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Pearly gave me a long look, studying me hard before a wide smile flashed.
“What’ll it be?”
I nodded to Kat and Pearly shook her head. “French onion soup and chili cheese fries. Now you.”
“I’ll have a cheeseburger with bacon. And onion rings.”
“Got it,” she said and finished scribbling in her leather-bound notebook before she looked up with one hand on her hip and a mischievous smile just for Kat.
“I was beginning to wonder what the point was of all that beauty. Now I see.” She aimed her head at me as if I couldn’t tell she was talking about me.
“Well done, girl.”
“Oh, he’s not mine,” she said easily, but I could see the tension around her eyes. “Terry is an old family friend, my brother’s best friend, in fact.”
“I see,” Pearly said.
I wanted to ask what the hell she saw because I didn’t see a damn thing.
“Well maybe you ought to find a man to make this one jealous. It worked for me and Rod, and twenty-two years later he won’t let me forget it.” Pearly let out a long laugh and shook her head. “I’ll be back with food, and drinks since it looks like Leander is occupied.”
Kat laughed and glanced outside. “My money is on the quiet, dark-haired girl.”
“Really? I told Rod it would be the blonde in the red blouse, bet five bucks on it.” Pearly shook her head, grumbling under her breath as she walked away.
Who in the hell was this woman? I knew Kat wasn’t a spoiled princess, even if I gave her shit about it nonstop for the past decade and a half, but this was unexpected even for her.
And when the food came, she dug into it like a regular woman, not a prissy bitch who grew up in the lap of luxury. She wasn’t self-conscious about the messy meal in front of her, smiling and moaning with every bite. Licking her lips and her fingers, making it hard to focus on my own damn food.
Really fucking hard.
“You’re staring,” she said around a bite of chili cheese fries.
I was staring. A lot. And I couldn’t tell her why, so I leaned forward and swiped a bit of chili and cheese from her bottom lip.
“Watching you eat is an experience, Kat.”
She smiled and nodded to my half empty plate. “How do you like the food?”
“It’s delicious, but the sounds you make when you eat are… distracting.”
“You mean this sound,” she said and let out a low moan, similar to the one I heard on the balcony. At my obvious discomfort, she laughed. “Guess so.”
“Yeah. It’s almost as good as the one I pulled from you.”
It was my turn to enjoy Kat’s reaction, which included red cheeks and blue eyes that darkened with desire at the memory.
“That was impressive,” she admitted. “But so long ago I barely remember it.”
“Just say the word and I’m happy to remind you.” We were both playing with fire, but lately, it seemed as if Kat had forgotten that fact.
She leaned back, a knowing smile on her face as she folded her arms and notched her chin up slightly.
“Word.”
At my stunned expression, she finished off the last of her fries, licked her fingers and slid from the booth. “Just what I thought. You’re all talk, Manning.”
Kat Ashby was an irresistible challenge, one I found harder and harder to ignore. Especially when she threw down the gauntlet like she just had and walked away with that swing in her hips.
“Man you got it bad with a capital B.” Leander stood beside me, snickering like the kid he was, but he wasn’t wrong.
“It’s complicated,” I said to him even though my frustration wasn’t directed at the kid.
“Naw, man, it ain’t. What’s complicated is watching your girl be happy with someone else ‘cause you’re too much of a nutsac to go for her.”
I chuckled. “A nutsac?”
“Yeah, a nutsac.” The kid shrugged. “Pearly said pussies are stronger than a nutsac, and if I didn’t believe her, she had some birthing videos I could watch.” The kid shuddered visibly. “Gettin’ kicked in the nuts hurts, and I don’t even wanna imagine a baby coming out of my dickhole, so nutsac.”
He pointed to where Kat stood chatting with Pearly as she paid the tab. “Don’t be a nutsac, man.”
I must be losing my mind if I was even thinking about taking advice from a high school kid with a crush on my girl.
Not your girl if you keep pushing her away.
Good point. I stood with a determined smile and went to Kat. It was time to shit or get off the pot.
“You’ve got some colorful friends, Kitty Kat.” And it only made the woman more likable if that was even fucking possible.
She laughed. “Leander and Pearly, sure, but Rodrigo is as normal as they come.” Her smile for the bistro workers was pure affection as if she were talking about one of her brothers. “He’s a lot like Emmett, actually.”
