Chapter 8
Elijah
“Are you insane?” Vaughn’s words snap me back to the moment.
My hands shoot up, palms out, attempting to convey that I mean no harm, but it soon becomes quite obvious that she isn’t at all afraid of me when she quickly stalks toward me, aggressively swaying her perfect hips with every step.
Her footfalls are so swift and confident that the previously five feet six inches of her has seemed to expand to something closer to six feet.
She immediately has me backing down the hallway in retreat from the blistering heat rolling off her in waves.
Her long, glittery, pointed fingernail is in my face as she spits out the words. “You think premier Chinese food earns you redemption after the shit you pulled? You don’t get to sneak into my home and expect me to fawn all over you. You’re still a stranger to me, and a moody one at that.”
Moody? Am I moody? Holy shit. I am moody.
She’s absolutely right. Damn it. “I get it. I get it. I do. I don’t expect Chinese food to fix anything.
I was a shit this morning. You did me a favor.
I owe you. Can I please just feed you? After that, if you want to kick me out, I’m gone.
” What I don’t say is there’s no way in hell that I’ll stay gone, but she doesn’t need to know the lengths I’ll go to quite yet. It’s still too early for that.
Her eyes narrow to slits, causing her long, thick lashes to almost obscure her vision. Suddenly, she seems to think of something. “Who told you to get Wu’s?”
My eyes dart all over the walls of the hall as if I’ll find backup there.
My gaze catches on a picture of another duck.
This duck has the head of Christopher Walken smoking a cigar, and it’s riding a shark in open water.
Shit. This girl is about to verbally eviscerate me before chopping my body up into tiny pieces and shoving them into a crawl space.
“The freak show twins. As your newly appointed proxies, they’ve deemed me worthy of your time.”
She takes a shocked step back, surveying me from head to toe. As though she found nothing worthy of her time, she asks, “Why you?”
The look she’s giving me is offensive.
Well, for one, I’m hot. I know I am. For two, I am pretty much the baddest mother fucker in any room.
For three, I’m funny as hell. I’m sure there’s a four in here somewhere, but something tells me this is not the best approach.
She’s obviously not as attracted to me as I am to her.
When she’s near me, there’s a constant internal battle to keep my hands and my lips to myself.
She, however, appears to be in complete control of all her faculties, particularly her anger.
This is a first. It’s always been me who’s the cool, aloof one.
“We made a deal. I may have to steal an otter from the zoo at some point.”
She tucks her full red lips tightly between her teeth in a feeble attempt to fight off a laugh.
It doesn’t work. She spits on me as her laugh bursts through the lip barrier, and I don’t even care.
Her laugh. Her unguarded smile. This is bliss.
This is worth the breaking and entering charge, I still may end up facing.
Her laugh begins to soften, and she looks at me with what appears to be continued amusement and warning. She’s still angry, but her edges aren’t as sharp now.
“Okay. Fine, but screw up again, and I’ll make you a chalk outline. This is just dinner, and only because this is a stupid amount of food. What were you even thinking?”
Nervously, I rub the back of my neck. “The Tweedle Twins said you like everything on the menu, and I kind of needed it to be more than you could carry in one load, so I could sneak in. Sooo, I just ordered one of everything.”
She appears dubious. Her confusion works in my favor because it seems to further dampen her rage. “Tweedle Twins?”
“Oh. Uh, yeah. The rotund twins from Alice in Wonderland. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.”
She laughs again, and I silently scheme how I can ensure that I hear this sound every day for the rest of my life.
“The Tweedle Twins. I love it. You mind if I use it?”
“It’s the least I can do since you’re sharing your takeout?”
She cocks her head to the side and ponders my request. “Not the Shanghai Dumplings. Those are mine.”
“Ah, I got two of those actually. I love dumplings.”
Her expression says, ‘put one finger on a dumpling and I make an origami swan out of you’.
My hands shoot back up in surrender. “All yours. I don’t even like dumplings anymore. May even be allergic.”
Vaughn rolls her eyes dramatically and walks back into the kitchen.
I’m not sure what to do. One wrong move could have my body twisted at some very uncomfortable angles.
I take a step toward the kitchen and then retract it.
Another step. Another retraction. When in my life have, I ever been this unsure of myself?
I run TOWARD gunfire, and I can’t decide if this kitchen is safe?
“Are you coming?!” Vaughn angrily yells from the kitchen.
Shit. Get in the kitchen, dumbass. I sprint to the kitchen.
Phew. This is a stupid amount of food. What kind of idiot orders this much food?
A moody idiot digging his way out of a hole.
That’s who. I take a seat at the table and help her unpack some of the food from the bags.
It won’t all fit on the table, so we leave some things in the bags and move them back to the kitchen counter.
My eyes stay glued to her. Even when she catches me staring, I can’t look away.
She gives me a suspicious look each time her beautiful dark eyes meet mine.
She’s still wary. I suppose I can’t blame her.
The ex-boyfriend was a penis loaf. If he was willing to grab her like that in public, I can only imagine what he was willing to do in private.
My blood pressure skyrockets, and my vision blurs at the thought of that dick weed putting his hands on her.
“Did he hit you?” It’s not my place to ask, and the question comes out of the blue, but I have to know.
Her fork pauses briefly in the air before she stabs a dumpling. She appears to be thinking. “Mmm, No. He didn’t hit me.” She puts the entire dumpling in her mouth.
She’s telling the truth. Mostly. He did do something to her, but he didn’t hit her. I want to know more, but I’m already on thin ice, so I choose not to pry further. Instead, I do the opposite.
“I’m in the military. The Navy, actually.
I spend a lot of time away. Can’t resist karaoke when I’ve had too much to drink, and I don’t sing well.
I love to play paintball, and can’t dive for shit.
It’s something about plunging headfirst that I just can’t wrap my mind around.
I mean, I do it, but not as well as I probably should considering.
..well, it was a pretty major source of contention in training.
Fortunately, I’m pretty decent at the rest of it.
My favorite type of food is American cuisine.
You know, just meat and potatoes, basically anything you can cook on a grill, but my favorite dish is Arroz de Pato. It’s a classic Portuguese dish.”
She almost seems disinterested, but I can tell that she’s listening. She confirms it when she says, “There can’t be many Portuguese restaurants in Austin.”
Damn. She was definitely listening, and she picked up on something I hadn’t expected. I clear my throat and nod. “You’re right. There isn’t. I actually had it in Portugal. I’ve been there a couple of times for work.”
“Your work being Navy stuff?”
“Yeah. Navy stuff.”
“Shouldn’t you be on a boat?”
I chuckle softly. “We traveled there by water. My team’s missions are typically on land, though.”
Vaughn sighs heavily. “So, what? You’re some kind of American hero?”
I smile at her, and she looks back to her food. “No. Not a hero. Just a soldier.”
“Not a regular soldier, though. Right? That’s why your tags are black.”
I showed her my tags. Of course I did. That was the natural thing to do since I love talking about work. I wish I could kick my own ass right now. “Black tags are worn by all special operations group members. They’re not that uncommon.”
She’s looking at me. Sizing me up...again. It’s my job to read people, but I have no idea what she’s thinking. She has a very expressive face, so it’s not even that she’s working to hide anything. I just can’t get a read on her. Lucky for me, this woman says exactly what she’s thinking.
“You don’t like to talk about the Navy stuff.”
A noncommittal shrug and slow chewing give me time to come up with a response. “It’s just work stuff. Nothing anybody would be interested in hearing about.”
She drops her fork into the takeout box and leans back in her chair. She’s pissed off. Again. She makes no attempt to hide what she feels. I love that, but I wish her face wasn’t telling me to fuck off right now. “Lie to me again and we’ll be done here.”
I’m dumbstruck. All I can do is look back at her and say nothing.
My expression gives nothing away, however.
It’s just my default setting at this point.
A honed skill. I’m pretty much smiling all the time, and I can do that no matter what I’m feeling.
How does she know I’m lying? Maybe it’s not my face.
Maybe she’s just putting things together with the black tags and special operations talk.
“I’m not. I-”
“One more lie and you can leave.”
My mouth snaps shut.
“If there’s something you don’t want to talk about, just say so. Don’t lie to me. I know that you know what you do would interest most people. It’s fine if you don’t like talking about it or can’t or whatever the reason is. Just don’t lie to me.”
I nod my head in shame. “Okay. I won’t.”
She picks her fork back up and continues eating.
She eats like I’m not sitting here. She puts so much food in her mouth at one time that both of her cheeks are puffed out.
It’s fucking adorable, and I’m fully aware that it should be gross.
Her table manners are terrible. She still talks to me through the chipmunk cheeks, and at one point, a piece of food falls out of her open mouth while she’s talking, and she picks it up off the table and puts it back in her mouth.
She eats like a death row inmate who’s been given his last meal, and I’m still not grossed out.
I truly think it’s adorable. Endearing even.
“I cook.” I tell her nonchalantly, while quietly hoping that it will win me some brownie points since she clearly likes to eat. I don’t just cook. I’m a kitchen maven.
“Oh yeah?” Vaughn asks and her words are muffled by the half pound of Chinese takeout she’s masticating.
I laugh quietly, and her eyes dart to my face. Giggling, she covers her mouth with her hand. “Sorry.”
“No. Please. It’s great actually.”
Her brows furrow as she scans my face. This little lie detector won’t find any falsehoods this time.
“I mean it. It’s kind of adorable.”
She chuckles and shakes her head. She knows I mean it.
“So, will you go somewhere again or deploy or whatever you call it?”
“Deploy, and yes. I will.”
She stares at me for a moment, waiting for me to elaborate, but I don’t. She seems to accept that this is something I don’t want to talk about because she changes the subject.
“I write. Well, I want to write. I haven’t actually published anything apart from the work that I do for Composition, but I hope to complete or even start a novel one day.”
“Composition? The magazine?”
She nods. “Mmhmm.”
“Wow. That’s impressive. What about the novel? What genre will you write?”
“Thriller. I already have the first one basically worked out in my head. I just can’t translate it to the keys. As soon as I sit down in front of my laptop, the whole thing just kind of falls apart.” She mimes typing on the table in front of her.
“Is that a writer’s block thing?”
“Uhh, no. That’s a lack of talent thing.”
I get the feeling that this woman lacks nothing. I don’t know why she can’t get her book started but it isn’t due to a lack of talent. “Doubtful, Miss Webb. Very doubtful. I know you’re one hell of a bartender, and I can just imagine that you’re an even better writer.”
“Ha! I got that job because Jax and Marshall do the hiring.”
“They’re very clever men. If you won them over, it’ because you’re exceptional, and they could sense it.”
“I got the job because I know how to play to my strengths. I dazzled them with fantastic wit and incredible tits. Wits and tits. They’ve never let me down.”
My laugh is loud and full. She’s not wrong about the wits or the tits. Especially, those tits.
She looks at me and smiles in that heart stopping way of hers, and I know without a doubt that she is something special.
Even her scent is appealing to me. Cinnamon and sugar.
Just sitting this close to her, I feel halfway drunk on that scent and the proximity of her body.
She’s exactly what I need right now. Thoughts of Abe have consumed me every second of every day since it happened.
Until I met this girl, that is. I don’t know what it is about her. Maybe it’s everything.
Abe would’ve liked her.