“All right, Zoe.”
I shivered. I preferred to be the nameless and faceless girl. I don’t know why it bugged me that he knew my name, but it did. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“Looking for you, actually.” I threw him a startled look. He hobbled along beside me and laughed harshly. Maybe even a bit of mocking in there. “I was in the neighborhood.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. I wasn’t stalking you, love.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“What?” His eyebrow skyrocketed above the sunglasses. “Love?”
“Yeah, that sounds too…charming.”
“I am that, though.”
“Slick and charming doesn’t do anything for me.”
“Obviously, it does, or you wouldn’t be irked about it.” He gave a big sigh. “All right, love is off the table. At least for now. Maybe one day you’ll beg me to call you love.”
I stepped away from him and he wavered.
“Hey.”
“I won’t be begging you to do anything, ever.”
“Feisty. I quite like it.” He threw his arm around my shoulders, but didn’t lean on me quite as hard.
A flash of memory from last night nagged at me. He’d said something similar. The inflection in his voice was as lyrical as a song. Distracting, and it made my chest hurt. I turned into him to hustle him across the street against traffic.
A horn blared and I held up a hand in that rude way that made drivers mental. But whatever, I needed to get some space between us. The borrowed T-shirt was thin and the heat of his skin seemed to burn right through to my currently bra-less situation. That was the only reason my nipples were all tight and achy. No other reason. Not after what had just happened to me.
We walked in silence. A few people glanced at us, but it was downtown and weird was commonplace. The iconic Venice banner strung up along Pacific settled my heart rate. Almost there.
But then he’d be in my space.
I wasn’t sure I could handle that. But I couldn’t let Bent see him in this current state, either. Bloody nose and rapidly swelling lip. Rivulets of blood had transferred to my shirt, making us both look like we’d gone on a rampage through a UFC fight.
“So this is J Town? Flats aren’t like this back home, that’s for sure. So swank that it gets its own name in…where are we? Still in Venice Beach?” He glanced around. “And a building full of tags across from it.”
“Venice is eclectic.”
“Is that what you’re going with?”
“You’re not from here, remember? You don’t know how it is.”
He flicked the tail of my braid. “So, you’re born and raised here then?”
“No.” I huffed out a breath. “I moved here about six months ago.”
“Oh, well then. You have it all figured out.”
“You’re an ass.” I picked up my step as we got closer to the front doors. I hooked my arm around his back, and he hissed. “Sorry. We need to go in the side doors.”
“Is this a ladies kinda deal?” He dropped his voice. “No men allowed?”
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