Chapter 20 #2
Gypsy reached over and placed her hand on top of mine. “I’m happy for you, Nona.”
“Thanks, doll.”
The three of us chatted a while longer, keeping the topics of conversation much lighter, and Gypsy was in the middle of a sentence when, all of a sudden, she stopped talking and a dreamy look drifted across her face.
That hardness she wore in her eyes like an armor, the one ingrained in her at a very young age thanks to a difficult life, slowly began to leach away.
I turned my head to see what had caught her attention so fully, and felt a giddy bubble of excitement begin to build up in my belly.
Marco Castillo had just walked through the door of The Tap Room, and his gorgeous pale hazel eyes drifted our way. He gave us the obligatory hot alpha-dude chin lift before wandering over to a table near the wall of windows.
Marco had moved to Hope Valley some years back to work for Lincoln’s private investigations and security firm, Alpha Omega, and despite the town having taken him in as one of their own, the man still remained somewhat of a mystery.
He didn’t talk a lot and mainly associated with the other guys at the firm, but he always seemed nice enough in a distant, somewhat unapproachable kind of way.
Then, when Eden was going through her drama, Marco had been one of the guys Lincoln put on her to keep her safe. Months after that, Tempie went through a totally different, even more intense drama, and again, Marco was cast in the role of protector.
Our little crew had gotten to know him better, and what we came to discover, we all liked very much. We’d adopted him into the fold—as much as he would allow, at least. That meant we knew him, but we didn’t know him.
And from the way my girl was currently staring at the tall hunk of man, she wanted to get to know him in a completely different way.
“You should go say hi,” Rory said, having noticed the same look on Gypsy’s face that I did.
That pulled her from her stupor, and Gypsy gave her head a shake. “Nah, pretty sure the guy doesn’t even know I exist.”
I let out a little scoff. “You’re kidding, right? Doll, every man in Hope Valley and the surrounding towns knows you exist. Trust me.”
That hardness crept back in as she turned to look at me. “Because most of them have seen my tits,” she said, her words as stony as her gaze.
“No,” I argued. “Because you’re beautiful.”
That didn’t seem to appease her in the slightest, and a moment later, she hopped off her stool and hooked her purse over her shoulder.
“Doesn’t matter,” she replied, her voice carrying an air of detachment that I knew was fake.
“A girl like me would never work with a guy like him, so there’s no point in fantasizing. ”
“Gypsy—” I started, but her head whipped around, and the look in her eyes gave me pause.
“Love you, hon. With all my heart. But it is what it is. You’re the one a man would take home to meet his family. I’m the one he’d bail on before the sun came up, and I’m okay with that.”
“That’s not true,” Rory declared vehemently. “You don’t give yourself nearly enough credit. If you could just see what we see—”
“A guy like Marco Castillo doesn’t need my kind of baggage in his life,” she insisted.
“And honestly, I don’t have a place for any man in mine.
And I’m not saying that so you’ll feel sorry for me.
It’s just the truth. I’m raising five kids and working two jobs.
A relationship just isn’t in the cards.”
I opened my mouth to disagree, but she cut me off. “Now, I need to get back to work before my manager cans me for being late.” Her smile was bitter as she mumbled, “Nothing worse than a nineteen-year-old with a power trip.”
She blew us air kisses and turned on her Converse tennis shoes before Rory or I could say a single word, heading for the door with her chin lifted and her shoulders squared.
I hated that she thought so little of herself.
I hated that she didn’t see what we all saw when we looked at her.
And I freaking hated that she didn’t think she was worth something amazing.
I looked to Rory to see her watching our friend with the same amount of concern I felt at that very moment.
“Something tells me we’re gonna have our work cut out for us, trying to surgically remove that woman’s head from her own ass,” I grumbled as I pulled out my wallet and dropped a few bills on the bar top.
“Sooner rather than later.” I lifted my head at her ominous proclamation and saw her attention had shifted and was now fixed on the wall of windows. “Don’t make it obvious you’re looking, but check out Latin Hottie.”
I tried being as casual as possible as I cast my gaze in Marco’s direction to find him staring at the door Gypsy had just walked through.
The expression on his face led me to believe there was no way in hell he’d bail on my girl in the middle of the night, but instead, would stick around and make her a feast for breakfast the next morning.
“Oh yeah,” I whispered, turning back to Rory in excitement. “This is gonna be fun.”