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“A… no,” I said, pushing the hundred back toward him. “Absolutely not. I don’t want pity money.”

“Then think of it as respect money,” he said, reaching over the bar to shove it into the bucket there before taking his drink and moving away from the bar.

“Sit your ass down, would you?” Toll grumbled an hour or so later as I got another round of shots for the barely legal kids who were about to be cut off.

The girls were getting a little loose. The guys were getting a bit handsy. It wasn’t a combination I liked.

They could have their last round. Then they were cashing out, and I was shuffling the girls into a ride myself. Without any of those guys.

“I’m fine,” I insisted for what felt like the fiftieth time since I’d come in.

But then the door was opening.

And in were walking some familiar faces.

The girls from the clubhouse.

Then a whole crew of guys in cuts.

I braced myself for him, knowing he was coming.

Then there he was.

And it took all of three seconds before his gaze found me there behind the bar.

Maybe not everyone would have noticed all the changes in him that I did right then.

But it was in his posture.

In his jaw.

In the hard look around his eyes.

I pretended to busy myself, feeling oddly insecure about how awful my face was looking now that the bruises had gotten a bit of a chance to settle in.

So I fiddled with the glasses.

I put away a bottle in the rack.

But then a hand was slapping down on the surface of the bar right in front of me, making my gaze shoot up.

“What the fuck?” he asked, tone that strange mix of calm and homicidal that I’d heard before.

“It’s nothing,” I insisted, even trying to offer him a small smile to hammer that home.

He wasn’t buying it, though.

Before I could even guess what he was doing, he was planting his hands on the bar, pulling himself up onto his feet on top of it, then jumping down behind it.

I’d barely wrapped my head around that when I felt my hand snagged in his.

And then he was pulling me down the back of the bar and into the kitchen where the busboy was busy washing glasses.

He walked me through the kitchen and into a back office, making me wonder how he knew the blueprint of the place so well.

Flicking on the light as he slammed the door behind him, he pulled me around to face him.

“Who?” he asked, tone so fierce that my body felt both fear and desire somehow simultaneously.

“No one,” I said, shaking my head.

“Theo…”

“No, it was no one,” I insisted. “I was in an accident.”

“An accident,” he repeated, eyes scrunching up like that made no sense.

“Yes. Car vs. tree. Tree won.”

“You ran into a tree?”

“Well, it was the tree or the nice lady with the baby in the backseat,” I told him. “My brake went to the floor,” I said, shaking my head, still confused by that. I’d replaced the brakes before driving the damn thing across the country.

I might have been willing to deal with the broken heat and air conditioning and the fact that the tires were just shy of bald, but I wasn’t taking chances on shit like the brakes.

But, I mean, I’d gone to a shoddy shop, looking to pinch some pennies. Who knew what happened. Maybe they’d given me shitty parts or something.

“It went to the floor?” he asked, still confused.

“Yeah.”

“Were they going for a while?”

“They were new actually. But it’s… whatever. I’m okay. The car isn’t. But I will figure that out eventually.”

“You’re not okay,” he told me, his hand finally releasing mine, lifting to gently trace across my cheekbone and under my eye where I knew the bruises were darkening by the minute.

It was such a gentle touch from such a ferocious man, and I felt myself start to melt in response.

“No,” I agreed, nodding. “But I’m going to be okay. It’s just a bump and some stitches. And my shoulder hurts,” I said, finding it felt good to talk about it instead of insisting that everything was fine over and over again.

“It’s a big bump,” he said, his hand moving up, sliding over hair that was crunchy from my blood. I’d tried to wipe some of it away while at the hospital waiting for my discharge papers, but it had hurt and my hair was dark enough that I figured it wasn’t all that noticeable.

“It bled like a bitch,” I told him.

“Head wounds,” he said, nodding. “Concussion?”

“Mild one.”

“Doesn’t feel mild though,” he said, “judging by the squinting.”

“My head is screaming,” I admitted. “They gave me a pain pill, but it isn’t cutting it.”

“Figure only one of those is gonna work if you chase it with a drink, then go to sleep. You need more?”

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