“Cute,” Shay decides. “I like it. But I’m pretty sure I like that Brody calls you Erica even better if everyone else calls you Rix.”
She’s looking from Brody to me and back again like we’re going to declare our undying love for one another at any given moment and she doesn’t want to miss a thing.
Suddenly, this whole thing feels ridiculously awkward. I mean, Brody and I explicitly said that we’re not doing serious. Just hanging out and okay, fucking. And yet, here we are, doing family introductions after one night of crazy-awesome sex and one spontaneous date.
Is a car show a date?
I think yes. I think Brody thinks yes too.
So yeah, one night and one date.
And now, family dinner.
What the hell have I gotten myself into?
As much as my brain is thinking this whole thing through and trying to sound the alarm, my body is warm and fizzy thanks to Brody’s fingers tracing soothing circles on my thigh. He’s not even high, closer to my knee than anything naughty, but any skin on skin contact between us feels intimate. His touch is purposeful, like he knows I’m about to bail and is telling me it’ll be fine.
Luckily, the not-quite interrogation ends as conversation turns to cattle, something I know zilch about. But their worries are clear—cattle prices are falling and it’s almost market time. That’s straightforward enough.
“You gonna be good without me here?” Luke asks Mark. Shayanne’s face goes anxious, a new expression for the seemingly always bubbly and biting woman.
Mark grunts and lifts his chin toward Brody. I take it to mean he’ll be fine with Brody’s help. A movie plays out in my head, Mark and Brody astride horses, working the cattle one way and then another. I’m not sure that’s even what they do since Brody said they use ATVs and a Gator too. But it’s my mental movie fantasy, so I can choose anything I want.
Like a shirtless Brody, with the sun reflecting off his bare chest. And oh, yeah, he’s pouring water over his head, the droplets running in rivulets I want to chase with my tongue.
Errrk. Definitely a mental movie I need to save for later. Not at Mama Louise’s dinner table.
“We’ll have to get in a night out before we go. Celebrate the start of market season with fried food, good music, and friends.”
Oh, shit. Shayanne’s looking at me as she says that. Normally, I’d throw up a middle finger and tell her to fuck off. I don’t do things I don’t want to do. Or at least I like to think that’s true. But with every eye at the table on me, including Brody’s, I’m finding it hard to be that crass. Mom would be proud that some of her manners and politeness did wear off on me. She’s had serious doubts over my mouthy nature.
“Oh, uh . . . maybe.” It’s all I’ll promise now. And that’s mostly because I felt Brody’s hand squeeze my thigh supportively. Or encouragingly? Or in warning? I don’t know, but it’d felt nice there.
Shayanne doesn’t take no for an answer. She doesn’t take maybe for one, either. “Next Saturday night. Hank’s. Brody’ll pick you up. Wear boots if you got ’em for the dancing.”
I cut my eyes to Brody. “You said you don’t dance.”
The smirk he gives me says ‘oh, I dance’, and I realize he only said that to get out of dancing with Emily. Well, maybe that and the fact that the music wasn’t exactly danceable at Two Roses. Mosh pit bouncing off one another like pissed-off pinballs, sure. Dancing, no.
Oh, the music.
“What kind of music?” I grin widely. “Please don’t say country.” I’m kidding, mostly, but not a single smile cracks.
Bobby beats everyone else to the punch. “No carrot cake for you if you talk smack about country music. It’s the best genre known to man. And I don’t just say that because I contribute to the industry.” He places his hand over his heart, and I swear he’s serious, but there’s such a current of humor through the Barn Door Boys that I can’t be sure how straight he’s being with me. “What do you listen to if not the best music ever created?”
“Rock. Seventies, from my dad. Eighties and nineties, from my sergeant. And everything since just because I like it. The louder, the better.”
“Loud is right,” Brody deadpans. “It’s more screaming than music too.”
Everyone cringes as if I pulled out my phone to start my latest Spotify playlist.
Brody sighs heavily and confesses, “You don’t have to come, but I’d like for you to. Unless you don’t want to hang out with these guys . . .” He mouths assholes behind his hand, hiding the curse.
I should run through town, over the mountain, and back to my garage. Work all night alone with whatever decade of rock music I want playing loud enough to shut up the chatter in my head.
What I shouldn’t do is sit here and get to know these people. What I shouldn’t do is agree to a night out with them. What I shouldn’t do is look forward to seeing Cowboy in his country element, busting out his moves to impress me.
But that’s what I do, anyway, knowing it’s a piss-poor decision that’s got the potential to get someone hurt. Mostly, me. Maybe Brody. He said he’s fine with casual, and I have to take him at his word, but tonight doesn’t seem casual, doesn’t feel like no big deal. And that worries me.
“Sounds like a plan. Saturday night. Twirl me around the dance floor, Cowboy.”
What the fuck did I just agree to?
Quiet and low enough that no one should be able to hear, Brody whispers out of the side of his mouth, “Fuck yeah, I will, Lil Bit.”
Mama Louise, who’s been silently watching the whole dinner and a show before her, finally interjects. “Language.”
I almost laugh. The air actually bubbles up from my belly and the sound catches in my throat when I realize that she’s serious. A table full of big, growly alpha guys and their wives, who all seem to be pretty awesome themselves, but they all bow down to a single word from Mama Louise. She doesn’t even have to try. Her power here is absolute.
I want to be her one day.
Chapter 12
Brody
“Fuck you doing?” Some people can be described as their bark being worse than their bite. Mark isn’t one of them. His bark is bad. His bite is worse. I’m pretty much the same, but we’ve found some degree of respect in our similarities. For the most part, we try not to piss each other off. It’d be too easy to bury the body on the thousands of acres out here where no one would ever find it.
Not that I’ve considered that. Recently.
Today might challenge that, though.
“Texting.” Translation: what the fuck does it look like I’m doing, dumbass?
“Erica?”
I give him a dark look that threatens imminent violence even though I know he’s pushing my buttons on purpose. “Yep. How’s Princess this morning?”
No one gets to have that degree of familiarity with Katelyn but him. Mark and Katelyn are wound up in each other tight and are possessive as fuck of one another. So using her pet name is damn near like waving a red cape in front of a bull.
He returns the glare, dips his chin, and the battle ends. Hell, it was probably his version of fun. Or more likely, he’s testing out the situation to get a read on me.