Any Day Now (SWAT Generation 2.0 8)

I hated her already, and I didn’t know her past seeing her for the last minute and a half.

But I knew without a doubt that she’d never get back in my good graces after what she’d said.

Funny enough, before Tomi could say anything more than what she already had, a big guy wearing an earphone, who was obviously security, came walking up to a bar from a back room.

He looked from me to Amelia, then to Tomi before saying, “Tomi, boss man wants to see you.”

Tomi grinned.

“Oh yeah, Berd?” Tomi purred as she walked up to the large man who didn’t look as if he was as receptive at seeing her as she was at seeing him. “What about?”

The man, Berd, shrugged a beefy shoulder. “Got no clue. Only follow what I’m told.”

Tomi went to place her hand on Berd’s shoulder, but before she could get any touching in, he pulled away and put some distance between them.

Another customer sidled up to the bar on my left, drawing Amelia’s attention.

The man ordered eight beers with the lids on then turned to survey the shit going on up on stage.

I glanced in the direction and looked away just as fast.

There was a woman on stage that was in the process of running a feather boa through her splayed thighs.

Something that I might’ve found interesting a few weeks ago.

Now? After meeting Amelia? Things didn’t turn me on like they used to.

But goddamn, if I smelled anything fucking vanilla, I’d instantly get a hard-on because that’s what Amelia’s hair smelled like.

Kind of like why I haven’t washed my sheets since she left, and I kept using the goddamn pillow she’d slept on.

When I looked back toward the bar and Amelia, it was to find her staring at me with surprise etched on her face.

“What?” I asked curiously.

She gestured toward the stage with her chin.

“Not to your liking?” she asked.

I shrugged, my eyes going heated as I slid my gaze down the length of her body. “Just liking something a whole lot more lately.”

Her cheeks pinked. “That’s sweet.”

“Truthful,” I said. “What’s your number?”

She was about to rattle it off when another customer came up, this one a woman.

“Hey, aren’t you the chick that punched Rogan Germain?” the young girl, who looked to be no more than eighteen, asked.

Amelia didn’t say anything.

“Time for you to go.”

Another bouncer walked up behind the girl.

“It is her, isn’t it?” the girl asked.

“Go,” the bouncer, a big, intimidating cop whom I happened to know, ordered. “Or I’ll escort you out.”

The girl left, but not before letting off one more parting shot in Amelia’s direction.

“It’s going to come back and bite you in the ass one day,” she said to Amelia. “One day, you’re not going to have any bouncers around to protect you, and you’re going to get what’s coming to you.”

The girl left after that, leaving me glaring a hole in her back.

“She’ll be okay here,” the bouncer, Steve, said, looking pointedly at me.

I jerked up my chin at him. “I sure hope so.”

“She will. I wouldn’t let anything happen to her. Nobody here would,” he promised.

Before I could say anything more to that, he left, leaving Amelia sighing in his wake.

“That fuckin’ movie star needs to have his nuts punched up into his throat,” she grumbled. “Do you know how many people came up to me and threatened me today? I was buying tampons, Adam. I was out. Meaning… anyway, they came up to me in the tampon aisle. Harassed me all the way to the checkout line. What in the absolute fuck?”

My lips twitched at her mention of the tampon aisle, and how abruptly she’d stopped that line of thinking.

“So that means no sex tonight,” I teased.

She rolled her eyes. “Unless you want to grow up and get with the flow… literally.”

I rolled my eyes. “I can’t say that’s ever been something I’ve been willing to do with anyone else. But with you? Never say never.”

The idea didn’t send instant disgust rolling through me. Which was promising.

She rolled her eyes. “And I had to leave classes early today, too. The teacher, of all people, was super offended by my actions, and ‘wasn’t comfortable’ having me in her class. What the absolute fuck? I’m a model student!”

My brows lifted at that. “Did you talk to anyone about that?”

“I did,” she confirmed. “The dean, of all people. Guess who his favorite movie star is? Guess who was also ‘very disappointed’ in me?”

I narrowed my eyes. “What happened?”

“What happened was I got permission to attend the classes remotely, finish up my final year, and then I was asked, very kindly, to find another college next semester.” She rolled her eyes. “Apparently they’re allowed to kick me out based on criminal records. She even showed me the bylaws. I’m lucky to be finishing the semester.”