“You okay? Shit, I’m really sorry, Lexi. I haven’t been the most sensitive person with everything going on.” He set down his rib and wiped off his hands. “Ivan should be calling me tonight. He said if I didn’t hear from him by midnight, then either he was dead, or Hell had finally frozen over.”
“I hope so,” I said.
“He’ll find her,” Austin reassured me. “And if he doesn’t, I’ll find her myself.”
“I think my boss is sick,” I finally said, taking a long sip of my glass of beer. “A neighbor said he has cancer and went to the hospital. That’s why the bills haven’t been paid on the store. I didn’t know it was that bad.”
He sighed, rubbing his clean-shaven jaw. The talisman around his neck was tucked inside his white shirt and he had styled his hair handsomely. He still looked like he could drag anyone in the parking lot and kick their ass, but I didn’t see that side of him when I looked into his eyes. I just saw Austin.
I still wanted to mess up his hair with my fingers.
“Don’t worry about the store. I sent the twins over to clean up.”
“You what?”
“You shouldn’t be doing all that work yourself.” Austin glanced at his watch. “They’ll be there until one o’clock and then head back to the house. I keep a tight watch on my pack.” He turned his fork between his fingers and set it down. “Don’t look at me that way, Lexi. Just accept my help.”
And I did. I accepted it because at this point, my only support system was a bra. “Thanks. I hope April knows what’s going on; she might have a problem with two strange men showing up to clean.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” he said, eying my plate. “They took Ivy with them. Women are more trusting when another woman is around.”
“Lovely. You sent Ivy into a sweatshop environment to scrub a dirty floor? She’s really going to want to stay with you now,” I said sarcastically.
The coleslaw was just as good as I remembered and I must have cleaned it off my plate in five scoops.
“Never did know where you put it all,” he murmured, setting down his fork.
“Well, you can probably tell now. I’ve put on a few since you last saw me.”
He snorted and stuffed a roll in his mouth. “In all the right places.”
I wrapped my lips around the prongs of my fork and looked up. Austin wasn’t just watching me, his eyes were glued to my mouth, and I became self-conscious when a piece of cabbage stuck to my bottom lip. My hand flew up to cover my mouth and the awkward moment passed. The music changed over to a song by Pink (“Try,” I think it was), and a paper wrapper from a straw sailed by us and landed on the floor.
Austin smiled nostalgically and rapped his knuckles on the table to the beat of the song, lost in his thoughts. “This is nice,” he finally said.
“Yeah.”
I think I knew what he meant. We were always linked by Wes, and it was getting easier to be together without his ghost hovering between us.
We talked about old times and I asked stupid things like if he still had his old leather jacket and why didn’t he join a rock band with Jericho. Austin could carry a tune, but he said it wasn’t his thing. Now that he was a Packmaster, his responsibility was maintaining stability within his family and the Shifter community. They would get jobs and help bring in money as well as assisting other packs as needed, but Austin had acquired a lot of money from his jobs over the years. Evidently, his work paid well. Money wouldn’t last forever, so he encouraged them to find something they enjoyed doing. Jericho sang, Denver worked as a bartender four nights a week, and Reno… well, Austin didn’t mention what exactly Reno did. Ben and Wheeler were out of work and looking.
After another tall glass of beer and a few sips of Austin’s root-beer float, I decided it was time for us to head home.
“Big girl’s room,” I declared with an impish grin.
Austin chuckled and stretched his arm across the seat, watching me get up. He might have been sly about stealing glances, but I noticed his eyes sliding down to my ass. As I walked by him, I bent over and squinted. My face was numb, one of the telltale signs I’d had too much to drink.
“You have something… right
A sexy smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Then lick it off,” he teased.
Never one to turn down a dare, I bent forward and sucked on his chin. In my defense, I was drunk. I would never have done anything like that in a sober state of mind, but the tingly feeling of beer slid through my body and made me lose those inhibitions. It also shocked the hell out of Austin because I felt his entire body tense up, which I noticed because my hands were resting on his hard biceps.
I moved my mouth slowly, swirling my tongue over the dab of sauce, and suddenly there was a moment, even if only a brief second, where something fired up between us. His bristly chin had the first hint of stubble, the tang of barbecue sauce awakened my taste buds, and his shallow breath heated my cheek.
Had a sharp wolf whistle across the room not snapped me out of it, I might have even slid my lips over to his… just to see what would happen.
Austin was real smooth about it, too. When I pulled back, he lifted his left arm and touched my nose, dabbing a dollop of sauce on it. Maybe he was being funny, or maybe it was a dare on his part, but I wiped it off and left the table before discovering what base I could get to with Austin and a bottle of barbecue sauce. He laughed and stretched back in his seat.
Damn. He still had a great laugh.
I went to the restroom for a very long pee and decided okra and beer got along. In fact, they were so in love they were doing the tango and making me queasy. The bathroom also served as a temporary hiding place since my slutty behavior planted serious doubts I could ever look him in the eye again. I never behaved that way with other men, but something about Austin drew out a sexually aggressive side that made me want to slap myself.
I’d never felt so conflicted with a man as I did with Austin. Part of that had to do with the fact our relationship was wrapped up in years of history, combined with years of separation.
Still, it
Not a kiss, not a check, not a single favor.
He’d matured into the most selfless man I’d ever met.
I emerged from the restroom marked “Cowgirls” and stared at our empty booth. Then I spotted Marcy Robertson, the former head cheerleader at my old high school. I hid my face and dashed toward the front door before she noticed me. Those chance meetings were so uncomfortable because I had to explain what I did for a living. It was like a competition to see who had succeeded in life. Most of the girls knew who I was back in high school, even if I wasn’t the most popular, because they all used to crush on Wes.
The balmy June air smelled clean compared to the heavy aroma of grilled meat from inside the restaurant. I glanced around and wondered where he parked the car, because when we got here, Austin had dropped me off at the door so I could get a good table.
I stepped down on the curb and took a seat—my beers had been served in tall glasses and I had always been a lightweight when it came to drinking. My eyes were losing focus and God, how embarrassing was that? Here was Austin, trying to show me a good time, and now I was sitting on the curb because I couldn’t hold my liquor.
Still, I’d had fun. Hanging out and talking with Austin was so effortless now. He could spin a good yarn, and he attentively listened as I filled him in on some of the things I’d done in the past few years. While we still felt like strangers, an indefinable intimacy existed between us—one that happens with those who have seen you at your worst and remember you before all the big events in life happened.
A car engine prowled closer from the street entrance, growing louder by the second. My eyelids drooped and I closed my eyes, deciding I was going to crash on the sofa when I got home.
And then I blacked out.
