After I cut myself off from my dad and was searching for Jackson, I’d moved back to Toronto and worked at two different bars, waitressing and taking every shift I could get in order to save money. Which meant I had a lot of cocktail napkins to sift through.
Jackson asked a few times when Vic was coming back, but when I told him I didn’t know, he shrugged and said it was okay because Vic was saving people who needed him.
I must have checked my cell a zillion times, hoping he’d text. And when someone else texted, my heart crashed against my rib cage, thinking it was Vic. It never was, but then he could be in Siberia right now, or in Columbia going after some drug lord.
“Hello?” A shrill voice echoed. “Are you going to just stand there, or give us our drinks?” I turned back to the table of thirty-something-year-old women.
“Sorry,” I said, sliding the tray of margaritas onto the bar table as the women snickered. Well, all except one who looked at me curiously. “Hey, aren’t you the girl who sings Friday nights?”
I nodded while I finished placing the drinks on the table.
She plucked the yellow umbrella from her drink. “She’s amazing. We have to come back on Friday,” she said to the other women, but they weren’t paying attention to her. No, they were looking over my left shoulder.
Goose bumps scattered across my skin, and the fine hairs on the back of my neck quivered. My hands tightened on the tray and my knees weakened.
I closed my eyes briefly, relief washing over me. He was alive.
He was alive, and he was back.
“Oh, who is that hottie?” said the woman who had an inch of foundation plastered on her face. “God, he’s like The Rock and the guy from—oh, what’s the cop show? SWAT. Who’s the smokin’ hot leader guy?”
“Hondo,” the other girl said.
“He’s coming over,” yellow umbrella girl whispered.
I couldn’t move. And I couldn’t turn around to look at him because I was afraid if I did, I’d find out he wasn’t real. That I was imagining he was here.
He didn’t have to touch me for me to know he was right beside me. He was real. He was back.
“And who might you be?” Cake-face asked, her gaze travelling up his tatted forearms to his broad shoulders and across his chest before it settled on his face.
It was as if a rod was being shoved up her ass as her back arched and she pushed out her breasts. The three buttons at the top of her shirt strained, threatening to pop.
Cake-face smiled, showing off her bright white teeth. “I haven’t seen you around town.” Her voice was laced with a syrupy sweetness that hadn’t been there two minutes ago.
She slithered one butt cheek off her bar stool to move closer to him, her arm “accidentally” brushing his as she placed her margarita on the table. “I’m Larissa Worthington, as in Worthington Real Estate.”
His eyes weren’t on her. He hadn’t even glanced in her direction. No, his gaze was still locked on me.
“If you’re looking to move here, I can help you find the most sublime place.” Her manicured hand settled on Vic’s forearm. “And I give the most thorough tours.”
Everything in him changed, but it wasn’t like a flicked switch. This was a slow, threatening boil.
His jaw tightened.
His brows dipped.
And then his gaze unlocked from mine and moved. It was like a sniper rifle about to find its target. The question was whether he’d pull the trigger or not.
Oh boy. This wasn’t going to be pretty. And I should probably say something, but she was a bitch, and I wasn’t feeling up to giving her a pass.
“I think you should get your hand off me before I snap off those fake-ass nails and shove them down your throat.”
Cake-face sucked in a breath and her mouth dropped open.
I laughed inwardly. He really had no people skills, and I liked that about him. He told it like it was.
She slammed her jaw shut, and if it were at all possible to see her brain working, it would be a giant hamster wheel churning at full speed, because I was pretty sure she wasn’t accustomed to anyone speaking to her like that.