Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
“Good.”
“And I also know you’ve got to process the shit happening with her.”
“It doesn’t have to be with you.”
“I’m not in this just for your mushroom sage stuffing, baby,” I said quietly.
His eyes warmed, and he came in for a brush of his lips.
I really loved it when he did that.
When he lifted away, I asked, “So what’s the thing I need to know?”
He took in a breath.
I braced.
He let it out and said, “Shit gets around. Your crew and my crew are interlocking. So I want you to hear it from me before someone else tells you.”
“Tells me what?”
“That my introduction to this crew was when I was undercover for the FBI. I was assigned to Stella. She wasn’t doing anything illegal, but a really bad guy had targeted someone in her circle. I decided dating her was the way to get close to her. I did this. It was unexpected, but not inexplicable, I developed feelings for her while I did. But we were never intimate. She and Mace had been together before I met her, and they’d broken up. She was hung up on him, and shortly into that op, they got back together. It was a little dicey between Mace and me for a while. But years have passed. Weddings. Kids. It’s not an issue now. However, I didn’t want you to hear about it and think it was.”
Stella, by the by, was not only Mace’s wife, and the mother of his two children, she was also the award-winning, multi-platinum lead guitar and front woman for the kickass rock band, the Blue Moon Gypsies.
Oh yeah.
And she was gorgeous.
Oh yeah to the yeah.
Although the only time I’d spent in her presence was during Raye’s little sister’s funeral, and she seemed lovely, Raye had spent a lot of time with her. She’d even been over to Stella and Mace’s house more than once for dinner, and she confirmed the super-rock star was also super sweet.
“Okay,” I replied to Eric. “Thanks for telling me.”
“That’s it?” he asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.
“Yeah,” I answered, confused at his confusion.
“You don’t have any questions?”
“Like what? Like why you’d pick dating as your cover then fall for a beautiful, mega rock star? Puh,” I puffed out. “It’s hardly surprising, Turner.”
Delivering that, I took a sip of my wine.
He was eyeing me.
So I eyed him.
Oh man.
“Let me guess, the ex wasn’t a big fan of this intel,” I surmised.
“Savannah hated Stella.”
“Mm…”
“No more about her.”
“Mm!”
He grinned.
“My turn,” I stated.
He took a sip of his wine, then circled it at me to lay it on him.
And lay it on him I had to, considering he admired Savannah’s talent and ambition.
“Okay, so I have an ex too,” I began.
I stopped talking, because I suddenly became uber fascinated with the way his long, muscled body went completely alert at this information.
I didn’t know if it was possessiveness, or protectiveness at thinking Braydon was still a part of my life and being a pain, or a bit of both.
But either way, it did a number on me in the sense that I didn’t care what way it was.
I just liked it.
Still.
“He’s not a problem, Turner,” I assured him. “He’s history.”
Wait.
That wasn’t strictly true.
“Okay, sometimes he comes into SC to grab a coffee and check in on me, because we did adapt to friends,” I admitted. “Well, he did. I think he’s a dick. But for the most part, he’s history.”
His body being alert didn’t change.
I sallied forth anyway.
“We were together for four years. Living together for two. I thought he was going to propose. He didn’t. Me being a bartender wasn’t his idea of the kind of wife he wanted or the mother he wanted for his kids. He wanted someone with more drive, bigger goals in life than mixing drinks. So he ended it.”
Eric said nothing and didn’t move.
Thus, I carried on. “The thing is, you should know that’s still me. One thing my parents taught me that was good, I work to live, not the other way around. I love my job. I think you know I love the people I work with. I do have goals. To craft original cocktail sensations that will knock people’s socks off…and keep doing that. But I don’t go out with my camera expecting to one day be in a gallery. And I doubt I’ll suddenly get a wild hair to go to law school or something. And you should know that about me.”
I would find, even though what I just said was important to me, Eric was stuck on an earlier part.
“He still comes into The Surf Club?”
“Occasionally. But that’s not a big—”
“What’s occasionally?”
I had to think about this.
Then I said, “Two, three times a month, maybe. Maybe more.”
“So maybe once a week?”
I shrugged. “We have good coffee, and the place is popular.”