Oh no I was not.

“What?” I shouted, yes, shouted.

“I’m takin’ you home,” he answered.

“No you aren’t.”

“Babe, I am.”

“No. You. Aren’t!” I tried to slide to the side but his hand came up and he planted his palm in the door so I stopped. “I’m staying at the hotel until I can find a place. It’s only five blocks away.”

“Least two of those boys been waitin’ ‘til you’re off. You think they won’t make their move now that you are?”

This surprised me. They were bikers in a gang but there were a couple of good-looking ones and all of them, I thought, were nice. I thought they were having fun with me, enjoying their beer and pool and male camaraderie with a somewhat sassy, older, fat-assed waitress breaking in on their bonding with some witty one-liners and a cheeky grin (though some of them I guessed were my age, others a bit older and amongst that lot were the good-looking ones).

I didn’t think any of them might like me.

My eyes slid to the wall which was the direction of the bar and I said quietly, “Really?”

“Jesus,” he muttered. “You want that attention?” he asked and my eyes shot back to him.

“Of course not!” But I had to admit, just being a breathing female; it was nice to have it all the same.

“Then you’re on my bike.”

“No.”

“You get on it or I drag you to it.”

It was my turn to get in his face. “Why are you such a jerk?”

“I can live with you thinkin’ that, even though I’m protectin’ your ass,” he returned.

“You missed a word. You meant to say my fat ass!”

Then I slid the opposite direction from his arm, went to the filing cabinet where I stowed my purse and snatched it out. When I turned to stomp back to him, he was standing in front of the door with his arms crossed on his chest and watching me.

I walked directly to the door, put my hand on the knob and stared at it when I demanded, “Out of my way.”

I felt rather than saw him move, threw open the door and stomped out.

Dalton had my tips ready by the time I got out and he handed them to me with one of his easy smiles and then turned to a customer.

“Sit awhile, have a beer?” Jim-Billy asked while I shoved my tips in my purse and I looked at him to see he was smiling at me.

“Thanks, Jim-Billy, no,” I replied as I felt Tate enter my vicinity. “I skipped lunch and need some dinner.”

“Take you out to dinner then,” Jim-Billy suggested and I felt Tate stop at the end of the bar close to me but I was looking at Jim-Billy.

“You leave that barstool?” I asked and his smile got wider.

“To take a pretty woman to dinner, yeah,” he answered.

“You’re on,” I said to him.

“You’re going?” Wendy called, practically skipping up to us before coming to a sliding halt.

“Yeah, Wendy, I need dinner,” I told her.

“That’s cool,” she replied and looked at Tate. “Hey Tate, can you be sure Lauren and I get a shift together soon?”

“She’s off tomorrow and she’s days for awhile,” Tate answered.

Wendy looked at me. “Then I’ll call Tonia and ask her to switch shifts with me on Saturday. She’ll be thrilled. She hates days. She’s a night owl.”

“Wendy, babe, you know we need you on nights,” Tate put in.

Her head tilted down so far to the side her ear nearly touched her shoulder.

“Aw, Tate, come on. I want a shift with Lauren. Just one, please. Don’t sentence me to full on Jonelle and Tonia for weeks,” Wendy begged and I turned to look at Tate thinking that perhaps Jonelle and Tonia didn’t just treat me to their frosty demeanor, maybe that was just who they were and having to work with that day in and day out (or, in this case, night in and night out) would suck.

Tate’s eyes stayed on Wendy. “Tonia shifts, you can have Saturday.” Then his eyes moved to Jim-Billy. “You take Ace to dinner, you walk her to the hotel.”

“Jackson, man, why you think I’m takin’ her to dinner?” Jim-Billy asked and I felt my eyes widen.

“I thought it was because I was a pretty woman,” I said to him and he grinned at me.

“It is, darlin’. It’s also because there’s four boys at the pool table lookin’ hungry like a wolf and their eyes are pinned on you,” Jim-Billy replied.

I didn’t look at the pool tables and I didn’t want to admit Tate was right so I said to Jim-Billy, “Did you just quote Duran Duran?”

“Duran who?” he asked and Tate chuckled so I bit back my laughter because I didn’t intend to share even that with him.

Instead, I walked to Jim-Billy and pulled him off his stool by his arm.

“Feed me, handsome,” I urged, linking my arm through his and leaning into his side.

“Okay, now it’s just me and a pretty woman,” Jim-Billy returned and that’s when I allowed myself to laugh at him.

“See you Saturday, Lauren!” Wendy yelled.

“Yeah, Wendy, Saturday,” I yelled back.

“Hotel,” Tate called after us as we walked to the door.

Jim-Billy lifted a hand in a wave but didn’t turn and I didn’t respond at all. I wasn’t on shift anymore, Tate Jackson or whatever-his-last-name-was had ceased to exist.

I turned to my buds at the pool table and shouted, “I’m off to dinner with my sugar daddy! See you guys later!”

“Bye Laurie!”

“Bye darlin’!”

“Bye babe!”

“Bye gorgeous!”

“Later!”

And so on.

I walked out smiling because all those farewells were nice and no one tried to jump me and Jim-Billy in order to wrest me from him and drag me by the hair to their cave.

So take that Tate Whatever-His-Last-Name-Was.

Okay, so he hadn’t exactly ceased to exist… whatever.

Chapter Four

Nighttime Swimming

“Later!” Wendy called, hanging out the window of her blue Honda CR-V.

“Later!” I called back and then inserted the key into the lock of my hotel room, twisted it, opened the door, walked in, heard the door close behind me and fell face first onto my bed.

I’d just been to McLeod’s Gym, owned by Wendy’s boyfriend, Tyler, who was a six foot, blond powerhouse with biceps so huge I couldn’t wrap both my hands around one (and, at Wendy’s invitation and Tyler’s smiling agreement, I’d tried). Tyler did boot camps three times a week where fifteen insane Carnalites showed up at seven in the morning to be tortured.