Bayou was a good man—mostly.
He was brash, dreadfully honest, intimidating, and rude—and those were just on his best days.
He wasn’t fond of newcomers, and we’d been blowing his comfort levels out of the water lately with adding all these new people to the mix in the form of girlfriends and wives.
Bayou was not a man that did well with change without being prepared for it.
And God forbid you hurt someone he considered his.
Which was likely what happened with his sister.
His sister, Brielle, might very well have been in the wrong if Pru was yelling at her. But Bayou wouldn’t care. He protected those who he thought of as his. No matter if they were wrong or not.
“Get it,” Bayou ordered.
Pru went to step away from me, but I patted her hand. “I’ll go get it. You hang out here with Conleigh. Where is it?”
Pru licked her lips and finally tore her stare away from Bayou, who still hadn’t looked away from her.
“Uhh, top shelf in my pantry. It was the door right off the kitchen,” she explained.
After extricating my arm from her grip, I left her in Conleigh’s capable hands and fast-walked across the street to her place.
Her dog was still laying on the doormat as I made my way up the front path, and when I pushed inside, the pig had moved, but only as far as to roll over in the opposite direction of the door—deeper into the shadows.
The birds were the first things I’d heard when I got over there, causing me to grin.
“You can’t handle the truth!” Bluebird exclaimed.
“So I can kiss you anytime I want!” Redbird said sweetly.
Lips twitching, I made my way to her pantry, easily found the beans, and started back out of the kitchen.
I’d gotten parallel with the table when something black caught my eye.
Pru’s phone.
It was lit up, and on the phone there was a text from a ‘Terrel Horandy.’
Terrel Horandy: You want to go out again tomorrow?
I picked up her phone and tried to open it to reply, but her passcode stopped me before I could invade her privacy too badly.
Placing the phone down on the table once again, I walked back out of her house with a new determination in my step.
She’d be saying yes to a date tomorrow…only it’d be with me.
***
“Admit it,” I told her, arm around her shoulder, as I walked her back over to her place hours later.
She rolled her eyes.
“Fine,” she said stubbornly. “So you were right.”
“I was,” I agreed. “Where do you want to go on our date tomorrow?”
So you don’t go out with Terrel.
Her lips twitched. “I get to pick?”
I nodded once. “Yeah, sure, why not? I only ask that you don’t choose Mexican unless you want to get up close and personal to how bad of a reaction I have to it. Chips and queso are my weakness.”
She frowned. “What kind of reaction?”
The nurse in her never turned off.
“The kind where I’ll be blowing up the nearest bathroom twenty minutes after finishing,” I felt it prudent to point out. “I don’t dislike Mexican at all. I just wanted to prepare you for what would happen.”
“If it makes you sick to your stomach, then you probably shouldn’t be eating it,” she pointed out.
I snorted. “And could you give up hot sauce and chips?”
She shrugged. “If it made me do that, yes. I think so, anyway.”
“Well, I can’t,” I informed her. “I have some control, but I don’t have that much control.”
After deliberating with herself inwardly, she came to a decision. “Wednesdays I usually go out to eat with my family. I can’t go out on a date with you, and now I can’t invite you because we eat Mexican.”
My brows rose. “I didn’t say that I couldn’t do Mexican, only that it tore me up after I ate it. As long as you aren’t in a rush, and don’t mind me being gone for twenty minutes after I eat, then I can do it.”
Not to mention I really wanted to go out on a date with her.
Maybe I could resist the hot sauce.
As long as she didn’t say El Torros. I had zero control when it came to El Torros. It was the one place that I missed, despite what it did to me, every time I came back after being out of the country.
“Where are you meeting, and what time? Can I give you a ride?” I pushed.
Her eyes lit. “You can pick me up from work. About six-thirty is good, and El Torros”
Well, shit.Chapter 5You don’t need candles on your birthday cake. All your dreams came true the moment I walked into your life.
-Things you probably shouldn’t say on your first date
Hoax
Had I known that not only would I be meeting her family, but also her extended family, I might’ve rethought telling her I’d go.