“Usually, we throw some back, get loose, in the mood,” he educated her, lifting up the bottle. “I’ve seen the way you look at me, baby, so if you wanna just get na**d and go for it, I’m up for that too. They’re out but, we go for a while, no doubt they’ll rally and join in. Sounds extreme but, trust me, you try it, you’ll like it.”
When he started talking, her eyes were on the bed but they moved slowly to him and he saw she was pale beneath her tan. Her eyes were also wide with shock and something else he didn’t quite get, and her full lips were parted.
“What’s it gonna be?” he asked. “You wanna loosen up or you wanna just go for it?”
“Why are you doin’ this?” she whispered, and Shy shrugged.
“This is who you are or who you’re headin’ to be. Might as well quit f**kin’ around, babe, and go for it.”
Her eyes slid to the side then to him before she stated quietly, “This isn’t who I am.”
He looked her down and up and pointed out, “Short tight skirts, too-tight tops. I know it’s not lost on you that I can see most of your tits not only through the shirt but spillin’ out of it, Tab. Then we got your high heels, lots of hair, lots of makeup. You scream you got a wild side, baby. Quit f**kin’ around. You been wantin’ to explore it since you were sixteen. The time is right. The stage is set.” He pulled her closer to him and lifted the bottle again. “Let’s go.”
When he said the word sixteen, she flinched and her hand jerked at his again.
Also, the look in her eyes he couldn’t quite place came clear.
Hurt.
It sucked. He didn’t like to do this to her, but he reckoned that emotion stark in her gaze meant he was getting through.
“Take me home,” she said softly, and he shifted closer to her
She swung slightly back, but her movements were wooden.
“Come on, baby. Don’t bullshit me,” he coaxed in a gentle voice. “I’ve seen the looks you give me. Now’s your shot. You’re hot, you like to have fun, you shouldn’t waste this opportunity.”
“Take me home,” she repeated.
“If you don’t want an audience or this to be a participation sport outside us two, I can rouse those bitches—” he jerked his head to the bed “—send them on their way before we get goin’.”
“Take me home,” she said again.
“Or we can let ‘em sleep. Go to your dad’s room,” he suggested, and that did it.
With a violent wrench, she tore her hand from his, turned on her foot, and raced from the room.
Much more slowly, Shy put the bottle on a dresser, snapped off the lights, and followed her. He wasn’t alarmed. She didn’t have wheels and she was in high heels, there wasn’t far she could go.
Surprisingly, when he exited the Compound, she was sitting in the passenger side of his truck, her head turned to look out the side window.
Yeah, she was ready to go home.
He didn’t delay in moving to the driver’s side, climbing in and starting her up. Tabby didn’t look his way as he reversed out and headed toward Broadway.
They were well on their way through Denver to the foothills where Tack and Cherry lived, where Tab still lived with them and their two new boys before he spoke into the heavy air in the cab.
“You’re a good kid, Tabby. Don’t let your mother treating you like shit kick your ass. Get off that path.”
“You’re on that path,” she whispered to her window.
“Babe, I’m not. I’m a man and I got brothers. I chose a lifestyle and a brotherhood. It’s different for you and you know it. The bullshit you’re pullin’, the path you’re on, no joke, even if you wanted the life, wanted to be an old lady, that wouldn’t work for you no matter what respect we got for your dad. The path you’re on heads you straight to bein’ a BeeBee, and you know that too.”
She didn’t speak but Shy figured his point was made. Tabby knew BeeBee, everyone did. BeeBee had been banned from spreading her legs and spreading her talent throughout every member of the Club after she stupidly went head to head with Cherry. But even gone, she was not forgotten. Back then, Tabby had been way too young to know BeeBee in any real way other than seeing the way BeeBee hung on and put out. But there was no way to miss her use to the Club, even for a teenage girl.
His point made, he also kept quiet the rest of the way to Tack’s house.
He parked outside the front door and she instantly undid her seat belt and threw open the door. He turned to see she’d twisted to jump out and opened his mouth to say something, but he didn’t get it out. He had no idea how she explained it to her father when a brother brought her home, but that was her problem, not his.
She turned back and all words died in his throat when he saw by the cab’s light the tears shimmering in her eyes and the tracks left by the ones that had slid silently down her cheeks.
His body went rock solid at the evidence of the pain his lesson caused. Deserved, he knew, but it still hurt like a mother to witness. So when she leaned in, he didn’t move away.
“You don’t know me,” she whispered. “But now, I know you, and, Shy… you’re a dick.”
Even with these words, she still lifted her hands, placed them on either side of his head and angled closer. Pressing her lips against his, that sweet, pink tongue of hers slid between his lips to touch the tip of his tongue before she let him go just as quickly as she’d grabbed hold. She jumped out of the cab and ran gracefully on the toes of her high-heeled sandals up the side deck and into the house.
Shy had shifted to watch her move, his chest and gut both ablaze, the brief but undeniably sweet taste of her still on his tongue.
The light on the side of the house went off, and he was plunged into darkness.
“Shit,” he muttered before he put the truck in gear and turned around.
As he drove home, he couldn’t get her tear-stained cheeks and wet eyes out of his head.
He also couldn’t get her taste off his tongue.
* * *
Five months later…
The bell over the door of Fortnum’s Used Books rang as Shy pushed it open.
Shy came to Fortnum’s for one reason, and it wasn’t to buy used books. It was because they had a coffee counter and seating area in the front of the store, and everyone in Denver knew that the man named Tex who worked the espresso machine was a master. Shy liked beer, bourbon, and vodka, occasionally tequila, sometimes Pepsi, but with the way he lived his nights, his mornings always included a whole lot of coffee.