Page 16 of A Wreck, You Make Me (Bad Boys of Bardstown #3)

Chapter Five

It’s been two days since I saw him last.

Since I fled the room after kneeing him in the junk.

I’m not going to lie, I have feared retaliation on his part.

I have been scared of being called into George’s office and getting fired for attacking a paying customer.

Not only because I know that’s exactly what George would do if he found out, but also because I know him .

He bites back, my stepbrother. He’s not a thorn, he’s a snake. A vicious viper, and I knew he wouldn’t take my rebellion lying down. But then nothing happened for two days and I thought maybe, just maybe , he’d moved on, but apparently not.

I already know why he’s here. For some kind of payback, isn’t it?

He’s here to ruin things for me somehow and I have no choice but to walk toward him.

Even though I’m thoroughly confused, I’m trying to appear nonchalant.

I’m trying to appear like his presence doesn’t affect me.

Chin up, shoulders straight. But it’s hard.

Especially when he’s staring at me like that. With pitch black and intense eyes.

He makes his way from the top of my head, taking in my bouncy hair, to my made-up face, all the way down to my dress and heels.

While my dress is borrowed from Tempest, my shoes are my favorite ones.

Black pumps with red soles. I’ve walked in them for years now.

I’ve run in them, danced in them too. But somehow, it feels like I’ve forgotten how to walk in them in this moment.

I’m fairly sure I’m going to stumble—not on purpose—if I don’t get to my destination soon.

I finally reach the table but before I can say anything, Joe stands up like the gentleman he is and goes, “Hey, you’re back.”

I swivel my gaze over to him. “Yeah, hi. I?—”

Suddenly, a grin erupts on his face, a very boyish one at that, cutting my words off. “You didn’t tell me you knew him.”

My eyes snap back to him, only to find him still staring at me. With the same dark and focused look. I want to tell him to cut it out. He can’t look at me like that when I’m on a date with someone else. Tearing my eyes away from him, I address Joe. “I don’t. I?—”

“Saw a flash of strawberry red from across the street and stopped in my tracks. There’s only one girl I know with that shade of red hair. My baby sister’s best friend. So I thought I’d come say hi.”

Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t you do it, Jupiter.

I breathe in sharply and turn to him. “What were you doing across the street?”

“Watching you through the window,” he replies blithely.

“What were you doing before you were watching me through the window?”

“Parking my truck.”

“You—”

“I’m in town for a while,” he informs me.

“A while?”

“For the foreseeable future.” I open my mouth to say something when he continues, “I’m sure we’ll be running into each other a lot.”

He’s dropped his voice low, making the words sound so rough and deep. Carrying a certain weight of intimacy in them. Like we really know each other. Like there’s a connection between us.

“We’re on a date,” I tell him firmly.

Danger flashes through his features, tightening his jaw, but before he can say anything Joe speaks.

“Yeah, I’m sorry but I think that’s my fault.

I invited him to sit with us. I just…” He turns back to him, totally starstruck.

“I know I’ve said this before, but you’re fucking amazing.

I’ve watched every single one of your games.

And not only in the pros. I’ve followed your career ever since you played for the high school here. ”

Joe goes on to say other wonderful things about him, but I tune it out as I watch him slip into his celebrity mode.

He goes from being Shepard Thorne to the Wrecking Thorn in the blink of an eye.

A gracious smile, relaxed but confident features.

This is how he is in front of the cameras.

Somehow both approachable and mysterious.

Charming and arrogant. A celebrity through and through, who you think you know but want to know more about.

That’s why the media love him, or rather love to talk about him.

“I’m so sorry about last season, man. That sucked balls,” Joe seems to be saying when I decide to pay attention, and I watch him go rigid. It’s a subtle change and I don’t think Joe notices, which is why he continues on the same topic, and Shepard grows more frozen by the second.

Until I can’t stand it anymore and I decide to interrupt Joe. “Joe, I think we should?—”

“Take a seat.”

At his voice, I fist my hands at my sides.

Does he have to sound so commanding? Especially when he’s the one crashing my date.

I turn to him to give him a piece of my mind, Joe be damned, but he doesn’t let me get in a word.

“You don’t want poor Joe here to keep standing for you for the rest of the night, do you?

Doesn’t make you look like a very good date. ”

At which point I realize Joe is still standing, and I immediately feel bad.

I look over at Joe and apologize before taking a seat and declaring to the table in general, “Joe’s the proof chivalry isn’t dead.

He’s a gentleman through and through. But not everyone can say the same these days, can they? ”

Yes, I’m making a dig at him, given that he kept his seat the entire time I was standing.

But it’s all true in Joe’s case. Joe is a gentleman.

He’s always friendly and kind, open. He smiles at people.

He makes them feel at ease. He doesn’t insult people to their face.

He isn’t arrogant and condescending, holding a grudge for days.

Joe is everything he is not, and therefore, Joe is perfect.

Despite the fact that he doesn’t like my freckles but again, I don’t like them either so I’m not going to let that bug me.

And neither am I going to let it bug me that Joe’s shoulders aren’t so broad that they dwarf the high-backed chair he’s sitting in.

I don’t think he could ever pull off a dark t-shirt with the faded logo of a rock metal band that makes him look like he might be the lead singer of said band.

No, his hair isn’t dark and isn’t perpetually mussed up, and no, his features aren’t sharp enough to give paper cuts to my heart just at the thought of their beauty.

But that doesn’t matter. What matters is, Joe is a good person.

Joe would never let amusement and condescension drip from his words like he does when he says, “Definitely not. Although I don’t think you really know the kind of assholes walking around these days.

If you did, you wouldn’t leave the house looking like that. ”

At this, I snap my eyes over to him once again. “Looking like what?”

And to my dismay, that intimacy I spied in his eyes before only grows. He lets his stare—intimate and intense—wander over my face, my hair. He looks at the pulse fluttering in my neck and my heaving chest, the lacy neck of my emerald dress. Then, coming back to my eyes, “Dazzling.”

See? Joe is a good person. Joe would never do what he just did. Put a strange emphasis on ‘dazzling.’ The kind you do when you’re cursing. Like the word dazzle is a bad word and he meant something entirely different by it.

Asshole.

“So how did you guys meet?” he asks next, but this time when I look away, I’m determined to keep my eyes away from him.

Joe jumps into the story right away. “We work together. At the coffee shop. Just off of Main. I’m the manager and she’s one of the baristas.”

“Ah, a little office romance,” he murmurs, but again it feels like cursing. “Not so chivalrous, after all.”

Embarrassed, Joe rubs the back of his neck with his hand. “Well, I know it’s not the most kosher thing. I am in a position of authority, but”—he shakes his head—“I couldn’t stop myself.”

He hums. “I bet you couldn’t.”

Asshole, asshole, asshole!

“So I broke down and asked her,” Joe continues with the story. “But of course, she said no.”

“Did she now?”

“I kept asking. To the point where I’m sure it got annoying for her. But then, two days ago, she surprisingly said yes, and here we are.”

“Two days ago, huh?” he murmurs with interest. “Well, lucky you.”

“Oh, I completely agree. And it’s not just because she’s pretty, you know?

She’s just… She’s the most hardworking, independent girl I’ve ever met.

She has two jobs plus her occasional catering gig, rents her own apartment, she takes care of her little sister all by herself, and especially after what happened last year?—”

“Why aren’t you at practice?” I ask abruptly, putting a stop to Joe’s story.

I know I said I’d keep aloof and that I wouldn’t get involved. But I don’t want Joe talking about my sister or anything at all that’s remotely personal to my life. Not to him . My secret stepbrother.

If Joe thinks my interruption was weird, he’s too polite to show it. And the other guy at our table is acting like nothing is wrong anyway. Like he isn’t here, crashing my date and exacting revenge for what I did two days ago.

Like sitting back in his high-backed chair, all broad and tall, with the overhead lights bringing out the chocolate-colored strands in his gorgeously messy hair and highlighting his killer jawline, he has every right to flick his eyes over me. All arrogantly and dominatingly.

Possessively.

“Because practice is done for the day,” he says at last.

Well, duh. It’s dinnertime, so of course practice is done. But I didn’t have time to think of something better to say. I keep forging ahead though. “What about your after-practice activities?”

His eyes flash. “If by that you mean my weekly book club, we don’t meet on Tuesdays.”

He thinks he’s so funny, doesn’t he? I narrow my eyes at him. “Have you ever finished a book in your life?”

“Only the ones with a happy ending.”

“You—”

“Which is kinda why I’m here.”

My heart jumps in my chest. “What?”