Tank (Blue-Collar Billionaires 1)

She looks at me expectantly when I don’t provide any additional details.

“Most of the missions I was on were classified so I can’t really talk about them.”

“Of course. I don’t need to know details. I was just wondering what you did, you know, in general?”

“Um, I was a sniper actually.”

“Oh. Really?” Her eyes go round and she takes a big bite of her sandwich.

I dig in the cooler looking for another sandwich. Anything to distract me from this painful silence. What am I supposed to say, I used to kill people? I did scary stuff that I hope you won’t ever have to know about? There’s just nothing that I can say to put her mind at ease. I’m reminded of my last girlfriend, Jenna’s, words.

You’re just too much sometimes, Tank. Too damn much to deal with.

“Oh. Well. Okay then.” Her eyes roam over the sand, the waves crashing to the shore and then to the birds flying overhead. She’s working as hard as I am to think of something to change the subject. Apparently she’s not having any more luck than I am.

Damn this is awkward.

“Don’t worry. That’s always a conversation killer. It’s not just you.”

Her eyes light up. “Good. I mean, not good that it’s a hard question to answer but good that … oh, never mind. So, tell me more about you. What’s your family like?”

A smile tugs at the corners of my lips. “That shouldn’t be a difficult question to answer either. And yet, it is. I apologize, Emma. This is the least normal date you’ve probably ever been on. To answer your question, I grew up with my younger brother, Finn. He’s like a shorter, less attractive, version of me.”

Her lips quirk up at the corners. “I’m sure. Sorry if it feels like I’m questioning you, or something. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“You weren’t. You are asking perfectly normal questions. It’s just that my life is a little too reality show for a girl like you to understand.”

“What does that mean? A girl like me?” She raises her eyebrows.

“The kind of girl who grew up with two parents and a dog. The kind of girl who wears sweater sets and thinks hell is a bad word.”

Her mouth falls open. “I have absolutely no idea what to even say to that.”

I lean over and tuck a strand of her sunny hair behind her ear. The stuff is always sticking up all over the place and for some reason, I love it. Anyone else would look like an electrocuted poodle but on her, the effect is charming.

“Don’t worry about it, buttercup. It’s not an insult. We’re just different, that’s all.”

She regards me from beneath lowered lashes, her gray eyes worried. Her teeth clamp down on her bottom lip. “What about your dad?”

“Uh, my parents divorced when I was a kid. So what did you do before you worked for Patrick?” Talking about my deadbeat dad is not the way to get this date back on track.

“I was in school. I was in my junior year when my parents died. Even though the school gave me a leave of absence to deal with everything, I couldn’t keep my focus even after I came back. My grades suffered. I had a partial scholarship but you have to maintain a certain GPA to keep it. So now I’m trying to earn enough money to go back and retake some of the classes I failed.”

“Makes sense. Is that why you started dancing at the Black Kitty?”

Her head snapped up. “Dancing? Oh god, you mean stripping? I’m not a stripper.”

The disdain in her voice is obvious. I know she doesn’t mean anything by it but after everything I’ve witnessed over the past twenty-four hours, it strikes me as incredibly ironic that most of the girls stripping at the Black Kitty are probably farther along in their college studies than she is. Most of them are dancing to pay their way through school. Or to support their kids.

“Are you okay?” Emma asks.

Part of me says to just write this whole thing off as a bust, to grab my shit and go home. But I’m so disappointed. So damn disappointed because I thought she was different. I contemplate not answering. She doesn’t get it and people like her never do. But something inside me wants her to understand.

“Those girls you look down on are just doing what they need to survive. Half of them are in college and will probably make more money than either of us when they finish.”

I shake my head but before I can say anything else my phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out. Normally I wouldn’t take a phone call in the middle of a date, even one as spectacularly bad as this one but when I see my mom’s name on the screen, I answer immediately.

“Hey, Mom. Is everything okay?”