Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
“How come you never entertain any of us?”
“Because someone has to keep an eye and make sure you don’t burn the place down.”
“Oh, but wouldn’t it be more fun to dance in the flames?” she asked, whirling away from me with a big smile.
I was shaking my head at her when I saw it.
A flash of gold.
My head whipped over, seeing a girl with her back to me standing up on the bar.
No, not just standing there.
Arms up in the air, hips swaying.
Dancing.
Dancing on the bar.
I was ready to turn around, go back to the car, and call myself every kind of fool, right then. Because Caliana, the girl I’d known since we were both idiot kids, she was kind of reserved, the kind to stay at home—the night of her eighteenth birthday aside—and not bring a lot of attention to herself.
She was not the kind of girl who would dance on a bar at a club.
Except, as I stood there, trying to figure out the easiest way out of this crowd, she swayed her body around.
And there she was.
All grown up.
Maybe Caliana, the girl I knew, didn’t dance on bars.
But Cali, the woman she now was, apparently did.
She’d chopped off her long hair, leaving her with a sleek black long bob. And where I’d only ever seen her bare-faced before, she had on some heavy, dark eye shadow and matching lipstick.
She looked edgier.
And, fuck, prettier.
And I hoped wherever Clay was that he could fucking forgive me for even noticing that shit.
Below her, a man had his head angled up, ogling her long, shapely legs.
Then he was reaching for his phone, trying to seem discreet about it, but the camera was on, and he was trying to get an up-skirt pic.
And Cali didn’t even notice.
A growl moved through me as I cut through the crowd separating us, reaching out to grab the fucker’s wrist as he tried to slip his phone into his pocket.
“Delete it,” I snapped.
“Who the fuck—“ he started, gaze starting to drift over me, pausing when he saw the one-percenter badge.
“I said delete it,” I snarled, watching as he pulled the phone back out, unlocked it, then deleted the picture.
“Do it again, and I’ll gouge your fucking eyes out.”
“Got it, man. Got it,” he said, in a rush to get away.
My glance cut back up to the bar. Where Cali was fucking oblivious to what just went down.
No situational awareness at all.
Before I could even think it through, my hand was shooting up, grabbing her wrist, and finally getting her attention.
“The fuck are you doing?” I yelled over the music as I yanked her down, watching as she went from shocked to confused in a blink.
“Brooks?”
I saw, rather than heard, my name, the music drowning her out. And I was never so fucking annoyed about music as I was right then, finding myself wanting to know how she sounded saying my name.
“Come on,” I said, tightening my grip on her wrist as I turned, pulling her with me through the crowd.
I don’t know if it was confusion or what, but she followed limply behind me.
Until, suddenly, as we finally broke out onto the sidewalk, pain collided with the back of my knee, making me release Cali as I whipped around, hand going for the gun I didn’t have on me.
Until my gaze landed on this tiny fucking redheaded woman with blazing gray eyes.
“Get your hands off my girl, dickbag!” she yelled, making a surprised chuckle move through me.
“Wanna call off your guard dog?” I asked, looking over at Cali.
“Not really,” she said, folding her arms over her chest, casting a look toward me that I couldn’t really even identify.
The Caliana I’d known had been an open book.
But, then again, she’d been a child.
She wasn’t that anymore.
She was all grown up.
And I couldn’t read her anymore.
“You just go around in bars, grabbing random women? That’s your kink?” the redhead raged. “I should kick your ass.”
“My ankles are appropriately terrified,” I said, watching the redhead’s lips twitch a bit. “She’s not random. I know her.”
The girl’s eyes moved back and forth between us.
“Well, she doesn’t seem happy to see you,” she said.
That she didn’t.
“I’m not,” Cali confirmed. “But I guess I can’t let you shiv him either,” she said, making my gaze move over her friend again, finding something sharp and metallic sticking out of her balled fist.
“Pity,” the friend said, flicking the blade shut. “I’ve been wanting to try it out. But the guys I’ve been dancing with have been annoyingly well-behaved.”
“How dare they deny you your bloodlust?” Cali said, shaking her head.
“Right? So… who are you? Why are you manhandling my girl?”
“I’m Brooks,” I told her. “I’m… a friend.”
Cali’s snort was overpowered by her friend’s next words. “A friend, huh? Then how come I’ve never heard of you?”