“I don’t know what time I’ll get home, but I’ll tell you all about it when I pick you up from the airport tomorrow,” I promised.
“Deal,” she said with a cheer. “I’ll see you tomorrow, babe. Have a good night. Hope you have fun.”
“Bye, Kin.”
Ten minutes later, I examined myself one last time and then grabbed my purse and my phone. Brandon was supposed to pick me up soon, and I didn’t want to keep him waiting. Or chance that Gray would be home early and see me leave.
I honestly didn’t know how he was going to react to my going out with anyone, let alone Brandon. We had never had to deal with that, but with as protective as Gray was, I knew he wouldn’t handle it well. He would scare the shit out of anyone who wanted to date me, just like any overprotective big brother or father would do. I didn’t want him to give Brandon a hard time.
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Just as I was coming down the stairs, a car door shut in the driveway, so I hurried outside. I saw Brandon coming up the sidewalk and waved as I locked the door behind me and walked toward him. His brown eyes drifted over me from head to toe and then back again. The feel of his eyes on me, seeing the hunger in their depths, only made me feel exposed, and I had to curb the urge to go back inside to grab a cardigan so I could cover myself. I had worn this outfit to feel sexy, but I felt like a little girl playing dress-up.
Brandon reached me and took my hand, holding it tight in his as he took another slow appraisal of me. “You look hot,” he muttered in a deep voice.
“I … Um, thank you.” I smiled up at him. “You said we were only going to dinner and maybe dancing. I hope this isn’t too causal.”
He was already shaking his head. “No, no. I like what you’re wearing. There’s a bar downtown that plays really good music and makes killer wings and burgers. That okay with you?”
“Sounds perfect,” I assured him with another smile, but my face felt tight and I hoped he didn’t see how forced it was.
Relax, I mentally chided myself. It’s just a date. Nothing I don’t feel comfortable with will happen.
We walked down to his car, and he went right to the driver’s side, leaving me to open my own door. Instantly, I compared his action to how Gray always opened my door for me. It wasn’t something Alicia had tried to instill in him, either, and he sure as hell didn’t do it for everyone.
It was something so small, but most guys didn’t even think about opening doors for others these days. Until right then, I had never really thought about it, yet I was using it to compare Brandon and Gray again.
Ugh! I mentally screamed at myself. Just stop it, Kassa.
After that silent scold, I focused on Brandon. He kept glancing at me as he drove, his eyes skimming over my chest, but he made light conversation. The weather, sports I knew a little about because Gray and Jace had educated me on over the years. I could follow baseball pretty well, and I was fluent in football talk, but basketball was a whole new language for me. Unfortunately, that was the sport Brandon seemed to favor. He might not have had the height for the game, but he seemed to have passion for it.
I tried to keep up, but honestly, I was bored before we even got to the bar. When he told a joke that had him laughing while I just lifted my eyebrows at it, he got mad. His entire personality seemed to change all because I didn’t get his joke. I wasn’t the type of girl to laugh at something I didn’t find funny, and I didn’t have a very good fake laugh, so I had always stayed quiet whenever I didn’t get the punchline of a joke.
I was all too happy to get out of the car when he pulled into the parking lot. Inside, no one was at the door to card me, and the place was the type that you sat yourself. There was music playing low so that people didn’t have to shout to be heard, but there were enough people in the place to have a low din of voices filling the room.
Brandon took my wrist in a firm grip and pulled me to the booth in the back corner. I jerked it back when he started to sit beside me and didn’t scoot over enough to give him room. His face tightened as he sat across from me. As soon as we were seated, a waitress in tight jeans and a black polo came over to take our drink order. She was in her early twenties and very pretty. Brandon’s eyes went straight to her chest and stayed there for an embarrassingly long moment.
Irritated, I asked for sweet tea, but Brandon ordered a rum and Coke. It instantly made me feel uncomfortable because he was driving. If it had been a beer, I probably wouldn’t have thought anything about it. But, after what had happened to Gray’s mother, I hadn’t liked to be around anyone who drank hard liquor without having someone I trusted with me, like Jace or Gray.
It was only one drink though, I tried to remind myself. There was nothing wrong with having just one drink.
“Tell me more about yourself, Kassa,” he urged, picking up one of my hands, which I had placed on the table.
“There’s nothing really to tell. I’m a pretty open book.”
“I don’t believe that,” he said with a look in his eyes that was supposed to be seductive, but it only annoyed me. When we had talked at the gym over the last few months, he had seemed really nice. Sweet, even. But I was quickly seeing that I had been wrong. “I bet you have a few secrets that no one else knows about.”
I didn’t have any secrets that Gray didn’t know. Not a single one now that he knew how I felt about him, but there was no way I was going to share any of them with Brandon.
The waitress set our drinks in front of us, and before she could even ask us what we wanted to eat, Brandon had swallowed half his drink. “Can I get another one, babe?” he said with a flirtatious smile for her.
She glanced from him to me and back again. “Yeah, sure. Are y’all ready to order? Or would you like a few more minutes?”
I hadn’t even glanced at the menu tucked behind the salt and pepper shakers. I opened my mouth to ask for a little more time, but Brandon was already talking.
“We’ll take a basket of your hot wings, blue cheese for dipping. And two of your cheeseburgers, fully loaded with fries.”
“Actually,” I told the woman with a tight smile, “I’ll just have a garden salad if you have it.”