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“You done with that?”
I look over to see Wallace pointing at the glass I’ve been staring at for the better part of an hour. “It’s just that I need to wash all the dishes or Drake will have my ass in the morning.”
“Sure,” I tell him. “Sorry. Where’s Joey?”
The newer guy has been the one to close with Rochelle every night that I’ve seen her home this week.
“It’s his day off,” Wallace says, taking the glass with a flat smile and heading into the back.
“Is it guilt?” Rochelle asks a few minutes later when she reappears from the back.
“What do you mean?”
“Staying here every night I close. Is it guilt about that other woman?”
I nod, knowing there’s no point in lying. “I should’ve been able to keep her from getting hurt.”
She doesn’t argue with me like the guys on the team did that one day. She doesn’t offer an excuse, and it leaves me wondering if she also believes I failed that poor woman.
“I know you probably have better things to do, but since I know you’re going to follow me home tonight, could I ask a favor?”
“Sure,” I tell her, thinking she’s going to tell me to fuck off or to follow her to her boyfriend’s house or something.
“I put in a call last week to the landlord, but he didn’t show today like he said he would to fix the garbage disposal. I can’t use my kitchen sink, and it’s really starting to smell. Do you happen to know anything about them?”
“I can take a look at it,” I offer.
She grins. “I really appreciate it.”
Wallace leaves first, and twenty minutes later, Rochelle is done counting down the till and heading out the front door. I wait for her to lock up and climb on my bike. The routine of her going to the bank and then directly home is rote by this point, and there’s a danger in that. If someone aims to hurt her, they could literally do it at any point on her route because she never switches it up.
I climb off my bike in front of her house, meeting her at the side of her car.
“You should really mix up your routine,” I tell her as she walks toward the front of her house, keys in hand.
“I like structure,” she says, the look in her eyes different now than they were at the bar. “I like rules.”
I tilt my head, the tone of her voice throwing up a flag.
“It makes it easy for someone to victimize you,” I explain.
“Only so many roads lead to my house, Ugly.”
I follow her inside, immediately taking note of the fresh floral scent filling the small living room.
“The sink is in here,” she says, turning on a small table lamp as she walks through the room.
I realize her lie the second I take a step into the room, but by the time I open my mouth to ask her why, she’s pressing her body to mine.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my hands immediately clasping her upper arms.
“I heard about you,” she whispers, her eyes dropping to my mouth a half second before she leans in to try and kiss me a second time. “How you like to take control. How you like being bossy in bed. It turns me on. You’ve been following me home all week, waiting for an invite inside.”
The way she says the last word makes it very clear she doesn’t mean inside her house.
Rochelle is a gorgeous woman, and I have no doubt she spends much of her time behind the bar, turning men down, but openly forward women aren’t really my thing. I also don’t shit where I eat. I’m not a man that calls the next day or gets involved on any level with something that might resemble a relationship. Sleeping with her, even if I wanted to, which I don’t, and going back to the bar would be out of the question, and I happen to like Jake’s. I’d never ruin that by hooking up with one of the employees there.
“I didn’t come here for that,” I tell her, using my grip on her arms to urge her away from me.
Her eyes shutter, that breathy let’s fuck woman she was transitioning back to the one that gives what I know now are empty smiles.
“I guess I read that wrong,” she says, her smile not reaching her eyes. “No hard feelings?”
“None,” I tell her as I make my way back through her house to the front door. “Lock up behind me.”
Silence fills the area around me until I throw my leg over my bike. I recognize the motor immediately, and I can hardly keep the smile off my face.
Lennox is parked halfway down the block. I guess I should count my lucky stars that she doesn’t pull out and run me over as I approach her car.
