. Sure, your lady’s was a little original, but I hear ‘em all the time.”
Adam didn’t say anything, instead taking me out of the hall, through some area that I hadn’t seen before, and out a back, side exit.
“You been here before?” I muttered, voice slurred slightly.
That was when my eyes got heavy and I contemplated taking a nap instead of eating.
Which was when I knew that things were getting dire.
“I need food,” I repeated.
“Working on it,” he murmured, taking me down the alley where the door had spit us out into.
“What’s going on?”
That wasn’t my dad or my brothers.
That was my sister.
“She needs something to eat. Now,” Adam said. “You don’t happen to have… ahh, good.”
I swayed on my feet when I felt Adam lift my head up and place a slip of chocolate into my mouth.
It wasn’t enough.
“Need juice.”
Simple, easy words were all I was capable of at that point.
I was dead on my feet from very little sleep the night before. My eyes felt like lead weights were attached to them, and to make matters worse, now my blood sugar was perilously low.
“Here,” someone said.
I didn’t recognize that someone.
But a bottle was placed to my mouth, and I tasted chocolate milk.
“Mmmm,” I said, greedily sucking it down.
