Page 12 of Badd Daddy
I wasn’t exactly expectingOliva to show up. I hoped she would, but I wasn’t banking on it. Nonetheless, I took a shower after work, changed into the cleanest, newest pair of jeans I had, and the only collared polo shirt I owned. I even combed my hair and brushed my beard, although it didn’t get the trim it needed. One step at a time. If she showed up and this turned into some kind of a real friendship, I’d think about cleaning up a bit. So far, though, I’m assuming it ain’t nothing. A passing interest, at best.
So, when my buzzer went off, I was pleasantly surprised. I buzzed her in, and opened my door for her. I heard her coming up the steps, and felt my heart thumping in a way it hadn’t in years and which, considering the heart attack I had a couple of years ago, may not be so great.
She sashayed down to the hall to my door, and my mouth went dry. Dark blue jeans tight enough to hug her slender but strong legs. Mmm, those legs. Her smile was bright and eager, and possibly even a bit nervous.
“Something different about you today, Liv,” I said, as I let her in.
She shrugged. “I’m not all dressed up today. I had a client meeting yesterday.”
I held a straight face. “So I ain’t a client? Meanin’ I don’t rate the fancy clothes?”
She snorted. “You’re a friend, meaning youdorate the comfy clothes.” She swept a hand at herself. “This is the real me.”
“I was teasin’. I like the real you. ’Course, I like the fancy you, too. Both are damned beautiful.” I stared at her, trying to figure out what was different from yesterday. It hit me, but I wasn’t sure how to put it. “You ain’t wearin’ makeup. That’s what’s different.”
She smiled, but it was hesitant and nervous. “True. I…I don’t know.” Her chin dropped, eyes flicking down and away from me.
I touched her chin, lifting her gaze to mine. “I like you better this way.” I frowned, hesitated. “Not that what I like should make a difference. I’m just sayin’. Liv, you are goddamned gorgeous, and you don’t need a lick of makeup to be that way.”
Her smile returned, brightened. “Thank you, Lucas. That…it means a lot to hear you say that.”
“So. Lunch?”
She nodded. “I know a place close by. I thought we could take my truck.”
“Sure.” I hated feeling like less of man for not being able to pick her up.
I snagged my cane, stuffed my wallet and keys into my pockets, and gestured for her to precede me out of the apartment. We climbed into her truck, and she drove us to a cafe a couple of miles away—farther than I’d be able to walk, and not somewhere I’d been, yet.
We took a booth in a back corner, perused the menu in a companionable silence and then, after we’d ordered, we eyed each other, each waiting for the other to speak first.
“Tell me something about yourself that no one knows,” Olivia said.
I fiddled with a sugar packet. “Um. Only folks livin’ who know a damn thing about me are my boys, and I ain’t told ’em much about myself, so honestly, that ain’t too hard.” I winced. “Well, finding somethin’ nobody knows is the easy part. Sharin’ it? Not as easy.”
“No? Why not?”
I shrugged. “I mean, ’cause most of it ain’t pleasant.” I set the sugar packet aside. “My life ain’t been…well it ain’t been a storybook tale. Put it that way.”
“I’m not afraid of unpleasant things, Lucas. There’s some of that in my own story.”
“Of course there is. None of us get out of life unscathed. Some shit is worse than others, though.”
She nodded. “Try something easy, then. Doesn’t have to be a deep, dark secret.”
I spent a moment thinking—and then our food came and I kept thinking on it while we dug in—her into a salad with chicken, avocado, berries, and shredded cheese, and me into a fat, juicy bacon cheeseburger, with fries.
She didn’t say anything to me, but I caught an odd look on her face when she glanced at my food. I arched an eyebrow. “Okay, so let’s trade. I’ll tell you something nobody knows about me, and you tell me what that look was for.”
She winced. “I’m sorry. That’s my issue, not yours.”
“I’m still interested in knowing what it was about and why.”
She rolled a shoulder and nodded. “Okay. So…what’s your fact?”
“My twin brother, God rest him, was always the good one. I was the troublemaker, if you could believe it.” I laughed, and smeared a fry in ketchup. “We were, oh…sixteen? Seventeen? Identical, too. Even our folks couldn’t tell us apart if we were dressed the same. So, one day, Liam wrecked our truck. Wouldn’t have been anything else to the story except he wasn’t supposed to be out, because it was well past midnight, and he’d been drinking with…Lena. His…girlfriend—sort of. Anyway, they were out late, past curfew, drinking, and he wrecked the truck. I took the blame, said it was me, by myself, and Dad never knew Lena was involved at all.”
She frowned in confusion. “Why would you do that? Take the blame like that?”