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"Paine... Shooter... Breaker..." I explained, shaking my head.
"Johnnie and Bryan if that helps," Paine explained, waving at Shooter when he said "Johnnie" and Breaker when he said "Bryan".
"And by Johnnie," Shooter explained, "he means Johnnie Walker Allen."
"Like the scotch?"
To that, he smiled. "Yeah, darlin', like the scotch. I had a dick of an old man too."
Unsure how to respond to that, I gave him a small smile before turning back to Paine. "I really do need to get..."
"You got another twenty minutes before you even needed to leave your place," he cut me off.
"Well I, ah, left my coffee in my car," I tried. I wasn't sure why I wanted to get out of there so badly, but I did. There was something about being around a man you were sort-of seeing when his friends were around that made a woman feel a lot like she was at some kind of audition. And well, with names like Shooter and Breaker and the aura of badassery that was coming off of the men, I was pretty sure lame ole' me wasn't going to impress them.
"Coffee in the kitchen. You know where that blueberry shit is," he said, waving a hand toward his open apartment door.
"She knows where the blueberry shit is?" I heard Breaker's amused voice ask as I scurried quickly, but not quickly enough to look like I was running away, into Paine's apartment.
I had just gotten the blueberry bottle out of the cabinet when a voice behind me said casually, "Alright, peaches, spill," Shooter's voice called.
I jumped, spinning with the blueberry bottle held up like I might strike out with it. "Sorry," I apologized when his brows drew together at the action. "I've had some, ah, close calls lately. I'm on edge."
"Paine filled us in," he explained with such a casual shrug that I was left to wonder if what was going on for me and was extremely strange was just usual and commonplace to them.
"What did you want me to spill about?" I asked, turning to finish fixing my coffee before I focused my attention back on him.
"How you're still here."
"I'm sorry?"
"Pretty girl, I'm sure it hasn't exactly escaped your notice the kind of man Paine is. Meaning the non-monogamous kind. You're a smart woman. You can spot a guy like him a mile away."
"You mean a guy like you?" I countered.
"Formerly," he said. "Found my girl. Been settled for a year now. But we aren't talking about me. I want to know how you got Paine taking you out to eat and making a big deal about you trying to rush out of here."
"Honestly, I don't know. I'm not that special. I mean, compared to you guys, I'm painfully normal. I don't know what is, ah, making Paine act differently."
"If you think you're not special, you're seriously fucked in the head, sweetheart."
"I didn't mean it like that. It's just... I don't know. I don't get it eit..."
"Oh perfect!" a female voice called from the store and I felt myself start.
"Don't go for the blueberry bottle," Shoot grinned. "I can protect you from Paine's mother."
"Paine's mother?" I asked, true horror evident in my tone.
"This is gonna be fun," Shooter said, rubbing his hands together as he moved to stand in the doorway. "Hey Mama Gina," he called to the woman I couldn't see.
"Shoot! Wow. One stop today. I wanted to invite you and Amelia and Breaker and Alex and Paine and, well, whatever flavor of the week he's got, to dinner Sunday night."
Alright.
I was mortified.
Mortified.
I wanted one of those sinkholes to open up right underneath Paine's shop and swallow me up into it.
Whatever flavor of the week he's got.
Flavor of the week.
I was a flavor of the week?
Was that possible?
It seemed like it seeing as there had obviously been women he had brought to his mother's house in the past. So if he brought them to meet his mom, it really wasn't a big deal that he took me to dinner and drew me cute little pictures that made me smile like a lovesick teenager.
God.
I was so freaking gullible.
There was the loudest silence following her statement that I had ever heard before. I could tell all three men were shocked silent, given that they knew I was present and what I must have been thinking at that comment.
"Ma," Paine's voice finally broke in, "hold up a minute," he said and I could hear his footsteps moving toward the apartment. My head was shaking no even before he crossed in. I'm a little ashamed to admit this, but I actually backed myself into a corner. "Come on," he said, holding a hand out toward me.
"No." Nope. No freaking way.
He closed the gap between us, his hips pressing into mine which pressed my ass into the counter hard. "I've never brought someone home to meet my mother. She was being a smartass. That's how she is. Now stop giving me a look like I kicked your puppy while declaring to the world at large that you've got the sweetest fucking pussy I've ever tasted."
