Always Someone’s Monster (Battle Crows MC 1)

Trista looked around at the now silent table, and then huffed. “I was going to eat with my new friend.”

My eyes narrowed.

New friend.

When the hell would they have even met?

Boston frowned. “Where the hell would y’all have even met?”

It was like we were on the same freakin’ wavelength or something.

I mean, they might’ve met at one of Trista’s exercise classes or something, but that was unlikely. Blakely and I worked the same hours. And I never once heard her talking about an exercise class or anything where she would go that Trista would go to as well.

“We met at a bar,” Trista explained.

That made sense.

“A bar?”

That was Cannel’s mom.

Oh, boy.

When Trista and Haggard split, from what I’d heard, his mom and dad had trouble. Not because they didn’t agree they needed a divorce, but because they would have to choose Haggard in the split.

Or so I’d heard from Clem.

Trista’s face went a little pinchy, and Haggard groaned under his breath.

I bumped him in his shoulder, causing him to snort.

“I…” Trista floundered.

“Food’s here,” Clem announced. “Mom, we’ll talk later.”

Obviously, I wasn’t the only one that noticed the tension in the two recently divorced parents’ demeanor.

Trista sighed and her shoulders slumped, her gaze going to me for a few seconds before snapping away to Haggard.

Then, without another word, she jerked her head toward her table, which was all the way across the room, and away they went.

“Wow,” Rook, another one of Clem’s uncles, drawled. “That wasn’t awkward at all.”

“Shut it,” Mama Crow grumbled. “You could’ve been nicer.”

“I didn’t say shit,” Rook argued. “I was just sitting here looking at how awkward it now is to have her around. She was always such a b…”

“Let’s not talk about my kids’ mother like that, hey?” Haggard interrupted before Rook could finish that sentence.

His voice, though even, was clearly unforgiving.

He wouldn’t, and had never, allowed anyone to talk badly about Trista, and I appreciated that.

“She doesn’t give you the same courtesy,” Boston mumbled as his plate of food was placed down in front of him.

Haggard didn’t reply.

Nobody else did either, until the waitress walked away with her empty tray.

“Is that the chick Mom tried to hook you up with?” Boston asked curiously. “The one right after y’all’s divorce was final?”

“That’s her,” Haggard grunted.

“If you start dating her, I’ll have to break up my friendship with Clem,” I added into the silence of the table. “That woman makes my fuckin’ head hurt and is the reason I have headaches as bad as I do.”

Haggard raised his brows at me curiously. “Really? Why?”

I started to explain my day to him and the entire table. Not leaving anything out.

“Well, take today, for instance,” I started. “There were three people on the lot when we both walked out there. Blakely went to the two men, while I went to the lone woman that was looking at minivans. I actually sold the woman an SUV, and the two men ended up not buying a thing. So, clearly, that was my fault for stealing a sale from her.”

There was a long silence and then Haggard said, “Really?”

I shrugged. “And she ate my food that I brought to work, stating it ‘looked like hers’ even if she didn’t pack a lunch today. So then I was left with no lunch to eat on my lunch break. And she ‘borrowed’ my chair, and instead of giving mine back when I asked for it, she asked me to take hers. Well, an hour later, she was leaning back in it and it broke, so she asked for her chair back. Only, I was sitting in it talking to a client who was out of state—again, she hates doing phone sales because they ‘rarely ever buy’ anything. And, since I was on the phone, I wouldn’t give hers back to her. So she went to complain to the boss about me, which I then explained what happened after I was done with my sale, my boss told her she’d have to use the broken one until he could get to the store to get a new one…” I took a deep breath. “Needless to say, she’s very petty and doesn’t like me.”

I went back to my cooling food after that, listening to the table discuss the ways that Haggard ‘lucked out.’

I was engrossed in the way my sour cream sauce swirled around my rice and beans when Haggard sat back in his chair and spread his thighs wide. When he did so, he pressed his rather large thigh into my leg, and I had a momentary out-of-body experience at having him touch me.

I was so focused on the way his leg felt pressed against mine that at first I didn’t notice that the table was quiet.

The man on my other side bumped me with his elbow.