“What?” I asked, reaching for my beer.
“You were texting someone,” Marcus replied.
“Intensely,” Trisha added.
With Amanda headed up here, I did not need them watching my every move.
“Actually, it’s called sexting. You get them worked up enough, and they’ll start sending sexy little videos via text.” I winked and leaned back in my seat.
That was what they expected of me. Marcus laughed and shook his head. Rock raised his eyebrows and looked at Trisha. “If I get you that new iPhone, will you send me sexy little videos?”
Trisha giggled and whispered in his ear.
I turned my attention off them and watched the door.
I managed to stay in the conversation at the table without appearing like I was as disconnected as I was.
Then the door opened, and Amanda finally walked in.
Motherfucking hell.
She was wearing a short little red dress and cowboy boots. I was going to end up in a fight.
Amanda
I wasn’t sure this was such a good idea. Every time I’d ever been in Live Bay, Preston had been drunk and there were girls with centerfold bodies wrapped all over him. I’d changed clothes three times trying to find something that made me look sexy enough to compete with the girls I’d be up against in here. Unfortunately, nothing I owned made my boobs look any bigger than they were. So I decided to play up my strengths. Preston liked my legs. So I went with that.
I looked over at their table, and Preston’s eyes were already locked on me. He looked . . . mad. Why was he mad? Maybe mad wasn’t the word. Maybe he looked fierce. I wasn’t sure. The good thing was, the only girl at their table was Trisha. I had been prepared to walk into something much worse.
As I headed toward the table, someone stepped in front of me. I looked up to see Dameon Wallace’s smiling face. I’d thought he was gorgeous in high school. But now he didn’t seem so perfect anymore.
“Hello, Dameon,” I replied, taking a step to the side to get around him.
“Hey, Amanda. Haven’t seen you since graduation. How are things?”
I smiled. “Good, thank you, and you?”
His hand grabbed mine, and he pulled me close to his side.
“What are you wearing?” he whispered in my ear as he pulled me away from Dameon.
“A dress,” I replied, trying to figure out why he was asking me such a ludicrous question and why he was making a scene in front of my brother.
“I’m gonna end up beating someone’s ass tonight because of this dress,” he growled, and let go of my hand. “Go to the table. I’ll handle this with Marcus.”
I nodded and hurried to the table, trying to look casual while Marcus studied me carefully.
“You made it,” Marcus said, looking over my shoulder at Preston, who was right behind me.
“Yep” was the best reply I could come up with. I smiled over at Rock and Trisha, who also seemed to be studying me, then Preston, curiously.
“Want to tell me what that was about?” Marcus asked, his gaze locked on Preston instead of me.
I was almost afraid to look at Preston, but I couldn’t help it. I needed to make sure he was okay.
“That douche was all over her, and you were just gonna sit here and let it happen. Someone had to go get her,” Preston explained in an annoyed tone.
“That was mighty chivalrous of you.” Trisha sounded amused and not at all fooled.
Marcus turned back to look at me. “Did that guy touch you?” The edge to his voice meant he was buying Preston’s excuse. That was good. But I still didn’t want him going and roughing up Dameon for just saying hello.
“He’s a friend from high school. We did the flirting thing in school but never anything more. Preston misunderstood.”
The tension in Marcus’s shoulders eased, and he nodded.
I chanced a glance at Preston, who hadn’t relaxed at all. He was even more tightly wound now than he had been before. This was a really bad idea. My coming here was going to be an issue.
“Did I take your seat, Preston?” I asked, trying to distract him.
He shifted his gaze to me. “No. You’re fine. I’m gonna go grab another beer and I’ll get a stool. You want something?”
“A Coke, please,” I replied.
He nodded and headed toward the bar.
“Amanda” Marcus called my name, and I tore my eyes off of Preston’s retreating form and looked at him.
“Yes?”
“Why do I feel like I’m missing something here?” he asked, studying my face closely.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
He looked back at Preston at the bar. Preston was getting our drinks and blowing off a girl at the same time. He looked very uninterested, which made me smile. Preston’s eyes met mine and a knowing grin tugged at his lips. His eyes shifted to my brother’s and the smile vanished.
I decided to study the stage. Jackdown had just come back on the stage, and Trisha was doing her normal cheering.
“Here’s your Coke,” Preston said, sliding a mug of ice and a can in front of me, then pulling up a stool on the other side of Marcus. He wasn’t sitting beside me. This was so frustrating. I just wanted to tell Marcus and let him get over it. How bad could it be?
The music was too loud to hear anything else, so no one talked while Krit’s voice filled the room. He had a smooth sound with a little raspy touch to it that made girls go crazy. I had to admit, the guy was hot. I’d never really been into him like a lot of my friends, but then, deep down I’d always had a thing for Preston. It was hard to focus my attention on anyone else. I had liked Dameon in high school but it was never anything very serious.
A girl walked up to Preston and started whispering in his ear. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and his eyes shot directly to me. This was what I was afraid of when I’d decided to come tonight. Girls knew Preston as a player. They loved him for it. Preston moved forward away from her mouth, which was entirely too close to his body.
His eyes never left mine. I dropped my gaze to my soda and contemplated just leaving. This was too hard. I couldn’t get upset about the girl because of Marcus. Preston couldn’t act like he was taken because of Marcus. If I was going to be anything more than just a blip on Preston’s radar, we were going to have to tell Marcus.
I couldn’t just keep going this way. Preston’s reputation would require he act a certain way to keep Marcus from questioning things. I reached for my purse and stood up. I’d tell Marcus bye and go back home. It was where I should have stayed.
Preston was up and out of his seat before I could say anything. I stopped and watched as he pushed the girl away and walked over to me. “Dance with me,” he said in my ear, taking my purse and laying it back down on the table, then pulling me out to the dance floor.
Chapter Seventeen
Preston
I’d be fighting tonight, but it wouldn’t be with some guy who was getting too close to Amanda. It would be with her brother. He’d been watching me closely, and I’d just given him a very good reason to suspect something. But it had been a choice between letting the girl paw all over me in front of Amanda and watching her face fall, or having my best friend take a swing at me, so I was going with the ass kicking.
I couldn’t let her walk out of here like that. She’d been upset and about to bolt. I wasn’t going to let that happen.
“What are you doing?” she asked as I pulled her into my arms once we were in the mass of moving bodies. Hopefully, far enough in that Marcus couldn’t see us. Although there was a good chance he was right behind us.
“Dancing with you,” I replied, slipping my hands down over the curve of her hips.
She smiled. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
I glanced back over my shoulder to see if Marcus was barreling down on us. Coast was still clear. I turned back to Amanda. “You were about to leave,” I told her.
Her face pinched into a frown. “Yeah, well, I’d seen more than I could stomach.”
I pulled her closer to me and bent my head to whisper in her ear. “I’m only interested in you. If you’d left, I’d have chased your sexy ass down.”
She laughed, slipped a hand up my chest, then twined it behind my neck. “I’d have let you catch me. You wouldn’t have had to try real hard.”
I was ready to haul her out of here and get her alone. But that wasn’t going to happen until I faced one big hurdle.
“I’m gonna have to talk to Marcus about this.”
Her smile fell. “I know.”
I wanted to kiss her and reassure her, but I’d pushed it far enough. There was a good chance Marcus, me, or both of us could end up in the emergency room if I gave in to that urge.
“He’s gonna be upset,” she said.
I laughed. “No, baby. He’s gonna be pissed. So damn pissed he’s gonna go for my throat.”
Her hands fisted in my hair. What was she going to do, try to hold me here?
“Maybe we don’t have to tell him. I can learn to deal with the girls.”
No, she couldn’t, and I sure as hell couldn’t deal with the guys. There was no hiding that. When that dickwad had stepped in front of her, I’d been one-track-minded. I didn’t care who saw me or what they thought. I just wanted him to move. If he’d touched her, it would have been a lot worse.
“I want guys to know you’re with me. I don’t like them getting close.”
She giggled and pressed against me again. “Well, at least no one was hanging all over me. You had a girl making out with your back.”
I eased both my hands down over her butt and squeezed it gently, causing her to laugh louder. “If he’d touched you, things would have gone down a lot differently.”
“Oh, really? How so?”
She was teasing me. It was easy to forget we weren’t alone when she looked up at me like that.
“I’d have beat. His. Ass.”
A hand gripped my shoulder. It was too big to be a female’s, and the hold it had on me meant Marcus had finally come after me. Amanda’s eyes went wide, and she started shaking her head at him.
“I got this. It’ll be okay,” I assured her. She dropped her hands from my neck and grabbed on to my arm tightly.
“Outside. Now,” Marcus said in a loud, angry snarl. Oh yeah. He was pissed. “Let him go, Amanda,” Marcus snapped at her.
“Don’t talk to her that way.” I raised my voice and got right back in his face. I understood he was mad, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to take it out on her.
“Outside. Now,” he repeated.
I looked back at Amanda as Marcus stalked toward the door. She was holding on to me so tight her fingernails were digging into my arm. “Stay here,” I told her, and she shook her head.
“No way,” she yelled over the crowd. I started moving over the crowd with her holding on to my arm. She was going to have to let me go. Marcus was only going to get more furious if she kept holding on to me like this.
“Ah, f**k. What the hell have you done?” Rock said as he stepped in front of us just before we reached the door.
“Move, Rock,” I said, pushing past him.
“Please, God, tell me you didn’t”—he paused and looked over at Amanda—“do what I think you did,” he finished.
“This isn’t your business. Just let me go talk to Marcus,” I replied.
Rock let out a hard laugh. “He ain’t planning on talking to you. He’s planning on whooping your ass and then locking his sister up in her bedroom for the rest of her life. I just hope he ain’t got a gun on him.”
Amanda’s grip on me tightened. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was worried about Marcus hurting me or keeping us apart. I’d never fought with Marcus before, so I wasn’t real sure who was gonna come out of this one on top, but I sure as hell wasn’t gonna let him keep Amanda from me.
“Manda, girl, you need to stay inside with Trisha,” Rock said, reaching out to get Amanda’s arm. “Ain’t no reason for you to go out there. Let go of Preston before Marcus sees you clinging to him and blows up.”
“Don’t. Touch. Her.” I clipped out, trying real hard not to jerk her away from him.
“Chill the f**k out. I’m trying to keep her from seeing you and Marcus beat each other’s heads in. Ain’t something she needs to see.”
I took a deep breath and looked down at her. “You want to go with Trisha, Manda?”
She shook her head and squeezed me tighter.
“I’m not making her leave me. Besides, neither one of us will let her get hurt.”
Rock shook his head and sighed. “What were you thinking?” he asked. “She’s Marcus’s little sister. You could screw around with anyone else. Why did you mess with his sister?”
I didn’t care that Rock was the size of a bear and built like a brick wall. He wasn’t going to lump Amanda in with any other girl I’d ever slept with. I stepped up until I was in his face. “Never talk about her like that again. She is not someone I’m screwing around with.”
I swung the door open and walked outside with Amanda still attached to me.
“Maybe you should have been nicer to Rock and brought him out here with you,” she said, walking as closely to me as possible.
“I don’t need Rock. It’s gonna be okay. But he’s right. You need to let go of me. This ain’t gonna help Marcus’s temper.”
She shook her head, and I gave up.
Marcus was pacing in front of his truck. When he saw us, he stopped and his hands fisted at his sides.