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“Shhh.” She pressed a long finger to my lips. “No arguing. No complaining. And don’t say fuck so much. We’re civilized. Sophisticated.”
“Speak for yourself,” I mumbled against her finger.
“I don’t know, Gunner, I think you look pretty sophisticated to me.”
Finding a suit to fit me had made the poor men’s department attendant break out in a cold sweat, but we managed to find one in a dark navy that worked better than I could have hoped without tailoring. I didn’t know what it cost, since Rachel insisted on paying, but I would have paid whatever just to have her look at me the way she was doing right now.
I almost suggested going back upstairs and spending the night between the sheets, but we still had a job to do in the morning, and I planned on sticking by our agreement to not get too out of control with each other until the job was done. Plus, she was excited to go out, which in turn, made me excited, too.
It was probably a bad idea, and totally counterproductive to what I was supposed to be doing right now, but I took everything in my brain; the statue, Dark Hand, the threats on our lives, and placed it all out of my mind for the night. We both deserved a few hours of normalcy.
Nick and Sam’s wasn’t the first steakhouse I’d been to, and it wouldn’t be the last, but it was definitely the most memorable.
Rachel’s tenuous connection to the executive chef was enough to score us a table on short notice, and considering how packed the place was, it was a good thing she did. Everything was black on black, including the ceiling, and the lights were lowered to make it even more ambient. Truth is, it wasn’t memorable because of the food, or the atmosphere, though. It was memorable because of the company.
Rachel continued to turn heads when we arrived, and I could tell it gave her a sense of pride, but she let her guard down with me once we were seated, some of the stiffness leaving her form. No more controlled smiles, either. Now she let her nose wrinkle up, laughing at my stupid jokes and leaning forward over the table to point out things on the menu she wanted us to get. It was so easy to be with her, at any time, not just now. We shouldn’t have clicked into place with each other as easily as we did, but I think we were both helpless to prevent it. I know I was, at least.
It was hard throughout the meal to remember that we weren’t anything but work partners until we completed our task. This dinner date existed in a bubble. Outside of that bubble, people still wanted us dead, the artifact was still missing, and we still had zero idea where it could possibly be. Life was still difficult and chaotic; we had just found a temporary reprieve. A hint of what things could be like if we triumphed over everything standing in our way.
I couldn’t stand the idea of saying goodbye after everything concluded, but I also couldn’t let this potential romance take precedence in my life over finding the statue, and it was almost too tempting to tell her to load her things into my SUV and run from it all. But there were other people depending on me. It wasn’t an option.
We ordered steaks, a tomahawk and a filet, and it was almost a religious experience. I had sat down with the idea that we could have been at a fucking Waffle House and I would have enjoyed it equally, but tasting everything quickly changed my mind. We had been eating to survive all week, and this was a luxury.
Rachel ordered wine, too, but I didn’t partake. All the horrible things that had happened to us had been at the most unexpected of times, and I wasn’t taking any chances.
“So,” Rachel asked, candlelight reflecting in her eyes, “did you always want to own a security business? What did little Gunner Stone want to be when he grew up?”
“I wanted to be a soldier for a long time, all because I wanted to protect other people, but as I got older and saw my friends join up and come back jaded, plans changed. There were other ways to go about keeping people safe, and that’s why I started Stone Security. Pretty boring origin story, I know.”
“I can’t even imagine you as a kid,” she drawled, swirling her wine around in her glass. “You’re just so, you know. Big.”
I chuckled. “I started banging my head on door frames at thirteen and it hasn’t gotten any better since. I just have better spatial awareness these days.”
She speared a bite of food and chewed thoughtfully, chin resting in her hand as she looked out over the other tables in the restaurant. It held a lot of couples like us, and small groups of friends, none of the craziness that can pop up at less exclusive places during the weekend dinner rush. “I can’t wait to get back to the real world,” she mused.
“I can’t believe you’ve been able to take this much time off work.”
A shadow passed over her expression. “I won’t lie. I’ve pissed off a few people, but what else can I do? Just me being on set somewhere would put everyone in danger. I just—” she placed her fork down and rubbed her temples. “I really hustled for some of those opportunities, and now the shoots have come and gone. It sucks.”
“I wish you would have told me,” I said softly, reaching over to take her hands in mine. “We could have made something work.”
“I know.” She squeezed my hands reassuringly, as if I was the one that lost out on something meaningful. “But I weighed my options and the Syndicate showing up, even if I had you and other guards, would be more damaging to my career than just taking another week or two off for personal reasons. I’d never stop being the girl who had a hit put out on her, and that's too much drama even for the adult industry. People talk and a story like that would get around fast.”
“I hate that you’re right. Fuck. I’m sorry Rachel.”
She tried to wipe the distressed look off her face, one side of her mouth quirking up. “I specifically requested less fucks for this date.”
“That’s the first one I’ve dropped, so give me a break.”
“Fair enough.”
She turned her beautiful face away, and I saw her tapping a single tear out of the corner of her eye with her pinky. It broke my heart in two, this tiny sign that she was hurting, that her life was slowly and methodically being torn apart because of the carelessness of a man that took her love for granted. A man that would have probably sacrificed her life for his own comfort, or for money. The quiet strength of women has always amazed me, but this particular woman was on a level all her own.
When she looked my way again, her eyes were like dark amber lit from within. There was sorrow, stubborn resilience, fear, and something I was too afraid to name. Some sort of affection that I hadn’t had the chance to experience as a man, and that I was not sure I deserved from her.
The same damn feeling was churning inside of me, too, more heavy and consequential than it had any right to be. I knew Rachel was going to be trouble from the morning I saw her, bare-legged and hair mussed from sleep and now, as she sat across from me looking like a goddess who had just walked out of the sea, I knew that trouble was such a vast understatement.
I had feelings for her. Not just because I’d seen what she looked like when she came, or because she was exactly the type of woman I went for. Not even because of the easy friendship we’d formed. It was all of that, rolled into one, plus the way she trusted me with something as fragile as her heart after what her asshole ex did to her. I didn’t deserve it, I knew that I didn’t.
