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“It’s more than that.”
I close my eyes. “It was a stupid idea anyway. I’ll just—”
“Hey, Sidney?” he asks.
Slowly I open my eyes and look at him. “Yes?”
“What would you say if I said I know a place you can stay? Almost free?”
That spark starts up again in me, but I push it down. “I’d ask if there’s a catch?”
“A catch?”
“Yes, because I’m not sleeping with you.”
“I’m not that kind of man,” he says with pure, warm indignation. “I fuckin’ told you that. You suspicious little Princess, you. Next, you’ll accuse me of hiding peas in your bed.”
“Gross.”
“London loves that story. God only knows why.” Mack laughs. “She’s my friend Isaac’s kid. Cute as a space cat but no taste in literature and colors.”
I find myself smiling. “Didn’t you say she’s about four?”
“Age is no excuse.” His gaze hits mine again, this time serious. “But no strings in this offer. I have a cabin, and okay, I guess there’s a string.”
“I knew it.”
“Free rent in exchange for getting it in shape. It’s more than livable, it just needs to be cleaned, spruced up, that kinda thing. And someone there saying it’s occupied by virtue of being there, you know? It’s a fishing and hunting cabin, but this time of year, the lake’s beautiful, and I’d like to keep the tourists and idiots seeing something empty and deciding to set up camp.”
Excitement blooms, and even as I try to stop it, it blooms anyway. “Dangerous?”
“No. Just people see an empty place, and they think they can use it. Perfectly safe.”
The blooms burst into wildflowers. “I’ll think about it.”
“I’ll show you tomorrow.” Then he switches lanes to a bar set back from the road with a big lot and bright lights. There are motorcycles and pickups and loud music.
It looks rough and tumble, and the kind of thing more than a few bars on the Lower East Side wish they were.
“This,” I say, “is not dinner.”
He grins as he parks. “Yes, it is.”
Mack leads me inside.
It’s not at all what I expected.
ChapterSeven
Mack
Okay, so maybe I brought her here for reasons other than they’ve got the best burgers around.
Maybe, just maybe, a part of me hoped to see the princess recoil at the rough and tumble, what you see is what you get that’s Tiny’s Roadhouse.
But she doesn’t. The wall of noise and music greets us along with a hops-laden blast of warm air that’s also thick with sweat and the goodness of caramelizing meat and frying fries, and Sidney tips her head, eyes alight. She grins, pushes up the glasses she’s not wearing, and starts in.
I hook a finger in the back of her dress.
