Well, that was it. Nail in his coffin. Subjecting my girl to not only his raging hormones, but secondhand smoke also? Nuh uh.
Lucky gave him a look, then focused on the passenger seat of my car, squinting. He shook his head knowingly, a shadow of a grin reappearing on his face.
“Well, since you’re here you can help me take a look at the lady’s car. See if we can get her off to her movie,” he declared, moving to the front of my car.
The “kid” didn’t say a word, merely threw his finished cigarette away and sauntered to join Lucky, who glanced at me.
“Pop the hood, would you, darlin’?”
I jerked out of my glare at the “kid” who was now also staring at me, and moved to the driver’s side. I opened the door and popped the hood. I then sat down and stared at my daughter, who was lounging in her seat with her book face down in her lap.
She caught my stare and raised her eyebrows at me innocently. “What?” she asked obliviously.
I raised my eyebrows right back. “Don’t what me. You know exactly what,” I told her.
She kept up the act. “No, I don’t, actually.”
“Don’t play dumb. The obscure Russian literature in your lap makes the act fall short,” I informed her flatly.
“Leo Tolstoy is hardly obscure,” she argued defensively. “He is considered to be one of the best novelists of all time.”
“That book is fifteen hundred pages,” I said by explanation.
“So?” she replied tersely.
“So that book could be used to sink a small boating vessel, or as a weapon to knock even the most hardheaded attacker unconscious,” I continued with seriousness.
“I’m using it for its intended purpose,” she replied smartly.
“I doubt its intended purpose is to be sitting in the lap of a teenage girl while a teenage boy puffs smoke in her face,” I shot back just as smartly.
She was robbed of her no doubt brilliant defense when I heard my name shouted from the proximity of the hood.
I pointed at my daughter. “This isn’t over.” I then hauled myself out of the car and directed myself to the front of my car, where I expected to see Lucky and the unnamed corrupter of my daughter’s virtue. To my horror, not only did I see them, but two other equally hot sex gods and Zane. I was momentarily stopped in my tracks at this sight, not because they were hot—which they were—but because of the hateful glare Zane was directing at me. I hadn’t even spoken a word to him. What was this dude’s deal?
“Got good news and bad news for you, babe,” Lucky told me, not looking up from the hood.
I regained my motor skills and walked a teeny bit closer to the hot guy huddle. Not too close though; with the look Zane was directing at me, I was worried laser beams might come out of his eyes and incinerate me.
I swallowed, trying to ignore it. “I do always like my dessert first,” I addressed the bald head still bent in the depths of my car.
A manly chuckle erupted at this statement and I glanced to one of the hot guys who was smiling at me. I struggled not to melt on the spot. I recognized him from the café on the first morning of my job. He had dirty blond hair tied haphazardly into a delicious bun.
Lucky straightened, and I struggled to tear my eyes away from the rugged surfer to focus on news about my car.
“The good news is, we can get you to your movie, but not in this car,” he told me, wiping his hands on a dirty rag. I didn’t understand how that would clean them, but then again I wasn’t a big badass biker mechanic. I was not party to their ways.
“I don’t follow,” I told him, confused. Confused because male gods had gone in with their attractiveness and muddled up all my thoughts.
“Well, to fix your car it’s going to take a touch longer than half an hour. We have to order in the parts, and we have to wait till Monday to do that,” he explained.
My face drained. “Fiddlesticks,” I muttered under my breath. Of course my day could not just be filled with eating my body weight in movie snacks and perving at outlaw men who drove hot cars. No. It had to deal with man boys who chatted up my daughter, fielding death stares from a hot biker, and having car trouble. I focused to see that all of the men, except Zane of course, were openly grinning at me. Even the dark-haired one, who had also been at the café and didn’t look like his manly face grinned much.
“Zane!” An excited voice turned the attention away from me, which I was thankful for. I didn’t think a woman could handle that many hot guys staring at her at the same time. Something could happen. Spontaneous combustion, hormone overdose. Something dangerous, anyway. Unfortunately, the excited voice was that of my daughter, someone I definitely didn’t want four and a half hot men staring at.
But staring at her they were.
She rounded the car with a grin on her face, oblivious to all of the other attention on her as she approached the biker.
“I so thought you might be here. This is your club, right?” She didn’t give him the time to answer and just kept on talking. “I told Mom that we should come in and say hello,” her eyes cut to me, “but she didn’t want to disturb you. Totally sucks about the car, but at least you’re here and we can thank you again for the other day.” Her blue eyes brightened. “You should come to the movies with us and we can treat you, as a thank you. Don’t worry, we don’t see girly stuff. We love action movies—the more unbelievable, unrealistic explosions and car chases, the better,” she quickly reassured him.
I swallowed a snort. I didn’t think there were enough explosions and car chases in the world to get a man like Zane into a movie theatre to watch one. He was more likely to participate in them in real life than watch them play out on the big screen.