Page 69 of Lawton

"How about this?" I said. "I'll set you up, and maybe we can meet back here in, I dunno, a half hour?"

She glanced toward the open doorway, and her eyebrows furrowed. I knew why. Bishop had disappeared. I was used to this. She wasn't. She turned to me and asked, "You related to that guy or something?"

I glanced toward the empty doorway. Counting Bishop, I had five half-brothers. Who knows? Maybe I had more, given my piss-poor excuse for a dad. But no one knew about that, and I was hoping to keep it that way.

I kept my tone casual. "What makes you say that?"

"Oh please," she said, "I have eyes. You could be brothers. Are you?"

"Well, since you're so curious about him," I teased, "his name is Bishop."

"First or last?" she asked.

"Last. But that's the one he goes by."

"Oh." She gave a shake of her head. "Cousins, then?"

I laughed. "No. We're definitely not cousins." By now, it was pretty obvious she hated the guy. At the moment, I wasn't too crazy about him either. But once she got to know him, she'd see things differently. In the meantime, I couldn’t resist saying, "Don't tell me you have a thing for him?"

"God no," she said.

"Good," I said. "Now, forgethim." I stepped closer and traced the side of her face with my fingers. "Let's talk about you. If I let you out of my sight, you're not gonna sneak off on me, are you?"

She smiled up at me. "Not a chance."

"Good. Because I'm not kidding. You look amazing just the way you are."

She gave me a dubious look, but said nothing.

I wasn't kidding. I meant every word. I reached out a hand to help her off the couch. When she stood, I pulled her close and nuzzled her neck. "Seriously," I said. "I don’t want to leave you for one minute. But if I don't, he'll just come back, and then –" I shrugged.

"Then what?" she asked.

"Then, well, I'd have to kill him."

Chapter 32

A couple minutes later, I was leading Chloe through the mess of beer bottles, cocktail glasses, and plates of discarded food.

I glanced down at her bare feet. "I still think I should carry you."

She laughed. "AndIstill think you've carried me enough for one evening." She sidestepped a spilled drink and kept on going. "Besides, I can't get much dirtier, can I?"

That's where she was wrong. She could get dirtier. A lot dirtier. I could help her with that. I shook my head. What the hell? This wasn't a porn movie. It was real life.

I focused on the real issue. "There's broken glass."

"Yeah," she said, "and we stepped around it."

"There might be more."

"And we'll step around it again."

Dirty or not, I hated that she was barefoot in all this mess. About carrying her, I wanted to insist. I would've insisted. But I didn't want to push the issue. Not yet.

She was my guest, not my girlfriend, so throwing her over my shoulder wasn't exactly an option, as fun as that sounded.

Next time.