"Your fuckin' brother would skin my ass if I didn't stop and help," he said by way of accepting my apology when I gave it.
So, yeah, I never really found myself in a situation where I needed to tell a big, scary, gun-running biker guy that bad boys were only my forte fictionally. In real life, well, they didn't need to know about real life. You know, where I hadn't had a date in the better part of a year. And that I hadn't had sex in nearly twice as long.
The thing was, this guy, while big, was not scary.
But he's definitely a gun-runner, I reminded myself.
"Angel?" he prompted when I just stared at him. Like a freak.
"Yeah?"
"Well, that's what I wanted to hear," he declared, even though my 'yeah' was definitely more of a question than an acceptance of his offer. But before I could untie my tongue enough to tell him thanks but no thanks, his hand was reaching down, taking mine, sliding his fingers between, and pulling me along with him. And while he did this, he was swinging our joined hands. Like little kids.
"Who's this?" a deep voice asked, shocking me out of my thoughts about his seemingly charming, boyish nature. I looked over to see we were suddenly stopped beside the table with the biker I hadn't wanted to sit beside earlier.
"This is my friend," Cyrus supplied. "And she and I are going to sit here while you get lost," he declared, making my eyes go a bit big, shocked more than I maybe should have been by that level of rudeness.
But, I mean, they were bikers. And he said it lightly like maybe it was more 'bro code' than anything else.
"Oh, but maybe your friend would be interested in talking to both of us," the other guy suggested, giving me a smile that was absolutely perfectly cultivated for panty melting.
It wasn't exactly ineffective either.
What can I say, I had been starved for masculine attention for so long. This was all my own fault, of course. Bringing a book with you everywhere you went was pretty much a sign on the forehead that said 'eff off' or something. Also, I dunno. I had always had this thing. This invisible thing. As in, I seemed to kind of, well, be it. Maybe it had something to do with my big brothers making me off limits. Maybe, too, it had something to do with Kenzi commanding so much attention, leaving everyone else in her shadow.
But, truly, I think it was just me.
I was standoffish, shy, desperate to be unnoticed.
It was practically like I conjured it.
So men didn't chat me up.
They didn't rake their eyes up and down me like Cyrus' friend was doing.
They didn't invite me to sit with them.
Nothing.
So getting attention from two guys in the same night, at the same moment, was almost disorienting. My head felt like it was spinning.
"This is Suga," Cyrus said, dropping the end in imitation of the slight accent the man himself had. "Yes, as in 'how you get so fly.'"
"I don't know what that means," I admitted, brows drawing together.
To that, Sugar chuckled as he moved to stand, slapping a hand on the back of Cyrus' shoulder. "I think this one might be immune to your charms, Cy. But I'll leave you to fuck it up; then I will swoop in. Baby girl, it was nice to meet you."
With that, he was gone, moving to the counter to, presumably, flirt with Jazzy or Gala, both the kind of women who were receptive to such a thing, and were good at flirting right back.
It was admirable, really.
I was envious some days.
Cyrus' hand gave mine a squeeze before releasing it so he could sit down, making me quickly move to do the same so I wasn't standing there like a weirdo.
I put my coffee on the table, then moved to put my purse off the back of the chair, wincing a little when the long cross-body strap let the whole thing slam down on the floor, and make me maybe want to dig inside and check to make sure I hadn't messed up a cover or something.
I resisted the urge, and looked up to find Cyrus giving me a bemused smile. "Bricks?"
"Books," I corrected, grabbing my coffee between both hands, feeling completely inept to do this coffee chat thing.
"You a big reader?"
"I'm a librarian, so it's..."
"Get the fuck out of here," he said, smiling bigger.
"Don't," I said before I could stop myself.
"Don't what?"
Shoot.
Okay.
There was no way to back out of that one, was there?
"Pull that cheesy librarian line thing."
"You mean the sexy librarian thing?" he asked, and yep. It happened.
Darn it.
My face heated, and I knew I was a godawful shade of red right about then. Blushing, yeah, that was one of my things. My sister and brothers had always gotten a kick out of how embarrassment did it to me, and used it viciously against me as we grew up.