“I wasn’t planning to get drunk. The bar opened, and I wanted to hang out with Raven. Your sister is awesome.”
He grabs a napkin and leans over, wiping my chin. Maybe it wasn’t the whole using his thumb to get it and lick it off his finger, but it was still hot.
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“Don’t lie. You love her and you think she’s awesome, but have to protect your bad boy image.”
“My bad-boy image?” He takes another bite of his food.
“Did you kill anyone today?”
He chokes on the food, and I pat his back twice until he gets himself under control.
“The night is still young,” he mutters, making me laugh.
His gaze lingers, and my cheeks heat. I’m blushing right now and he can see it even in the dim light as dusk settles.
“Why are you staring?”
“You never laugh.”
“Ditto.”
He makes a face that says he agrees with that. What have we got to laugh about? Both of us have shit going on.
Colt keeps telling me to look for the joy in life, to put the past behind me and focus on the here and now. My here and now involves a grumpy, shady biker who fucks like a God but at the heart of him is a demon. Or one who does bad things, at the very least. A criminal.
“Your brain is working hard over there,” he interrupts my thoughts. “Is this about that painting?”
“No. I haven’t seen it in a while. And…” He knows my history, all of it. I can talk about this. “My parents have been brought up a lot. I purposely shut them out of my head, they’re not worth thinking about.”
“You got handed a bad deal.”
Nothing puts me off my food most of the time, but I pick at the lettuce instead of taking another bite. He isn’t trying to placate me, or tell me other people have worse parents than I do, which I’m grateful for. I’m aware other kids suffered more than I did.
“Why are you doing this?”
“What?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, Rebel.”
He screws up the wrapper of his quesadilla, which he finished in record time, and sighs. “Good question.”
“An answer would be helpful.”
He shifts in his seat so he’s facing me better. “We’re dealing with a lot right now and finding a solution is fucking frustrating.”
He will not tell me the details, which is fine, pushing him to give away anything on that side of things will only piss him off. And as much as I enjoy annoying him, he’s opening up and sometimes that is all we need. Someone to listen.
“Some of us aren’t seeing eye to eye on what to do about it, and the way I deal with shit is to get angry. Putting that anger on the wrong people won’t help. I’ve never had a place to get away from it. I’ve always done reckless shit instead.”
“Taking me for Mexican food is a place to get away from it?”
“That, or letting you draw me,” he says, a rawness to his tone, but his eyes are still hard, as if he’s annoyed with himself for even saying it, never mind thinking it. “Sitting still is not something I’m known for. This kind of thing isn’t me.”
I’m so desperate to ask if I’m the reason why, but I don’t want to put that out there, I don’t want to be disappointed in his answer.
Since I met the man, we’ve butted heads, in my mind we’re too alike, too quick to get angry, to do the reckless shit, which means we shouldn’t be around one another.
