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The lights and whir of cars spoke of freedom as I continued to run.
Then, kneeling down at the side of the highway, I carefully lowered the woman down.
And called the police.
Even as the rumble of bikes drew closer.
CHAPTER TWO
Lexy
“Come onnnnn,” Lottie pleaded, sticking out her lower lip and making her big brown eyes go round. “Don’t be a party pooper,” she added.
“God, do people still say that?” I said with an eye roll.
“Yes, those of us who are not, in fact, party poopers, say it,” Lottie insisted with this little smirk of hers that I’d always liked. It was a mix of mocking and affectionate.
Lottie didn’t have a mean bone in her body, but she did often reserve her annoyance for me. The big sister who was the wet blanket over the never-ending good time that was her life.
It wasn’t that I wanted to be that to her.
It was just… how the chips had fallen.
Me, being older. Us, having been raised by a father who didn’t know what the hell to do with two daughters, so he often just… didn’t bother with us. In turn, forcing me to be the adult, the parental figure.
I constantly had to try to veer Charlotte down the road less likely to lead to ruin.
The problem was, when you had someone always looking out for you, shielding you from the ugliest parts of the world, you often didn’t get a chance to see the danger all around for yourself.
Hence… Lottie.
And her love of partying.
And my hatred of it.
Because I couldn’t just… let her go alone. We were both adults now, but I couldn’t let go. Some part of me felt like I always had to be there, that I had no choice but to try to protect her from whatever bad shit could happen. Even if all I wanted to do was go home, slip into comfy clothes, turn on some Forensic Files and go to bed early.
“We just went to the bar,” I said.
“That was a week ago,” Lottie said with an eye roll as she reached up to gather her long hair, and pulled it over one shoulder.
Aside from our hair length and color, we looked a lot alike. She, though, always got all the eyes on her. Including the trio of men who were moving into the studio behind her, dragging their guitar cases and various crap with them.
I’d concluded it was Lottie’s lightheartedness, her sweetness and openness, that they picked up on. Compared to my coldness and hardness, my general distaste for most of humankind.
“You need to loosen up,” Lottie said. It was her usual refrain. There was just enough truth in it that it stung whenever she said it, even if I knew she didn’t intend to be hurtful.
“One drink,” I said.
It was a Thursday night, after all.
I had work in the morning.
“Yes! I knew I could wear you down,” she said, beaming at me. “I’m gonna tell the girls,” she said, reaching for her phone.
I should have known she meant with the girls, not just the two of us.
Which meant that it most certainly would not be one drink.
I would nurse one, of course.
They would con round after round out of whatever poor saps were at the bar. And then likely take this night to a secondary location.
I went to the back office, putting on another pot of coffee. I was going to need it. Sleep was a pipe dream now if all the girls were going partying.
A couple hours later, I was standing in a bar, keeping an eye on my sister and her three best friends as they made new friends with a few other girls who were all lightly sloshed and very happy to get the attention of a bunch of guys who had ‘bad news’ written all over them.
“So, do they always get a guard dog when they go out drinking?” the bartender asked, making me glance over at him.
Objectively, he was a good-looking guy.
Older, for sure, with salt and pepper in his hair and beard, and some time-worn crinkles around his warm brown eyes. But there was a rough look to him, tattoos and scars on his arm, hands, and neck. That wasn’t counting the nasty limp he had.
There was a cane propped up against the back wall of the bar, something he was likely supposed to be using, but found it hard to do his job when relying on it. So he just limped along instead.
“All that pretty needs some protection,” I said, shrugging.
His gaze slid in that direction, then back to me.
“You’re plenty pretty yourself.”
Was he flirting? Or just relaying what he thought of as fact? I’d been in such a dry spell with men—by choice and by virtue of my ball-shriveling resting bitch face—for so long that I was finding it hard to tell.
