I looked over at Titus, who couldn’t seem to take his eyes off my image in the mirror. An overwhelming sense of wanting to set things right with us took hold of me.
“Are we back to being friends again, T?” I whispered.
He looked over at me then, his face just inches from mine where I could see how the sun had left little spokes of white skin fanning out from the corners of his eyes. “We always were. You just walked away for a bit.”
Arrow to the fucking heart. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”
Titus grinned. “It’s all good.”
Just like that. A year of ignoring him and he forgave me that easily. My heart lurched hard and that damn burning came back to my eyes. “But I’m just not sure I can be friends with you while you have that fucking hideous mullet. It’s embarrassing.”
Titus grinned wider, knowing all my tricks. Sarcastic humor was my love language.
“I’ll be sure to grow it out even longer. Just for you, sweet tits.”
My eyes went wide. “Excuse me? What the fuck did you just call me?”
He moved back like a smart man. “Hey, I wouldn’t know since you haven’t shown me yet, but that’s how I imagine them.”
Titus spun and walked to the door, waiting there while I stared after him and then made my next appointment with Jimmy in a shocked haze. I wasn’t sure what to make of Titus. He’d always teased me and gave me back as good as he got, but he’d never been outrageously flirtatious either. What had gotten into him this morning? And why did I kind of like it?
I huffed at myself. I knew exactly why I liked it. I ran toward danger like a gnat to a flame. Flirting with my best friend seemed like the next dive off a cliff an adrenaline junkie like me was looking for. Problem was, I couldn’t mess up my friendship with Titus. He was literally the only thing I’d done right my whole life. Every other relationship I’d damaged at some point with my smart mouth and brusque behavior. I mean, I had my Hell Raisers, but we hadn’t been friends since middle school. There was still time for me to mess things up.
“Ready to go?” Titus interrupted my train of thought, which was just as well. “The guys said we’re all doing a bonfire tonight. Want me to drop you off at the hotel so I can get to my job and then I’ll pick you back up tonight?”
I looked up at him, seeing him through new eyes. “I have a car, you know.”
He shrugged and opened the passenger side door of his truck for me. “I know. But I figured if you wanted to drink with your girls, it’d be safer for me to drive you home.”
Damn these new eyes. Had Titus always been this good looking? Or this kindhearted? Did he treat all women like this or was I somehow special? His huge body got into the truck and sucked all the oxygen out.
“Don’t you want to drink with your guy friends?”
He shrugged again and turned the truck toward home. “Nah. I’d rather one of us be the designated driver. So, I’ll pick you up at eight.”
I guess it was decided.
People, men especially, making decisions for me wasn’t something I normally appreciated, yet Titus doing it just made me feel cared for. And if that wasn’t a red fucking flag if I’d ever seen one. What was wrong with me? I’d just gotten out of a bad relationship that had crushed my self-esteem. I shouldn’t even be thinking about my best friend like that. I’d done enough stupid things in my life. Titus couldn’t be one of them.
Decided. Done. End of story. Time to get new eyes.
5
Titus
After flirting with Amelia and nearly losing the ability to speak at the sight of the hot-as-fuck tattoo on her naked back, I took a step back. Flirting with her had been fun, natural even. But then she’d asked me if we were still friends in that little voice that betrayed her mushy center underneath all the layers of toughness and I couldn’t deny her that. I’d taken her to the bonfire, but made sure all my interactions with her were only as friendly as I’d ever been. Flirting? I’d squashed that urge no matter how much it killed me.
The wind whistled through the pine trees surrounding the little house Rip and I lived in. It had gotten dark, not because the sun went down, but because some intense-looking gray clouds had moved in. Fall was hitting early this year.
“It’s gonna be a frog strangler out there,” Rip muttered, headed to the fridge to see what we had to eat for dinner. The storm coming in had forced him to dock his boat and cancel his afternoon tour.
My cell phone vibrated before I could tell him to be careful of the bag of lettuce in the drawer. It had turned into a puddle of liquid somehow. I guess you had to eat that natural crap within a few days of buying it, which was why I stuck to frozen meals most of the time. That and protein shakes for the muscles all the ladies liked. Except for the one lady who didn’t look at me that way.
I didn’t recognize the number, but that happened often. Maybe it was a potential client.
“’Lo?” I answered, looking out the window at the storm brewing.
“Titus?” the man on the other end asked, voice rough.
“Depends who’s asking, pal.”
“This is Nugget down at Hell’s Tavern. I have Dom here causing some trouble. Need you to come down and get him or I’ll have to call Chief Waldo.”
I sighed and closed my eyes. Shit. Not again. “Yeah, I’ll be right over. Don’t call the chief.”
“What’s up? Dom again?” Rip pulled his head out of the fridge, his eyebrows drawn, all too familiar with the times I’d had to swoop in and set things right. At my nod, he asked, “Want some company?”
Shame, the kind that comes along with having a brother the whole town knew as the drunk troublemaker, made me shake my head. “Nah, I got this. See ya in a bit.”
I grabbed my keys and headed out, pulling on a jacket at the last second when the cool wind hit me the second the front door opened. The last thing I wanted to do was drive into town during a storm and deal with my jackass of a brother. No, scratch that. The actual last thing I wanted was Chief Waldo, Amelia’s dad, to have to deal with my jackass of a brother. He’d already arrested him more times that I could count, which didn’t exactly ingratiate me with Amelia’s dad. He begrudgingly let us be friends, mostly because he knew making me off-limits would only be like waving the red flag in front of the bull named Amelia.
I drove right past Hell Hotel, my neck craning for any sight of the dark-haired vixen who’d stolen my heart in junior high. Thankfully, I didn’t see her, which meant she was inside and safe. Probably running around that place keeping all her residents happy and calm. She was damn good at what she did, which was why I always supported her in her dream to own her own bed-and-breakfast instead of working for the absentee owner of Hell Hotel. Her dreams hadn’t happened yet, but I knew they would.
It was quiet inside Hell’s Tavern, most of the patrons having gone home like levelheaded citizens who wanted to ride out the storm at home. Then a crash from the far side of the bar broke the quiet. I looked over to see Dom in a pile of barstools, looking around in a daze.
I strode over and pulled him up. “Come on, brother. Let’s get you home.”