“Don’t lie. You two can’t stand each other.”
I shrugged a little. “She’s like family. You know how I feel about my family.”
Jet lifted an eyebrow, “I wish my family had members that looked like that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Knock it off. Stop being a creeper.”
She came back with not one pitcher but two and a plate of wings. She smiled at Nash and the other guys but when her bright gaze landed on me the shudders came down. “These are on me. I just can’t help myself from trying to make sure you eat on Sunday.” She turned away with a flip of her pale hair and moseyed over to another table full of middle aged guys in ill-fitting jerseys. I narrowed my eyes when one of them put his hand on her ruffle covered butt. Clearly used to it Shaw flashed that killer grin and easily side stepped the groper. It was such a different way to see her that when she walked past the table again clearly intent on ignoring me I reached out and grabbed her arm.
Her eyes flashed an emerald spark as she looked at the tattooed fingers I had wrapped around her wrist. I was surprised when a jolt shot all the way up to my shoulder at the contact. I lifted both eyebrows at her and gave her a nasty sneer.
“Do your parents know you work here, and what about Margot? I have a hard time believing any of the adults you try so hard to impress daily know that you’re prancing around here half naked.”
She scowled at me and shook my hand off. “No, my parents don’t know because they’ve never asked and Margot knows I work in sports bar but she doesn’t know what the uniform looks like and I’m not even close to being half naked. Leave me alone, Rule. My roommate works here too and she’s giving me the look that means she’s about to call in the troops. Unless you want to be carted out of here by three very big bouncers you’ll keep your hands to yourself and your trap shut. I like Nash, he’s always been nice enough to me, but I have no problem getting you and the rest of your friends 86’ed if you continue to piss me off.”
We glared at each other in a hostile standoff until one of her other tables flagged her down.
“Just one weekend.” I frowned at her as she muttered the words so low I almost didn’t hear her.
“What?”
Those eyes blazed so much at me I couldn’t even pick out one solid emotion. “Just one weekend I wanted a break from dealing with you.” She flounced away from me and for the first time since I had met her I realized maybe spending time with me was as much a pain for her as it was for me. When I turned back to my friends they were all looking at me with a mixture of pity and awe. My scowl darkened even more as I chugged back my full beer in one swallow.
“What?” I could hear the surliness in my tone.
“Dude, what’s the deal with that?” Rowdy was the one who asked the question but Nash and Jet both looked like they wanted to ask the same thing.
“What are you talking about?”
Nash lifted up his beer to hide a smile. “You looked like you both wanted to box each other or tear each other’s clothes off and go at it right in the middle of the bar. What gives with that, I thought she bugged you.”
“She does. She’s rich and spoiled; we don’t agree on anything, we never have.”
Rowdy gave me a look that outright called bullshit on my claim. “I know what I saw and there is no way that if that girl didn’t offer it up you wouldn’t take it.”
I wanted to yell at him that he was wrong, so very wrong because before she was any of the things that annoyed me and got under my skin, she was Remy’s and there was nothing in heaven or hell that would make me forget that. Pulling in my temper I poured another beer and lapsed into a moody silence. I wasn’t attracted to Shaw, it was just seeing her in a new environment, seeing her in something other than her fancy outfits that cost more than I made in a month that had the tension between us reading to other people as something else.
We were almost to the bottom of the second pitcher and silently Shaw had dropped of a replacement when a really pretty girl with super short dark hair suddenly appeared at the edge of the table. She was tall and had eyes the color of Jack Daniels but there was nothing on her lovely face that came across as welcoming. She had a mouth that would give Angelia Jolie a run for her money and a body that was meant to stop traffic displayed in all its glory in a matching uniform to Shaw’s only instead of kick ass boots she had on a pair of spiked heels that probably made her taller than Nash and Jet.
Jet sat up straighter and Rowdy, who was by far the drunkest of all of us since he had started adding shots of tequila twenty minutes ago, almost fell off his stool when she posted up at the table between the two of them. Her gaze was trained directly on me though so I met her look for look until she finally spoke. She had a soft southern twang and I could swear I saw Jet fall in love on the spot.
“You’re Rule.” It wasn’t a question so I just nodded.
“I’m Ayden Cross. I live with Shaw.”
I wasn’t sure why that was supposed to matter to me so I kept silent while my best friend whipped his head around to glare at me. I was being kind of rude, but I was buzzed and still pissed at Shaw so I didn’t really care.
“I don’t know what your deal is but leave her alone. She doesn’t need you screwing with her head anymore so just back off.”
I blinked because I honestly had no clue what this babe was going on about. “I don’t mess with Shaw.”
She narrowed her eyes and pointed a finger at me. “I know exactly what you do and don’t do Tattoo Boy. I adore Shaw. She’s sweet, nice and the best roommate ever so you need to just go do your troubled, bad boy act somewhere else, she doesn’t need it…”It looked like she was gearing up to lay into me even more but something caught her eye and suddenly her eyes were glowing with gold fire. “Oh my God! I cannot believe that ass**le had the nerve to show up here. I need to go get Lou.” She spun on her heel and marched through the crowd leaving me reeling. I had no clue what she was talking about but clearly something had crawled up her butt so I looked over my shoulder and felt every protective cell I had suddenly come alive.
Shaw was standing by the bar . It was crowded but her white blond hair was unmistakable. So was the fact that she looked stressed and freaked out while a guy in a white polo shirt crowed her into the edge of the bar. He had a hand on her shoulder and was leaning down into her face, and whatever he was saying made her look like she wanted to punch him in the nuts or puke on his shoes. I’d never seen the look of panic on her face like that before; she was normally so cool and unflappable that against my better judgment I was climbing to my feet. I wasn’t the type to give two shits about a damsel in distress, but this damsel I knew for a fact could take care of herself and if she looked like she was struggling, despite how I felt about her I was going to intervene. “I’ll be back in a second.”