Chapter 9

Here’s a condom. I thought since you were acting like a dick, you might want to dress like one.

-Tate to Hennessy’s date

Tate

It was purely coincidental that we ended up at the same place to eat twice that week.

It also saved her life.

This time I was with Baylor instead of Ariya.

Hennessy most definitely wasn’t with Krisney.

“Aren’t you tired of tacos yet?” Baylor asked.

I shook my head. “Not really.”

I fucking loved the tacos here. They also had a hamburger for the days that someone wasn’t feeling tacos. It was made out of buffalo, however, and it took some getting used to.

I loved it now, though.

I was eating three tacos, as well as the burger, and inhaling the chips and queso that we’d gotten when she walked in with him.

I didn’t know the man. In fact, I’d never seen him before in my life.

But I could tell with just one glance what kind of man he was.

One that her father would approve of.

“You want anything else to drink?”

The same server that I’d repossessed the car from served us, and I could tell within seconds that Baylor was nervous as hell.

He kept watching her like she was about to burst into tears at any moment, and if Hennessy hadn’t been sitting two tables over with her date, I would’ve found it humorous.

However, I couldn’t find anything humorous when I knew the moment they walked in that this date had the recipe for disaster in the making.

“I’d love another beer,” Baylor muttered to his nearly empty mug. “Thanks.”

His muttered reply had me smiling, despite wanting to lean over the empty table in between Hennessy and I and pull her into my lap.

“You’re being transparent,” I said the minute she left. “You got it bad for the girl?”

Baylor raised his lip in a silent snarl. “Go fuck yourself right off a fuckin’ cliff.”

“Inventive.” I chuckled.

“Fuck you.”

I rolled my eyes, and they landed on Hennessy.

She was staring at me, but the moment our eyes met, she quickly looked away.

“Speaking of being transparent,” Baylor drawled. “You couldn’t have it any worse right now.”

I flipped him off and picked up my drink, putting it to my lips, and taking a healthy sip before replying, “I probably could,” I admitted. “But I won’t.”

“Sure, you won’t,” he countered. “Just like I don’t have it bad for a girl that has trouble written all over her.”

That was the truth. We were both screwed.

“Here you go,” the waitress said. “Anything else?”

I shook my head, and she left as if being there any longer would cause her to say something she might regret.

It made me want to laugh. Especially when I saw the anger written all over Baylor’s face.

“How’s your house coming?”

I shrugged. “Can’t get much done at night anymore.”

“Why?”

My eyes slid over to the woman.

“She came over last night, well this morning, and complained about the noise. Since I don’t get off until sometime after eight most nights, I don’t have very much time to work on it.”

He grunted in understanding.

“Get up early.”

I thought about that for a moment, and immediately discarded that idea.

“Got enough of that in prison,” I admitted. “The idea of getting up earlier than eight o’clock literally makes me want to puke up these awesome tacos.”

Baylor snorted. “You’re so full of shit.”

I was.

I wasn’t going to throw up, but I damn sure wasn’t going to entertain the thought of getting up early. Staying up late was easy. Getting up earlier than eight, to be into work by eight thirty, wasn’t something I was willing to consider.

“Do you like to eat tacos?”

I looked over at hearing Hennessy’s date ask her that, and got to watch her stuff half of her taco into her mouth.

“Yes,” she said through a mouthful of food.

“I could take them or leave them,” her new friend admitted. “I’m more into refined food. Food you have to eat with a fork and a knife.”

“Like steak?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Negative.”

Her brows went up.

“You don’t like steak?”

He shook his head again. “I’m a vegan.”

Hennessy’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Would you like any more?” the waitress asked.

“Yes,” Hennessy whispered. “Thank you, Lark.”

So that was the girl’s name.

My eyes went to Baylor to see his eyes fixated on the waitress’s backside. He’d also taken notice of her name, because his eyebrows went up.

“I’d like some, too,” Hennessy’s date smiled at the server. “Like hers, only vegan, please.”

Could vegans eat cheese?

I pulled out my phone and Googled: what do vegans eat?

The first thing that popped up was ‘a type of vegetarianism that excludes meat and all animal products.’

My immediate thought was ‘what a miserable existence.’

My second was that Hennessy’s date had no fucking clue what was going on.

I’d witnessed him eat not one, not two, but four tacos. Each of those tacos had cheese on it. Cheese was a byproduct of milk, which was derived from a cow.

Did he know what being a vegan entailed, or was he just playing her?

My curiosity was caught, and seeing as Baylor was looking behind my head at the mirror that I knew to be there, which had a prime view of the woman he’d been staring at for the majority of the night when she wasn’t looking, I didn’t feel bad.

Instead, I turned my eyes to the two people at the next table over, and studied them.

***

Hennessy

This was a disaster.

I couldn’t focus on the man in front of me, because of the man beside me.

I was so hyper aware of everything the man did, that I wasn’t giving the man next to me the attention he apparently needed.

Which was, I realized, a lot.

“Do you like avocados?”

I was in the process of putting a slice of an avocado in my mouth, so I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.

“Uh, yes?” I said in confusion.

“You look like you do,” he grinned. “Did you know that an avocado is what they consider a super food?”

I shook my head, enjoying the creamy slide of the ‘superfood’ down my throat.

God, I loved avocados!

“It’s fattening, sure, but it has the good kind of fat in it, too. Good thing you don’t care about your weight.”

I paused with the next slice of avocado halfway to my mouth.

My eyes flicked to the side to see if the man at the next table over had caught the admission from my date, Tad. I winced when I saw that he had, in fact, caught it.

I sent him a ‘don’t do anything stupid’ look and turned my eyes back to my date.

“Tad,” I said to him. “I’m not really sure that you should tell someone that it’s good they don’t care about their weight.”

Tad had the grace to blush. “Sorry, sometimes I get nervous and say stuff I wouldn’t normally say, only think.”

I wasn’t sure that was better.

But I chose to let it go; otherwise, I might brain him with the fork I was using to shovel the avocado into my mouth with.

“Do you still live at home?”

I shook my head. “No, I haven’t lived at home in years. I moved out when I was eighteen to go to college, and never went back.”

“Interesting,” he said. “I would think since your father is the pastor and all, that you’d want to help him.”

I wanted to argue with him, but I knew that doing that would only prolong this date further than it needed to be.

I wasn’t sure if he was crazy or not, and I honestly didn’t want to know any more about him.

What I wanted to do was finish my tacos, and then find a quiet place to nap. Preferably on my big sofa that liked to suck me in each time I sat on it.

But then Lark showed up with the second serving of tacos, saving the day, but also prolonging it.

The date wasn’t going to be saved.

I wasn’t rude, though, so I sat there, ate my tacos, and wondered why they tasted different.

It wasn’t until I was halfway through my second taco that I realized why it tasted different.

There wasn’t any meat on it.

My mouth fell open as I flicked the corn tortilla to the side, revealing its contents.

My eyes went up to the man who was now staring at me with dawning horror.

“No.”

I winced.

“THERE’S COW IN ME!”

My hand covered my mouth to hide the laugh that wanted to escape.

The asshole, Tate Casey, did nothing to hide his enjoyment of it, however.

He laughed. He guffawed. He chuckled. He wiped the tears that were streaming from his eyes as he got a basic understanding of the horror two tables over. Then, he bent over double and bellowed with utter glee.

“THERE IS COW IN ME!” Tad screamed again. “OH, MY GOD!”

I bit my lip, trying so hard to not laugh.

And I failed.

I couldn’t help it.

I should really be more considerate. Really, I should.

I had nothing against those members of society that wanted to be vegan for personal reasons. To each their own. But with the way Tad was now crying, and literally dry heaving, I couldn’t help it.

I laughed.

I kept laughing longer than I probably should have due to the man that was hunkered over his table now, beating on it with a big meaty fist.

Even the man that was eating with him, Baylor Hail, looked like he was trying hard not to die of laughter.

But my date saw me laughing, and got mad.

To show his anger, he picked up his plate and threw it at me.

The contents of his plate landed on my shirt. The plate itself knocked me in the head where I’d run into a ladder not even twelve hours before.

And the feeling of blood running down my forehead was almost immediate.

That’s when Tate Casey stopped laughing.

I placed my hand to my forehead, brought my fingers away, and saw the blood there.

Wincing, I reached for the stack of napkins and pressed it to my forehead while also standing.

Tate drug my date out by his collar, opened the front door of the best taco shop in Hostel, and threw the little punk outside. Immediately he closed the door, turned around, and surveyed the room.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “You had a trash problem.”

I bit my lip to keep the snort from escaping.

Tate saw and walked toward me.

His large fist came to my chin, lifted it up and to the side, and stared at my face.

“Move the napkins.”

I did.

“I think you’ll live.”

I nodded.

My entire body felt like it was floating with his nearness.

He smelled like mint, tacos, and beer.

Three of my favorite things in the world, all rolled into one.

“I will,” I agreed, looking up into his eyes.

His gaze met mine, and everything seemed to stand still.

The room around us went silent. Despite being in the middle of a tiny, hole in the wall taco shop, it felt like we were the only two people on the planet.

I wanted him to drop his mouth to mine and kiss me. I wanted him to wrap me up in his big, muscular arms. I wanted to smell his scent around me as we made love. I wanted…

“Go home, girl,” he said, dropping his fist, as well as the connection that we’d formed.

My entire heart fell.

“I am.” I paused to pick up my purse and pull out my wallet at the same time keeping the napkins on my forehead.

I didn’t accomplish this, mostly because the man that was at my side pulled me away before I could accomplish my task.

“I got it.”

“But…”

He dropped two twenties down onto the table. It was more than enough to cover the two meals, as well as my sweet tea.

Generous and hot.

I liked it.

“Go. Home.”

I bit my lip and walked away, trying not to notice how everyone stared at me.

Because if I had paid attention, I might’ve seen Tate making sure that I was okay, and watching every single movement…of my ass.