“So you don’t get a break.” I roll my eyes. “I got it.” I reach out before he’s finished the first, and begin making a second taco. “It sucks that you chose to become an EMT. It’s a crummy job choice.”
“Crummy? I help people every day. It’s noble, dammit.”
I laugh. “Your career choice is noble, for sure. As is Nix’s, and Beck’s, and Corey’s, and Troy’s. But you all choose to deal with the horrible side of human nature. You have to help people that were often hurt through no fault of their own. Nix has to run into a burning building, often because someone bored or arrogant lit a fire in it. Wars are started that Troy has to fight, and Beck has to–”
“Which is why you choose to work with pretty flowers.” Taco breath passes my face when Mitch presses a kiss to my temple. “You get to enjoy the pretty, while the rest of us tidy up the shitty stuff.”
“Stop cussing! I swear–”
“You swear?” Mitch bounces his brows. “Abigail, since when do you swear?”
“I didn’t swear! I mean…” I sit back and blow out a breath. My heart races, which bothers me as a scarred face passes through my mind when it has no business being there. “Today was kind of eventful for me, and I’m sure just about everyone cussed like we were in the middle of a dang apocalypse. It’s just not necessary is all I’m saying.”
“What happened today?” Mitch’s eyes flicker from me to Nix. “What happened today?” he repeats.
“You know the Lenaghans, right?” Nix sips his beer. “The blondes.”
“Uh-huh. Luc is cool. Most serious guy I ever met.”
“Yeah, well, he’s got sisters, right?” Nix nods toward me, though of course I’m not the stunning blonde he speaks of. “Blonde sisters. One of them is getting married next week.”
“Right.”
“Well she was in the shop today to pick her flowers or some shit.”
“Don’t swear.”
His mocking eyes come to me for a beat. “Well that chick’s man is outta town today, so she had a different dude following her around like security. Some seven-foot motherfucker who–”
“Nixon Rosa!” I lean across the table and smack him. “There areclearlycuss word levels. Talking of feces is one thing, saying the B-word is worse, but the mother-eff word is a whole other level of rude. Quit it!”
He purses his lips and loses his patience. “This massive mother-fondler was with her on guard duty, and when he saw me with Abby, he got a little intense and demanded to know if we knew each other.”
“But you don’t know him?”
“Nah. And he isn’t a dude you’d meet and forget. More than seven feet tall, triple Ab’s width, tatted from top to bottom. But his face…”
“What?” Tomato chunks fall from Mitch’s mouth as he looks between us. “What about his face?”
“He’s all scarred up,” I offer quietly. “All up the side from here,” I touch the center of my cheek and slide my finger up and over my brow. “All the way up to here. It’s really deep, like it wasn’t a doctor cut, but something horrible happened to him.”
“Woulda bled half to death,” Nix ponders. “Wasn’t neat enough for a blade either. More like a piece of wood, a chair leg, maybe a broken bottle. Someone attacked him, but there are no stitch marks. You know the dots that stitches leave behind?”
Mitch and I both nod.
“None of that.”
“Gifted plastic surgeon?”
“Doubt it. If they were gifted, they wouldn’t have left the chunks out. I reckon he slapped some steri-strips on it and called it a day.”
“Old school drill sergeant.” Mitch almost sounds impressed. “Maybe Beck or Corey know him?” He shrugs. “Worth asking.”
“Why?”
Mitch’s eyes come to me. “Why what?”
“Why are you asking about him? He’s none of our business.”