35. Chapter 35
“All right.” Lindsey slammed the shot glass on the bar top, the cheap whiskey burning away some of the loss and shame that would’ve otherwise followed her home. “Phone, please.”
Jase wasn’t listening. He called the bartender over and ordered two burgers and fries and two beers.
He shrugged. “You gotta eat.”
“You said one drink.”
“No, you said one drink.” He set a bottle in front of her and sipped his own. “You’re really eager to get on a bus.”
“I’m really eager to get out of Austin.”
“The food here is going to be a hell of a lot better than whatever you can scrape up at a bus station,” Jase said. “A burger won’t kill you.”
She slumped on her stool. Sticking around until Graham showed up with whatever story he crafted in the meantime might though.
We had sex this morning. It almost felt like making love.
Almost, but not quite. It was never really love. Love didn’t skip away on an excuse so flimsy only a fool would’ve believed it.
“You know this isn’t going to change anything,” she said. “No matter what he says, I’m still leaving.”
He huffed out a laugh. “Good fucking riddance. If I thought you were going to listen to whatever bullshit he comes up with, I’d put you on a bus myself.”
“So why drag this out?”
Jase’s thumb scratched at the label on his bottle. “I don’t—” A sigh rumbled out of his chest. “You ever think I just like having you around?”
He trained those pale green eyes on her face and her stomach hollowed.
This Jase was different without a boyfriend barrier.
Until the moment she followed him inside the bar, she’d been there as Graham’s girlfriend, satisfying Jason Sr.’s will.
Now Graham was chasing down his ex while Lindsey sat beside his brother listening to the Black Crowes on the jukebox in a biker bar in Texas solely because Jase asked her to stay.
The swift change left the uneven wood floor wavering beneath her feet.
“Let’s toast to freedom, or some shit,” Jase said. “For one of us, at least.”
He clinked the neck of his bottle with hers. The cold froth in her throat was a relief after the whiskey.
The bartender delivered their burgers and fries in little red baskets with red and white checkered paper and set them up with another round of drinks. Jase grabbed the ketchup from the condiment caddy between them, moved her fries to the side, and squeezed ketchup into her basket.
She wouldn’t have been more shocked at the gesture if he’d kissed her.
“What?” he asked, catching her staring.
“Nothing.”
Coffee, dancing, ’80’s porn…ketchup.
“You’re not what I expected,” she said after a few bites.
“And what was that?”
“A selfish, hateful loner,” she said, condensing Graham’s lengthy assessment of his brother to the main points.
“I thought we established my brother’s an idiot.”
“Lady-killer.”
“And my dad doesn’t know everything either.”
“So what are you?”
“All of them, Sundress.” He licked his fingers in a way that made Lindsey envious of the salt. “Every single one.”