“But technically it’s black. It lightens up a bit in the summer, giving it a dark, coffee brown appearance. But I would consider it black.”
I eyed the shortened stubble.
“Now that you’re out, are you going to let it grow?” I asked curiously.
He shrugged. “Probably not. Shaving it means that I don’t have to pay some chick thirty dollars to give me a five-dollar haircut.”
My lips twitched.
“You sound like you would know,” I teased.
“I would,” he grunted. “I wasn’t allowed to shave it when I was younger. I had to keep it neat and trimmed. Couldn’t have a beard. Couldn’t look ‘scruffy’ at all.” He ran his big hand over the length of his jaw, his fingers scraping along the stubble there. “My mom hated it when I got scruffy. When I didn’t look ‘clean’ and ‘acceptable.’ But she also wouldn’t pay for my haircuts. Meaning I had to pay someone to do it. And I just don’t see how a five-minute haircut can cost thirty bucks. When I was younger, thirty bucks broke me.”
“Your mother sounds like a tool,” I grumbled.
“She’s somethin’,” he groused.
“Maybe we can hook your mom up with my dad and get rid of them both?” I joked.
His eyes gleamed. “My mother would have to get her ass out of the house, off the couch, or possibly out of bed to do that. Unless you just want to send him over to her, allow him to break in, and maybe they can meet that way. Just give me a heads up first, though. I’ll need to get Auggie out of the house first.”
“Auggie is your sister?” I asked.
He nodded. “My one and only.”
My lips curled into a smile.
He sounded like he loved his sister a lot.
I wondered what it would be like to have a brother or a sister.
My mother and father had me and immediately divorced.
When my mother met my stepfather, Errick Marrin, they’d unfortunately not been able to have any more children.
Which sucked, because if anyone deserved children, it was my stepfather.
When I’d called him ‘dad’ the first time, he’d almost teared up.
“She’s my sister,” the man at my side confirmed, finishing off the last dregs of his beer. “Damn, I’m out.”
I raised my hand at my grandfather. “Papa! Can we have another one?”
My grandfather raised his hand in confirmation.
“He anything like your dad?” Trick asked curiously.
“Nope,” I said. “Nothing. He’s got everything where my dad has nothing. If you would meet my father, you’d understand. It’s like nothing was passed down from father to son. Where my grandfather has smarts, my dad has unsmarts.”
“I don’t think unsmarts is a word,” he teased.
I shrugged. “It needs to be one. And my father’s picture needs to be in the dictionary right underneath of it.”
“He sounds special.” Trick grinned as he stood. “I’ll be back. Have to use the restroom. Watch my beer for me, will ya?”
I gave him a thumbs up and watched him walk toward the back hallway.
When my grandfather came back over with Trick’s beer and my Coca-Cola, he gave me a sharp look.
“Don’t get to thinking about what I think you’re thinking about,” he said before taking off.
My grandfather had no freakin’ clue what I was thinking about. If he did, he’d send me home right now.
Because after watching that hot man walk away? I wanted nothing more than to jump his bones.
See, I wasn’t the typical girl.
I’d lost my virginity at fifteen. It was kind of hard to live a sheltered life when your mother was working her ass off and your father was a fuck-up. It was only when my mother met my stepfather that things started to settle down for me.
I suddenly had structure at home. My mom was there to reinforce that I came in the door at my curfew. Or hell, my stepfather getting up in the morning early to make sure that I actually went to school.
Needless to say, I wasn’t the type of person that was a prude.
I’d had sex before. I knew how good it could be.
And I had a feeling that Trick would be able to do it better than most.
When Trick finally came back from the bathroom, I was practically dancing in my seat as an urgency to press my lips against his took me over.
Seriously, the man had kissable lips.
Lips that would cause my heart to leap out of my chest if given the chance.
“Ahh, thanks for watching it for me,” Trick said as he came back. He picked up his beer and leaned against the bar top, next to the seat between us and his. “I swear, this beer is so good.”
My lips twitched.
We spent the next two hours talking about anything and everything.
And my father didn’t show up throughout it all.
So when Trick announced he needed another bathroom break, I didn’t question the urge to follow him.
Swiping the peanut shells off of the bar top and onto the floor, I waved at my grandfather. “I’m done waiting. I’ll see you tomorrow night for my birthday dinner?”
He winked and gave me a thumbs up, but never moved from his spot mid-bar where a woman was talking to him about her woes.
He didn’t notice, either, when instead of going out the front, I went down the length of the back hallways toward the bathrooms.
Having used it on my own twenty minutes before, I waited outside of the men’s bathroom for Trick to come out.
When he did, he grinned when he saw me.
“What’s up?” he asked, rubbing his hands dry on his jeans.
“I…” I couldn’t stop myself then.
Instead of telling him what I wanted, I decided fuck it, and showed him instead.
I launched myself at him, pressing my lips down onto his.
He caught me by placing his hands on my ass and pulled me in even closer.
The hot length of his erection didn’t go unnoticed as he ground himself into me.
I pulled back with a gasp, my hands on his face, and stared at him.
“What the hell was that?” he rasped, moving deeper into the darkness of the hallway, pressing me against the nearest wall.
“That” I ran my hands up his chest, “was three hours of frustration.”
He laughed, and then he was kissing me again.
I’d just gotten into it, really loving the tingling feeling he was giving me, when I heard it.
“Where the fuck is my daughter?”
The bellowed words that could be heard over the bar’s music had me stiffening.
Catching on to my obvious tension, Trick let me slide to my feet.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
I swallowed hard as disappointment rolled through me.
I wouldn’t ever be seeing Trick again, and I really liked him.
Son of a bitch.
“That’s my dad,” I admitted. “The asshole shouting out at the bar.”
He paused at my words. “He sounds like a real peach.”
We’d just separated even more, me taking a step backward to slide around Trick, when the lights were now blaring in the hallway and my dad was staring at me accusingly from the mouth of it.
“You little slut,” my father growled upon seeing me.
Trick and I weren’t even kissing anymore.