Ashe was fairly healthy most of the time. Which sucked because I’d be riding with her for the next couple of weeks, and she wouldn’t allow me to eat badly every single day like I usually did.
“I’m more thinking that she was scared as hell, and she wasn’t going that fast,” I admitted my reasoning.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “She was scared. But I also literally witnessed her unbuttoning three of her buttons as you walked up to the car. And I’m pretty sure she had a dildo in her purse.”
I grinned before taking a forkful of shredded lettuce into my mouth.
“Caught that, did you?” I asked. “I was going to quiz you on it later.”
“Really? Why?” she wondered, setting her lettuce wrap down for her cup.
“I was going to ask you if you’d seen anything in her purse,” I admitted. “But not because it was a dildo or anything. Mainly because I want you to be paying attention to every little detail. Whether it be a dildo in a purse, or a gun.”
She nodded in understanding, picking her wrap up again.
I finished my salad in about eight more bites, then looked at the menu board as I contemplated getting another one.
“That wasn’t enough food,” I groaned.
“It was enough,” she said. “Let it settle before you get anything else. You’ll be surprised.”
I sucked down my sweet tea and went for more, thankful that at least their tea was good.
If I had to eat healthy, I at least needed something decent to drink.
While I was up there, I happened to look over my shoulder to see a man watching her from across the room.
I’d seen him as we’d chosen our seats, but he’d moved since we’d arrived, going even farther into the shadows.
When I walked back to my seat, I said, “You know the guy in the corner?”
I had to give her credit. She didn’t whip her head around and stare like other women would have.
She casually glanced up and used the mirror in the front of the store to see.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I don’t know many faces here. But it’s likely that I’ve met him. Everybody knows all the newcomers, but the newcomers don’t know everybody.”
That was the truth.
I’d moved here over a year ago, and everyone greeted me by name anywhere I went.
I didn’t know any of them, though.
Which made me feel bad.
But Kilgore wasn’t as small of a town as it used to be.
“True enough,” I agreed. “He was sitting in the corner over there by the front door when we came in. Now he’s in the shadows.”
Ashe shrugged and kept her eye on him.
Two rather rambunctious teens rolled into the place twenty minutes later, causing both of us to tense.
Me because I had a feeling I’d seen the teenagers before, and the last time I’d seen them hadn’t been for something good.
Ashe tensed because they had a fuckin’ kitten with them, and they were tossing it back and forth, laughing at the animal’s terror.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t upset about the animal, but I saw past the animal to the douchebags behind the animal. Douchebag one had a gun under his belt. Douchebag two had one under his armpit.
Both were well under the age of eighteen and shouldn’t have a gun at all.
“I need more tea,” I murmured, getting up with my empty glass.
She nodded, handing me her glass.
Which I promptly shook my head no at.
“Not this time,” I said softly. “Need a hand free.”
She immediately understood and lowered her glass—which was half full anyway.
It wasn’t like she was in immediate danger of running out or anything.
She nervously sipped on her drink, her eyes on the two men.
But before I could even get up there, the man that we had been observing hanging in the back of the room came up and snatched the kitten mid-air, tucking him closely under his arm.
Now that the man was no longer in the shadows and not actively trying to stay unnoticed, I could see that he had Down syndrome. He also wasn’t dressed the nicest in the world.
“Don’t harm a cat,” the man ordered the two teens.
The two teens converged on the much smaller man, getting up into his face.
“That’s my cat. I found it outside,” Douchebag one said.
“Give it back,” Douchebag two said.
Now Ashe was standing as well, moving forward slowly to the front of the restaurant.
I stepped up just in time to hear the man’s reply.
“No. It’s my cat. I left it outside so I could get something to eat,” the man replied.
“Well, you shouldn’t have left it. Finders keepers,” Douchebag two said.
That was when he reared back and sucker-punched the man.
The man dropped like a bowling pin, falling straight to his back.
The woman behind the counter gasped in surprise and reached for the phone.
I reached for my mic as I hauled Douchebag two around and pinned him to the drink machine.