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"What are leather leggings?" he asked, a divot of confusion in-between his eyes.
Dudes. So fucking clueless. "They are nirvana. Stretchy and sexy." She winked, unable to stop herself from teasing him. "My new motto."
Gray let out a groan. "Dear Lord, never say that again."
> "Seriously though, Kate is looking hot tonight. And I hear she's single." Her phone vibrated. One glance down confirmed a fourth text from Drew. Yep. Sheriff was pissed. She had to get out of here and back to the high school before his head popped off or the Rhinestone Cowboys spotted her. "Anyway, gotta run. Have fun!"
Without giving Gray a chance to stop her, she hustled out the door and into the bright late afternoon sunlight that temporarily blinded her, which explained why she didn't see trouble coming until it was too late. An arm wrapped around her waist and yanked her backward against a wall of rock hard muscle.
"Sweets," Drew's voice held a dark edge as he held her in his iron grip. "Didn't your mama ever teach you it's not polite to ditch your date?"
A shiver of anticipation glided across her skin as a quick blast of desire expanded out from her core. She snuggled her ass against Drew's thickening cock before her brain caught up to what her body was doing. She froze and gave her brain a second to catch up.
"I told you I was going to talk with Gray," she said, the explanation sounding dumb even to her ears.
"Uh-huh." He loosened his grip a fraction but didn't let go. "Try selling that story somewhere else."
"The Rhinestone Cowboys are inside."
He stilled behind her. "Which means you're not about to go back in," he said, something dangerous in his voice she'd never heard before now that made all her girl parts perk up with a hopeful sigh. Then, as quick as he'd grabbed her, he let her go and moved up so they stood next to each other. "Good thing you have other plans tonight."
"I do?" The images that flashed in her mind almost made her blush and she couldn't wait to try every single one of them out.
"Yeah." He slid his palm across the small of her back and guided her to his truck. "It's family dinner night at Casa Jackson."
Her gut churned. That was definitely not the answer she'd been expecting. In fact, it made the prospect of going head to head with the Rhinestone Cowboys sound totally doable. "Oh, no."
"Oh, yes." He opened up the passenger door. "Even if I have to drag you kicking and screaming and handcuffed to me you're not getting out of my sight again."
Ditching Drew wasn't an option though. He'd cuff her, she didn't doubt it for a minute—and part of her was hoping he would.
Drew
Somewhere in hell the devil was laughing his tailed little ass off. His mom and Leah sat opposite each other across at the Jackson family dining room table. He sat opposite an empty seat. Oh yeah, there was a place setting for his father but he'd stopped deluding himself about his old man's dedication to family eons ago. Saying the stilted conversation and long silences were awkward was like saying he only kinda wanted to drag Leah into the closest room with a door and relieve some of the stress stringing him tight since she'd dipped out of decorating duty at the gym.
"So Leah." His mom, Jennifer, set her fork down, leaving exactly half a baked potato, half a steak and half her vegetables untouched—just like they'd stay for the rest of the meal. "You sell drugs?"
Drew almost choked on his medium rare steak.
"I operate a fully-legal marijuana shop in Denver, yes." Leah responded without an ounce of emotion in her tone, almost as if all the shit he'd been giving her for her choice in careers had beaten some of the fight out of her.
He hated that. As soon as he got her alone, he'd apologize.
"What an...interesting life you must lead," Mom said, smoothing her hair, a nervous gesture that had become more frequent since she'd gotten out of rehab.
Leah nodded and took a bite, chewing with more effort than her mashed potatoes required.
Yeah, this was going even worse than he'd expected, but dinner with his mom wasn't a responsibility he could ignore. Keeping his head down, he shoveled in another bite of potato.
Dinner at his parents’ house had never been fun, not even when he was a kid. There was always some passive aggressive fighting going on between his functioning alcoholic mother and his philandering father. Not that they'd ever divorce. Too public a scandal. Instead, they just seethed silently and spent as much time apart as humanly possible—right up until his mom decided to spend twenty-eight days at the "spa" and came home with a twelve-step program that didn't include telling a single soul in Catfish Creek where she'd really been. The price tag for that? Drew had to come home and help her with her cover story. Faced with the choice between seeing his mom get better, even if she was still the queen of the perfect facade, or watching her lose herself in a bottle, he'd done what he'd always done. He'd given up the policing he loved, came home to Catfish Creek and done the right thing. And with Jess across the country and his dad all but missing in action, there was no one else to do it but him.
"You know, Jessica will be here on Thursday," Mom said. "She's coming from Hollywood."
"How nice for her," Leah said, sounding about as happy as a woman facing a firing squad.
Either oblivious or just too deeply attached to the reality she'd created in her head, his mom nodded in agreement. "Yes, all those big stars really depend on her. Now, if she'd just listened to me when I advised her about what she needed to be doing in L.A., well, she'd be one of those big stars but that girl never did listen. I think it was because of who she hung out with, and look, now here you are with my son."
Like an unexpected slap across the face, the words hung in the air. Grinding his teeth together, he smacked his palms down on the table on either side of his plate and stood.
