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“Want to tell me why you’re twitchy?”
I shake my head. The woman has an uncanny ability to read me like an open book.
“After the meet and greet,” I begin.
“Ah!” she snaps. “I forgot to tell you. McKenna invited me to a little girls’ night thing. I told her I’d check with you.”
“Jinx invited me to a little guys’ night thing at The Hairy Frog.”
Her cute little nose scrunches. “The Hairy—”
“It’s the local bar. I think it’s going to be like a bachelor type thing.”
She chews the inside of her cheek the way she does when she’s planning to act differently than she feels. I love it when she does that, so I keep my mouth shut and let it happen.
“You’re leaving me tonight for strippers?”
I tilt my head. “It’s a college town. They’re just working their way through school.”
She huffs a laugh, her cheeks pulling up with her smile as she swipes a hand out and smacks my arm playfully. “You’re rotten!”
I pull her to my chest. “I don’t think there will be strippers. You’d be welcome to come along if you wanted, but there’s a twenty-one and up rule unless you’re there with a parent.” I press my lips to hers when she opens her mouth to speak. “No fucking ‘be my daddy’ jokes either.”
Her laughter is contagious. “If you can predict everything I’m going to say, I think you’ll grow bored with me quickly.”
“Never,” I vow. “If you don’t want me to go, I’ll stay with you.”
“You can’t stay with me. I’m going to the girls’ night thing, and no guys are allowed.”
She takes a step back and pats my chest, and it gets my hackles up.
“Will there be strippers?”
She shrugs, her eyes sparkling with mischief.
“If there are, it’s a college town. They’re simply working their way through college.”
“Nearly every person here is on some type of scholarship. Lindell University is known for churning out athletes. You may not know this but Kid’s son and Colton’s son are graduates from here.”
I won’t go into more detail about recent trouble and the run-in with one of Angel Guerra’s men. She sees a sleepy little town that has somehow kept up with certain aspects of modern living, but has also managed to hold on to some pretty important old-school morals that many other places haven’t.
I know that a college student and a guardian were abducted from the school parking lot last year and forced into sex trafficking. I know that, although they weren’t hurt, Landon, Rick, and two other students were held captive by a psycho who was supposed to keep an eye on the female, but he deemed it too much work and took all four of them captive instead. I also know that Cerberus is here as a warning to anyone who might want to cause problems.
We don’t expect problems, but there’s always a possibility.
“On a different note,” she says, that same sparkle in her eyes. “Do you have a hundred dollars I can borrow, preferably in ones?”
She squeals in delight, drawing the attention of several people walking down the sidewalk when I lift her up and tickle her at the same time. I put her down almost immediately because I see fear in one woman’s eyes. She hasn’t decided if I’m a friend or a foe, but she legit looks like she’s getting ready to take a chance and pull a damn gun from her purse in order to defend Devyn.
I lift my hand to let her know I’m not a bad man and pull Devyn into my side. The woman seems satisfied when Devyn reaches up on her toes and presses a kiss to my cheek.
“I was joking,” she whispers. “Ones are outdated. I’ll need fives.”
***
“Everyone in this place is happy and you look like you’re being forced to chew glass.” Jinx knocks his beer bottle against mine, forcing me to move quickly to prevent it from falling over.
“Do you know what the women had planned tonight?” I ask.
Jinx shakes his head. “Painting their toenails and gossiping about us?”
“Devyn mentioned strippers.”
Jinx chuckled. “No way. Reagan would’ve told me.”
He takes another sip of his beer, but suddenly he’s no longer looking like he’s having a good time.
“You two look like someone took your toy and taunted you with it before running away.”
I attempt to smile at Kalen, Jinx’s younger brother and the man getting married tomorrow, but it feels awkward on my face.
“So,” Jinx says, his attempt at nonchalance sounding anything but. “What were the girls doing tonight?”
“Collins managed to round up a couple guys from the school to—”
“I swear,” Jinx growls, making Kalen tilt his head in confusion. “Fucking strippers?”
“Fuck no,” Kalen says. “McKenna would die of embarrassment.”
“You said Collins,” Jinx snaps. “I’ve killed a lot of men in my life, but never a cousin. It’s not looking good for him though.”
