Mad Gold (Providence Gold 2)

Damn it, I really wanted to punch him in the face. Glaring at him wasn’t giving me the same satisfaction that my fist hitting him would.

“Uh, thanks?” Dahlia chuckled, her face turning bright red. That riled me even more until she leaned into my side slightly.

“Seriously, what the fuck?” Levi snapped, shaking his head to get all the beans out of his hair.

“That was your penance for being a little shit at school,” Jer boomed. Like, literally boomed. His voice was so loud and deep that even Luna’s howling Dachshund, Banshee, stopped for once. “You might have done something about it, but we don’t leave people to fight their wars alone, do we? Next time, remember that and how you’d feel if you’d been in Dahlia’s shoes.”

“And don’t swear at my table,” Erica snapped, glaring at him.

“He said shit,” Levi replied, pointing at his dad.

“It’s my fucking table,” Jer said, moving to sit at the head of it. “Now, let’s eat!”

Leaning into me again, Dahlia grinned up at me. “That was fun,” she whispered. “But you realize that he didn’t do anything wrong, don’t you?”

I don’t think either of us intended to stay like that, just looking at each other, but I’d be damned if I could stop. I felt my lips twitching into a smile which was happening way too often for my liking. The movement caught her attention and her eyes dropped to watch them.

“Oh, just fucking kiss her,” Tate groaned, reaching across me to grab a steak with his fork.

His arm pit in my face was an unwelcome distraction from the woman that I still couldn’t get out of my head.

It was also fucking rude.

Reaching for my fork, I waited until he was moving back to sit down again and stabbed him in the underside of his bicep. The steak dropped onto my plate as he yelped and threw his arm up in the air.

“What the fuck?”

“I think he’s turning into one of us,” Ariana crowed, waving her arms in the air.

That was like a slap to the face. Turning into a Townsend? I’d rather turn into a gorilla.

“Calm, Harambe,” Dahlia murmured as she grinned at me. “One day you’ll look back at this moment and see it as a blessing.”

And on those words of wisdom, she reached over to get a piece of chicken from the tower on the table. Spearing the top one with her fork, she moved backwards toward her plate. Two things happened at that moment. The tower of chicken fell, with pieces of it then rolling everywhere, knocking a jug of gravy over.

She was the complete opposite of me. I liked order and peace, and she was a freakin’ disaster.

And damn, I really liked that more each day.SixDahliaI wasn’t sure what was going on with Madix. It felt like we were building something, but I didn’t understand what. Sure, there had been touches and some tense moments, but nothing else had happened since we’d kissed and it was making me feel off balance. I wasn’t spending all my time thinking about it, but I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t tried to figure out what our situation was. When I looked at it from the outside, I wondered if I was being immature or just plain old dumb, but everyone had situations like this at some point that they stewed over. I wasn’t any different.

I liked him, okay. I could admit that. He was just such a great guy. Funny, caring, gentle, loyal, protective, he had it all on the inside. And then there was the outside too, which definitely had it all. So, I could admit to myself that I was attracted to the guy. We’d been hanging out doing random things like buying furniture, taking Bing for walks and just having fun, and I loved it. It was so easy and relaxing being around him that even if we only ended up being friends, I would take anything I could get with him.

I wasn’t the most experienced person in the world. In fact, I’d only had two boyfriends. One in high school, Ronnie Cane, who had been such a great guy. Unfortunately, at graduation, I’d tripped on my gown and sent him flying into the fountain. This meant that his graduation pictures weren’t the spectacular memories they were meant to be. He’d dumped me before he even went on stage.

My second boyfriend, Ian Trebeck, had been my first. I met him when he brought his car in for a service and we’d dated for about three months before I gave in and had sex with him. It hadn’t been spectacular, he hadn’t lasted long, and then he’d blamed that on me and had dumped me the next day saying he couldn’t waste any more time on someone he wasn’t compatible with in bed.