Hayden made a snorting sound. "I've seen sharks smile more than you."
Beyond annoyed, she looked out the front window. "I'm not just going to run around all day smiling like an idiot."
"No, you just walk around with that…face you make." Joel zig-zagged a finger at her face.
"What face?" she protested. Though she knew exactly what face they were referring to, herresting bitch face. But she dared them to say that, though.
"Like a queen leading her army into battle," Hayden offered.
Joel countered with his own. "Like an assassin slitting the throat of their acquired target."
Hayden's eyes danced with laughter. "Like a ruthless dictator casually pressing the red button on their enemies."
"Like a-"
She held up both hands, interrupting the rude back and forth. "I get it!" She was beyond insulted, but at the same time, she couldn't help but laugh. "It’s calledresting bitch face,"she informed them. "I know I have it, and there's nothing I can do to change it."
Beneath that thick, dirty-blond beard, Joel's lips curled into a slow smile. "Oh, I don't want you to change it."
"Not at all," Hayden added.
"We just want you to grace us with a wee smile every now and again. You know, for optics sake. Can't have the citizens of Holter thinking we have you captured in our house and forcing you to work in our coffee shop."
"I smile at the shop," she said defensively, but some of the fight was missing from her voice. "I make sure I do," she added weakly.
Hayden laughed. "That is the tightest, most hard-pressed smile I've ever seen."
"I'm surprised you aren't popping into the back to take breaks from the sheer effort from it," Joel smiled, making his dark blue eyes sparkle in the sunlight.
"Enough," she snapped. "I'll work on it, dammit. You just get on with this tour." She waved her hand commandingly in the air.
Joel laughed at that. "Yes, Ma'am."
And Hayden mumbled something under his breath she couldn’t quite hear.
They took her to the edge of town back toward the main interstate that she rode in on a few weeks back. Going east, they showed her the outskirts of Holter and the majority of the residential homes that clustered along the county's borders. From there, Joel pointed to the exit for Fort Mason, a supposed top-secret military base surrounded by a city also called Fort Mason.
Taking a lonely-looking road, Hayden bumped the truck down a deserted two-lane farm-to-market road surrounded by endless stretches of fields. Music played, filling up the comfortable silence that had settled over them. With each uneven dip in the old road, the truck jostled, swaying her slightly from left to right. Sapphire could smell the subtle spice of cologne, soap, and the sharp tang of men's deodorant with each lolling movement of the truck.
Taking her eyes from the dry winter fields, Sapphire found herself focusing on the restless movement of Joel's fingers against his thighs. In bold midnight ink, a cobra was etched into his skin with its venomous mouth open, ready to strike. How had she never noticed the tattoo before? She continued to watch as the tendons in his long hands pulsed under each movement as his fingers tapped to the beat of the music. She could imagine a tattoo that detailed and dark must have hurt a lot. The urge to say just that died on the tip of her tongue as her eyes scanned his thigh just underneath his fingers. Sapphire could feel her lips go dry as she sized up the thick muscles leg pressed against his jeans.
Cautiously she let her gaze slide to her right at the other masculine thigh pressed against the side of her other leg. Caught in a trance, she briefly allowed herself to wonder at the full scope of both of their bodies. From what little she had seen of Hayden's with the inadvertent flash of his abs, there was no doubt in her mind the rest of his body matched as well. Glancing back at Joel's leg, she let her gaze trace up his exposed forearm where the fabric he pushed up bunched at his elbow.
They were so different from her last boyfriend. A boyfriend she had considered very manly at the time. Older than her and going to community college, she had secretly prided herself in dating older, unlike her other girlfriends. She had told them she wanted more than just high school experience. Sapphire had to hold back a derisive snort at the thought. What a load of disappointment that turned out to be. The sex had been boring at best, and hisworldly sensibilitieshad all been a farce. He had been just as immature as any guy in her class. And now, to make things worse, she was beginning to realize his body, something he had prided himself on, wasn't even in the same realm as these two men—realmen.
She felt cheated.
"What are you tsking about?" Joel asked, his eyes shining with mischief.
Lifting her chin, she gave him a wry smile before glancing at Hayden, who was also listening. "Oh, nothing, just remembering something unimportant."
Joel made a humming sound under his breath as he gave her a critical look. She wanted to say something witty, something in her usual snappish attitude that would disrupt the quiet that had settled around them. Anything to break her attention away from her memories and her focus on the absolute male sandwich she was suddenly noticing herself in.
Thankfully Hayden took the task from her.
"Those are Vic's fields," he said, pointing one finger up from the steering wheel and pointing to the desolate but neatly lined rows of tiny bushes.
Each bush looked as if it was given a harsh buzz cut at its base.
