“In my defense, I inherited that lye supplier,” I said, sharing a smile with him. And, for a moment, the years fell away, and we were just a couple of dumb kids playing at thinking we were grown enough for a relationship.
“You gotta talk to him, girl,” he said, shaking his head at me. “And not pick a fight with him,” he added.
“You make me sound like a monster. Why the hell did you want to be with me back then?” I asked.
“Guess I like smart-talking monsters with commitment and intimacy issues. Whiskey-sour, that’s how I like my women,” he said. “Besides, you have a fucking killer ass,” he said, making a laugh bubble up and burst out of me.
“All these years, I thought it was my sparkling personality winning over the menfolk. Nope. Just my ass.”
“The tits are great too,” he added.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“And you’re just putting off the inevitable because you’re scared. The girl who was never afraid of anything, afraid of having a little talk with a guy. Who’da thunk it?”
“Listen, a fight to the death is easy. Telling someone who might reject you that you still have feelings for them? Not so much.”
“What’s the worst that could happen? He rejects you? You’ve been there. You survived. I’m sure it sucked. And I’m sure you don’t want to go through it again, but you can. And you’ll come out of it. But if you don’t talk to him, you’re going to wonder forever. That shit? That is the kind of thing that people talk about on their death beds. Not that they regret laying their heart on the line, but that they failed to do it when they got the chance.”
“Damn, that was almost… poetic,” a female voice said from behind me.
“How’d it go?” Jase asked, nodding his chin up at her.
And then I saw a wad of cash slap down on the table with a long-boned female hand with pointy fake nails on top of it. A hand covered in dried blood.
“Did you really have any doubts?” she asked.
“With you, Sam, never,” Jase said, smiling at his little sister as he took the cash.
“Sam?” I hissed, spinning around on my stool to face the youngest of Shane and Lea Mallick’s kids.
Sam was the youngest of four and the only girl in her family. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been in that really awkward stage of early adolescence. Tall and all arms and legs with splotchy skin and a mouth full of metal.
This Sam, though?
This Sam was a damn knockout.
I mean, of course she was. There was never any doubt that she would be. Shane was hot. Their mom, Lea, was drop-dead gorgeous. She just needed some time to grow into her looks.
And grow into them, she did.
She looked a lot like her mom. Tall and lean, but curvy in the chest, hips, and ass. She had long, silky black hair that she pulled back into a ponytail, and stunning light blue Mallick family eyes.
“Are you in the family business? Is she in the family business?” I asked, tone a little more accusing than I meant it to be as I looked back at Jase.
“Long story, but yeah,” Jase said, nodding.
“And you’re okay with that?” I asked, eyes widening.
Because I’d always known Jase to be an almost comically overprotective big brother. I had vivid memories of him screaming out the car window as Sam was coming out of the convenience store because he thought some guy in the car next to him was checking her out.
“She’s a fucking little girl, you fucking pedo freak!”
Turned out, he was actually looking at his stunning wife who was walking outbehindSam.
I always thought it was kind of cute, but felt bad for Sam when she got old enough to start dating. With all those big brothers—not to mention cousins and scary uncles. She was never going to be able to find a guy to take her out.
Hell, that was the reason I hadn’t dated until I was older. Jase was the first guy in town with the balls to come pick me up at home.