“Shit,” Hunt said as he took the cut off, righted it, and then put it back on. “I put it on in the dark.”
“Huh,” Swayze hummed.
“Food,” I said, sitting back when Crockett came walking over with her arms full of baskets of burgers and fries.
Zach sat back, arms no longer crossed, and allowed his gaze to drag across Crockett, who I just now realized was in short shorts that resembled pajama shorts and a tank top.
“I like the outfit,” Hunt quipped.
“I was in bed when she practically begged me to cook her a burger,” Crockett grumbled. “You can’t complain about my clothes if you’re not really even supposed to be here.”
“No complaints on my end, honey,” Hunt teased.
Zach grunted something that had Crockett flushing—whether it was in embarrassment or pleasure, I didn’t know.
“Thank you,” I said to Crockett. “I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome,” she said as she turned around.
That’s when Zach started to softly laugh beside me.
“What?” Hunt asked, picking up a fry and popping it into his mouth.
He gestured toward Crockett.
I turned to look and felt a smile growing on my lips.
Her butt had a caricature of a smooshed cat on the ass, as if she’d sat on it.
It was cute, that was for sure.
The grumbly, pissy girl beside me, however, held my attention.
With her sexy legs, juicy ass, and succulent hips.
God, I wanted to…
“How’s your sister doing?” owner of said sexy legs asked, popping a fry into her mouth.
“Good,” I answered, picking up the ketchup bottle and drowning my fries in it.
“There are two types of people in this world,” Hunt said. “Those who dip their fries into ketchup, and psychopaths like you who put the ketchup on their fries.”
“Interesting,” I said as I picked up one of my fries, ketchup smearing my fingers.
“Psycho,” Hunt murmured under his breath.
Swayze finished her food and then got up and walked her trash to the trash can.
Her dress had ridden up slightly and was tucked into what I now saw was a gun holster.
“Your dress is tucked into your holster,” Crockett called.
“I know,” Swayze replied. “It was dragging along the ground, and I have to return it to a friend tomorrow. I don’t want to get it dirty if I can manage it.”
“I can’t believe you carried to a high-society function.” Crockett laughed as she worked on another order behind the counter. “I bet all those bitches and assholes would’ve had a coronary if they’d known.”
“Maybe.” Swayze shrugged. “But I don’t care. If I was gonna be shot, it’d be at one of those events. They’re so mean to everyone.”
“Mean to you?” Crockett asked as she walked over with a bowl of ice cream and a chocolate brownie and set it in front of Swayze’s seat.
“Yum,” Hunt said, taking a massive bite of his burger. “You have any more of those?”
“Last one.” Crockett didn’t look apologetic in the least. “Sorry, Charlie.”
“Hunt. Not Charlie,” Hunt corrected her.
“It’s a saying,” Crockett said, her eyes flicking toward Zach, who was quietly eating his food and hadn’t said a word.
“I know,” Hunt said. “I was just teasing you.”
Crockett walked back behind the counter and started to wash some dishes while Swayze walked back to her spot. She sat down and started to eat her food, all the while Hunt gave her moon eyes.
“You know,” Hunt said. “Though it really bothers me that you’re eating the last brownie, I think you might be breaking Trick’s heart more. He’s a chocolate lover.”
“He is?” Swayze asked. “That’s interesting. So am I.”
I eyed the brownie. It did look good.
But I was still eating my burger, so I wasn’t as interested in it as I probably would have been had I been finished.
“Yep,” Hunt said as he picked up a handful of fries and popped them into his mouth. Then, around a mouthful, he said, “You should’ve seen the stash of chocolate he has. I brought groceries in for him, and three out of the four bags that I brought in had some sort of chocolate in it.”
Swayze looked over at me curiously, her eyes trailing down my tattooed arms, settling on where they were crossed over my abs.
“Hmm,” she said, as if she couldn’t quite believe that I had a thing for chocolate.
She continued to eat, and I finished my food off, wondering what in the hell I was doing.
When I got out early, I told myself that out of everything that I was going to do, the top priority was to stay away from Swayze Marrin. I was going to make sure that I kept my nose clean. I was going to make sure that this time, with my newly found freedom, I wasn’t going to fuck my life up like I did twelve years ago and regret it.
And I had a feeling that staying away from Swayze Marrin was the way to keep my nose clean.
Except, I hadn’t expected her to be in the damn city that I’d moved to. When where she used to live was hours away from here.
Secondly, I sure the fuck hadn’t expected that if she lived here, I’d be running into her as much as I did.
And lastly, I never expected her to live right across the damn street from me where it’d be physically impossible to stay away and never see her.
Hell, my gut instinct when I’d found out that she was in the same city as me was to tell her to stay the hell away from me and my sister.
Obviously, that’d worked out so damn well—at least when it came to me.
My sister had been having the time of her life in her group home that Swayze had found her, and honestly other than dinner and a lunch since I’d gotten out, she hadn’t needed me nearly as much as I’d expected her to now that she was so far away from my mom.
It was awesome as hell to see her flourishing.
I got up and tossed my trash, hesitating when I was about to come back to the table because Swayze was standing to toss her trash, too.
When I saw that half the brownie was left, I frowned.
“Here,” she said as she shoved the plate into my chest. “I can’t eat this. I’m too full.”
I looked down at the brownie and nearly moaned.
Picking it up with two fingers, I bit into it and did moan then.
“Holy shit, this is good,” I said as I took another bite.
And another. And another.
Eventually, it was gone, and Swayze was left blinking at me.
“You know,” she said. “If you weren’t such an asshole to me lately, I would’ve said that was really hot.”
She turned on her heels and left, leaving me watching her go.
“Walk her out, please,” Crockett said softly from where she was washing a large pan in soapy water. “There have been some… vagrants lately.”
Zach’s head popped up. “What do you mean vagrants?”
I didn’t stop to listen to the explanation.
I was outside and striding toward her faster than I intended.
She looked over her shoulder when the door to Crockett’s place opened and slowed her march.