Chapter 9
chapter nine
Mia
I was without my wits when I sauntered into The Mackerel thirty minutes later. Clearly. Obviously.
Because instead of letting Angelo's text die in my message box where it should have on Do Not Disturb, I decided to answer it.
More so, I decided to meet him here, instead of sending him to a dingier, lesser food establishment so that I could make sure I never accidentally ran into him at this one.
Even on a Sunday night, it was bustling.
There was a band playing soft rock music in the corner of the dimly lit space.
Sailing rope and buoys hung from the wooden crown molding, and fishing net was used as some sort of nautical interior wallpaper at the helm of the booths against the wall.
There were crushed and fading license plates from all fifty states decorating the backsplash of the bar, life floats and ship wheels, even a greener-than-it-should-be fish tank separating the bathrooms housing a puffer fish and a catfish, as well as several other smaller swimming friends.
The Mackerel wasn't much. It was actually a place most people avoided.
I had only been introduced as a new agent with Branting because at the time, my boss was hugely interested in New England-style clam chowders and trying out as many as possible.
According to him, the potato-to-clam ratio at Mackerel rivaled some of the best that he'd tried off the coast of Rhode Island.
I was confident I wasn’t the only agent in my circle to be introduced to the restaurant, but likely the only one who ever came back. So while it wasn't much, it was mine. And now it was Angelo's, too. I had decided that in an off-the-cuff, unretractable way.
I sleuthed through the short, dark aisle that acted as a hallway from the front door to the back booths.
Angelo was there already, sitting at the corner of the long, waxed driftwood bar with a bottle of Landshark open on a coaster in front of him.
His dark button-down was tight around his arms leaning on the edge of the counter, and the yellow light of a plain bulb hanging by fishing wire above his head made his beard look auburn.
"You always know how to keep me waiting," Angelo said impishly. He pulled the chair next to him out and I sat, trying not to notice how he left his arm to linger across my backrest.
"You had the shorter ride," I reminded him.
Though, I was very good at being late to things.
What had kept me this time was flinging myself through my closet for an outfit that seemed like I didn't try too hard, when I had in fact tried with all my might.
Something relaxed, but also sexy, that screamed uncaring when all I knew how to do was care.
A shirt that showed enough skin to come off as interested, but not enough to mention it.
I thought the bootcut jeans that made my ass look like an apple and the off-the-shoulder crop top were a decent rendition.
"I'm shocked you even answered me," Angelo said.
"Almost didn't," I fibbed.
"What changed your mind?"
I crossed my legs, shifting slightly more in his direction. "I take my burger joints very seriously."
A smirk tilted Angelo's full lips. "You must be hungry, then. Invited yourself, for one."
"You texted me, remember?"
"For a recommendation," he said, waving a hand at the bartender. "Beer?"
"Yes."
"Landshark?"
"Sure," I mumbled.
Angelo gestured to his beer and put two fingers in the air. The bartender gave him a nod of approval. "You can put everything on my tab," Angelo said to him when he dropped both our sweating pale beer bottles down.
"Two surfside burgers," I added. "With some extra Mackerel sauce on the side, and a dozen boathouse wings. Tell Alfonso it's for Mia, and make them crispy."
"You got it, boss."
"Thanks, Eric."
Eric walked away but Angelo's eyes were glued to the side of my face. He leaned in slightly. "First name basis with the staff? You're more like me than you think, Mia Russo. Being a bar rat is kind of a pastime of mine."
"Don't share my secrets with anyone." I looked sternly into his soft green eyes and nearly melted. "This is a privilege not many people get."
"Why me, then? You're the queen of mixed signals, Mia. One day you hate my guts, the next you're meeting me in a ship's undercarriage of a bar, making me feel special."
We were both wondering the same things. There was a magnetism about Angelo I couldn't ignore.
Convincing myself to stop things before they started was easy, but staying away, not allowing him to wiggle back in, was another story.
I wanted to see him, fight with him, annoy him, flirt with him, play games.
It was one of the only things that had made me feel alive in a damn long time.
When he texted me, I couldn't leave well enough alone, because it felt good to play with fire. It felt wrong and right at the same time.
"You're not the only one who needs a friend sometimes," I said, taking a long drink from my beer.
"Friend? Is that what you want from me? I don't even think you like me enough to call me your friend."
I shrugged. "We have to be something."
"Friend doesn't work for me."
"Oh, no?"
"Friends don't really meet at secret bars late on a Sunday, wearing…" He dropped his thumb that was resting against my back into the tight hem of my shirt, snapping it softly against my skin. "…this."
"Look at you," I pointed out, gesturing quickly to his jeans and tucked-in shirt. The chain on his neck glimmered in the light. "I can smell the coastal coconut aftershave."
"I never called us friends," he murmured. "The one thing I won't do is lie about whatever this is."
"Whatever this is?" I snorted. "Greasy bar food in a dive in the dark where no one can see us?"
"Except for Eric and Alfonso."
"My real friends," I snarked.
Angelo's knee pressed against mine under the lip of the bar. "At least I know that means you haven't slept with them."
"I don't shit where I eat," I said.
"No, you just bring your brother-in-law's brother there.
" He pressed in farther, the heat from his thigh resting hard against mine.
If I were a smart woman I'd have moved it away.
But I was very, very stupid, and enjoyed the pressure mounting and the tension growing.
It was addicting. I liked the feeling of his strong leg dominating mine under the guise of the countertop where no one could see it.
I wanted to know what it might feel like pressed into other places, like between my legs, or straddled on a soft mattress.
I drank more of my Landshark.
"Maybe this was a bad idea." I swallowed. “I don’t know what I was expecting.”
Angelo shook his head, a crease forming between his eyebrows as they drew together. His grip on the back of my chair tightened and the wooden knob whined beneath his calloused hand.
"What happened in Vegas?" he said. "At the wedding," he tacked on. "Why did you avoid me after everything? I know we didn't end on the best of terms but we could have at least hashed it out before now. It seems a bit overdue."
Vegas was a haze of buzzing alcohol and blurred lights to me. That, and the subtle smell of Angelo's cologne, the sound of his grainy accent overshadowing a weekend that was supposed to be entirely about my sister getting hitched.
Mateo and Natalia had a joint bachelor and bachelorette party in Sin City, and that gathering served as a long lesson that I was still learning. Angelo Duran was trouble.
The boys versus girls scavenger hunt quickly turned into a one-on-one between Angelo and me. Around every turn, we were fighting for that next point as if the bragging rights were entirely between the two of us.
Of course, with alcohol involved, the more we drank, the more the lines began to blend from black and white into a messy gray.
"You kissed me in front of everyone," I said, exasperated. "That was insane."
"You took off your clothes to ride a mechanical bull in front of everyone," he shot back. "You're not the authority on insanity."
"That was a strategic win," I boasted. "Plus, it pissed you off."
"It didn't." Angelo shrugged. "I enjoyed it more than anyone else there. Don't you remember?"
My skin flushed. A deep red that blossomed at the center of my chest and spread outward and up, prickling the exposed skin on my arms. I remembered too well.
The look on his face standing at the edge of the crowd as I bobbed and weaved on the jerking animal.
His glazed eyes when I slid off and met him at the exit.
Angelo had grabbed me by the arm, pulled me into his chest in the loud outdoor beach club, and spoke to me like we were the only two people in the place.
If you wanted to show me how you ride, we could have done it somewhere more private.
I was aghast. He left me in the sand without a trace of amusement in his admittance, and by the time we caught up together again, the entire wedding party had moved on to a new place, a new task on the scavenger list, though my mind was still running with the events of the last. No one had ever spoken to me like that before.
Unapologetically brash, unremorseful, unfazed.
Angelo let me know exactly how he was feeling about me, and I was too proud to let him know I was feeling it back.
Not in front of my sisters, or Mateo’s other military buddies, who were more good looking than anyone I’d ever seen.
That moment was the catalyst to everything happening now.
“We were playing with fire," I said to Angelo. "Natalia and Mateo were having their own pre-marital crisis. They didn't need ours, but then you went and did what you did. You had that slap coming."
"The task said to kiss a stranger," he continued, intent on bickering with me. "I met you the day before, therefore stranger."
"You could have kissed anyone."