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Kane chuckles deep and low, amused. “Yeah, babe. There’s a usual and you ain’t it.”
She wiggles on her seat, straightening her spine and looking adorable. This girl is sweet. The real kind of sweet that knocks a man off center. Her full lips part and she asks Kane with a frown, “What’s the usual?”
Kane leans in like he’s gonna let her have it, but with one glance in my direction, he shakes his head. Tav takes the moment to clap me on the back. “See things took a serious turn after last night.”
“Been serious for a while,” I lie, and Wrenlee blinks big eyes up at me. She’s so tiny, even sitting on the tall bar-height chair, her legs swinging, her head doesn’t hover above my shoulders.
“A while?” Ian lifts his chin, appraising us in confusion. “What’s a while?”
“What happened last night?” Kane grins.
Candace cocks her head to the side, the moreperceptive one of the bunch. I wonder what Wrenlee told her. “What’s serious?”
“Serious enough I moved Wrenlee in with me this morning.” I evade all other questions with the answer.
Wrenlee lets out a tiny hiccup before she covers her giggle with her hands, cheeks turning a shade of pink I imagine she’d turn if we were alone, and I convinced her to let me taste her.
Don’t go there, man. She’s drawn lines.
But lines are made for crossing.
No.
I give my head another hard shake as I force my gaze to cut from her.
Tav slams a big hand on the table. “You what-now?”
Wrenlee says innocently, “I’m living with Cash now. We’re—”
She’s wasted and doesn’t seem to make a habit of this, so I drop my arm around her shoulders and interrupt, “Speaking of home, I’m gonna get her there.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Kane shakes his head, his Russian accent more obvious than usual, hands lifted high. “How’d this happen? How’d you move some chick in with you when we didn’t even know you were seeing her? We didn’t know you were seeing anybody.”
“Because I didn’t tell anyone.”
Kane looks suspicious. Ian looks hurt. And Tav, well, Tav looks curiously between me and Wrenlee.Candace looks like she thinks this is going to be a damn good time.
“Dude,” Ian breathes, and Candace lets out a small chuff of laughter.
I narrow my eyes on her, wondering again what Wrenlee confessed to her before I look back to my wasted fake girlfriend.
“Talk soon, guys. Right now, Wrenlee’s my focus.” I tip my chin at the group. “You got my shit for me?”
Ian nods. Kane grumbles, “Sure.”
“Later.”
Then, without another word, I scoop Wrenlee from the chair and head for the back doors of Club Violet.
“I’msotired,” Wrenlee tells me as we ride the elevator to my floor. She’s leaning against the far wall, her head rolling back against the hard surface. “I didn’t sleep at all last night, worrying how I was going to do it after Addy cut my shifts.”
I don’t tell her she’d had no reason to worry. I’d already told her I’d see to taking care of her financially if she became my fake girlfriend. The girl is imbibed, big time. If I had to take a guess; I’d guess she doesn’t drink. At all.
Because from what I know of her so far, she’s quiet and careful with what she shares about herself.Tonight, that’s not the case. Tonight, she’s an open book with big, bold font.
I’m taking this chance to lean back and read.
“I’ve slept on an air mattress with a pin hole in it I can’t find. I wake around two or three every morning on the floor. It’s been that way since I moved here and I never bothered to complain, because why complain when I couldn’t fix it?” She laughs dryly. “I could hardly afford to eat twice a day, never mind buying a real mattress. But I snuggled up on the bed in your spare room today and—Cash—” The sound of my name on her lips like that pulls a physical response from every inch of me. I don’t like it, and yet I do.
