Decker smiled, and damn if I didn’t notice the dimple on his cheek and the strong lines of his face. I hated how sexy he looked. “Rose saw me sitting alone in a coffee shop one day and sat down with me. Within an hour, she told me that she was my new life coach and that I needed her help. Her methods are weird, but I’ve gotten some good stories out of it. I told her about you, and she said she’d take you under her wing. I don’t see the problem.”
“The problem,” I began, “is that she’s bat shit crazy.”
“She’s not crazy. She’s eccentric.”
“Says the man sipping the Kool-Aid,” I snapped back with a grin.
Beside me, Lance chuckled before taking another sip of his beer. I was feeling bold, so I grabbed Decker’s half-full bottle and lifted it up to my lips, prepared to take a swig. Naturally, the asshole swiped it from me with a frown before chugging it.
“No underaged drinking, punk,” he replied with a hiss once his bottle was empty. I watched him wipe his lips with the back of his hand and found myself licking my own. His eyes zeroed in on the movement, and a smirk erupted on his face. Asshole. I needed to somehow figure out how to control my body’s response to this guy.
“My mama used to send me to the liquor store to buy her shit. Got me a fake ID for the sole purpose of sending me on beer runs when she had friends over. I think I can handle a swig of your piss warm drink,” I replied with a roll of my eyes, then nearly slapped myself when I heard Lance’s shocked gasp.
“Wait, what?” Lance asked before grabbing my wrist, forcing me to turn and face him fully. His blue eyes were laced with concern, and I watched all playfulness flee his body in one fell swoop.
I felt Decker go still in anticipation. Fuck. I was supposed to be telling the pretty little lies that made Mama sound like the good, wholesome woman Lance wanted her to be. The magic illusion I’d been weaving all week was fading, leaving a man with nothing but a dead rabbit in his hat behind.
“Kidding,” I replied with a forced grin, hating myself a little bit for letting the truth slip out so fast. Keeping the reality of Mama’s life from Lance was proving to be harder than I’d originally expected. I quickly tried to salvage the situation. “She didn’t do that.” I was rushing my words out like an idiot.
Lance stared at me for a moment, his blue eyes assessing me. It was the first time I truly felt he was seeing me and not the woman that made us both. “Right,” he whispered, his voice hoarse as he shook his head. “You owe me a story.”
I nodded, wracking my brain for what else I could tell him. “Oh, umm,” I began. I was so caught off guard that I didn’t know what to say. It suddenly felt like I had the world on my shoulders. Painting the pleasant picture for Lance was weighing me down, and I didn’t like it.
I felt a hand brush against my back. Decker. For some reason, that little touch bolstered me enough to come up with what I knew Lance needed to hear. “Mama liked to go line dancing. She was always learning new steps. Her boots had holes in them from all her spinning on the dance floor. She had a shrine to George Strait and would kiss his photo every night before bed.”
Lance softened, his earlier reservations gone. “We should go dancing some time,” he said in a soft voice, full of hope and kindness.
“I’d love that,” I lied. I never wanted to step foot in a dance club again. Last time I went, one of Mama’s men felt me up. It made me sick to think of it.
“Okay, well, I’m going to sleep. Y’all don’t stay up too late killing one another and drinking cheap beer. Rose wants me to come in an hour early tomorrow for tabletop meditation. That can’t be sanitary, right? Sitting on the tables at her restaurant while moaning ommmm?” I turned to look at Decker, expecting him to have a satisfied smirk on his face, but instead, he looked conflicted.
“Definitely not sanitary. I want to meet this woman,” Lance said with a chuckle. I took his lightheartedness and ran with it.
Standing up, I brushed the leftover Cheeto dust on my legs, watching the orange powder cling to the sweat there. “Careful what you wish for. She’ll appoint herself as your life coach, too,” I said. “Good night.”
“Sounds like fun. Good night!” Lance called before tossing me a genuine smile, all worry from my minor slip up seemingly forgotten.
“Night,” I replied with a small smile, feeling bad for lying to him but also thankful I managed to salvage the conversation.
I walked to my room, the weight of my day making my feet feel like lead. And the moment my fingers touched my door knob, I felt a heated presence at my back.
Decker.
It figured he’d follow after me. I didn’t bother to spin around. I couldn’t trust myself to keep up my angry attitude toward him while he was shirtless. Instead, I opened the door and walked inside, not caring whether he followed me or not.
“Can I help you?” I asked when I heard my door click shut. I stood at my dresser and took my hair down from its tight bun while staring at my reflection. I could see him behind me, appraising me with an expression I couldn’t quite understand.
“You weren’t lying, were you,” he stated. It didn’t feel like a question. He dropped honesty at my feet like a lead balloon.
“Nope.”
“Why do you lie to Lance?”
I spun around, my hair a wild mess around my face. I stared at Decker for a beat longer than what was appropriate. His chest moved up and down methodically with each breath, and my eyes once again traveled to the way his sweats hung low on his body. Decker Harris was distracting as hell.
“You know what my mama told me when I asked why she gave him up?” I asked. “She said she wanted him to have a better life. She said he deserved more than what she could offer. I guess even now I’m doing her bidding. He wants to know that version of her, and I don’t want to ruin the illusion. Mama wasn’t a doting mother. She was selfish and self-absorbed and cruel. But…”
“But what?” Decker asked while taking a step closer to me. I could feel the heat radiating off his body. Another step and we’d be touching.
“But Lance doesn’t need to know that. Maybe if I lie enough, I can start to forget how terrible she was.”
Decker lifted his hand up like he was going to brush a strand of my hair out of my wild eyes. He stopped himself though, and I wasn’t sure if I cared or not. He still looked angry and determined to figure me out, but there was something else there, too. “Give me a truth,” he whispered instead.
“I hate dancing,” I whispered, surprised that he didn’t even have to bribe me for this little bit of honesty this time.
“Why?”
“Because last time she dragged me to a dance hall to be her designated driver, her date felt me up,” I replied, making Decker’s gaze turn into a blazing inferno of protective fury. It felt hollow though. Men were painfully generic when it came to caring about accosted women after the fact. Too bad no one was there when I needed them most.
“He what?” Decker asked, taking another step closer. His chest brushed against mine, and I could feel a steady heat rise up my body.
“Don’t make me repeat it. And don’t act like you care. The second I knocked on the door, you had me all figured out. This is temporary, remember? I’ll give Lance the narrative he wants, then be out of his hair. Just don’t pretend like a sad story makes you give a shit.”