The Imperfections

I look back at him, and Brant smiles faintly.

“I’m his boss.”

14

Brant

When I spotted Alyssa at the food truck across the midway, it didn’t occur to me right away that she was here with anyone. She was all I saw, her golden blonde hair pulled back in loose pigtails, her pink dress short and flirty the way she seems to like ’em, her blue-green eyes widened in shock at the sight of me.

Then, before I even had a chance to react, Thompson spotted her, and Alyssa bolted.

Slowly, my focus pulled back and I took in the sights all around her. The elephant ear stand with a big yellow banner advertising freshly squeezed lemonade. The young guy standing beside her, buying her that overpriced carnival food—a kid I recognized, since I see him a few times a week washing dishes in the back of my bar.

A guy who, just last night around closing, was talking to the line cook about this “extremely fuckable blonde” he was taking to the fair.

I guess I can’t argue that Alyssa is extremely fuckable, but there’s no way I’m letting that irresponsible little bastard get his greedy hands on her. He’s already fucked half of my waitstaff. I don’t especially care about that, but Alyssa? Nope. Not fucking happening.

That’s how I find myself storming across the lawn, searching everywhere until I find them. My blood boils at the sight of her wedged between his legs, snuggled up against him unapologetically while she enjoys her elephant ear. I know I don’t have a goddamn leg to stand on—she offered herself to me and I turned her away—but I’m still tempted to reach down and rip her away from him, to haul her off and scold her like a child caught misbehaving.

Completely oblivious, my dishwasher smiles up at me with the same polite, bullshit smile he’d offer anyone with authority over him, and it rubs me the wrong way.

Of course this little shit doesn’t look at me and see competition. Of course he’d never consider that I’ve been with Alyssa, but it doesn’t make me want to kick his ass any less that he’s unabashedly holding her in front of me.

Barely containing my anger, I clench my fists at my sides. My gaze swings back to Alyssa. “I need to talk to you.”

Confused, Dirk asks, “Me?”

Irritated, I look at him. “Was I looking at you?”

Alyssa scowls at me and dusts off her hands over her plate. “You don’t have to be rude to him, Brant.”

It lights a fire right under my balls hearing her tell me how to talk to the little asshole who just had his hands all over her. “I sign his paychecks—I’ll talk to him any way I please.”

Even more baffled, Dirk asks Alyssa, “You know Brant?”

“Intimately,” I shoot back.

Alyssa gasps, then abruptly stands and swats my arm. “What is wrong with you?”

I grab hold of her arm and haul her little ass away from Dirk without another word.

“Brant,” she objects. Over her shoulder, she calls, “I’m so sorry, I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t fucking apologize to him,” I snap. “What the hell are you doing here with that asshole in the first place? Are you trying to piss me off by fucking my employees now?”

Uttering a noise of disgust, she says, “Not everything is about you, Brant. I didn’t know he was your employee. He’s my neighbor. It’s a small town. And he is not an asshole.”

That scrap of loyalty to him pisses me off more than anything else. “Yes, he is an asshole,” I inform her. “Nice to see your shitty taste in men hasn’t changed.”

Attempting to jerk her arm from my grasp, she tells me angrily, “You think everyone is an asshole. Maybe you’re the asshole.”

“Oh, I’m the asshole?”

“Yes!” She tugs on her arm again, but I don’t let go. “You’re the one who just embarrassed me in front of my date. You’re the one hauling me off by my arm like a damn caveman with his misplaced property. I’m not yours, Brant. You made that clear. I can do whatever I want with whomever I want.”

“Not with him, you can’t,” I tell her.

“What’s so wrong with him?” she demands. “He’s my age, he’s single, he’s funny, he’s attractive. Tell me what is so awful about him, because I sure don’t see it.”

I jerk to a stop, glaring back at her. “He plans to fuck you tonight, you know that?”

Her eyes widen. “So? I don’t plan to fuck him on our first date, but even if I did…who cares? Most guys want to have sex with the girls they ask out, Brant. That’s kinda the point.”

That’s…true, but I don’t care. I yank her forward and continue hauling her through the rows of people, but this time I don’t speak to her since everything she says is pissing me right off.