Lord Have Mercy (Southern Gentleman 2)

“I’m well, ma’am,” Chief said. “How are you?”

He didn’t remember her name. I could tell that right off the bat. He also didn’t like her.

He got this nervous tick in his cheek when he was annoyed, and Nivea coming up behind him and standing so close wasn’t something he liked. Not even from the people he did know.

“Great,” Nivea chirped, sounding falsely cheerful.

We all paused, waiting for her to talk, but she never did.

In fact, it got to the point of discomfort before our waiter was back with another basket of bread.

Camryn immediately reached forward and grabbed a roll almost as fast as they were set down and started to shove it straight into her face seconds later.

She immediately opened her mouth, her eyes starting to water. “Hot,” she said around the bite of roll.

I snorted. “There’s steam coming off of them, baby.”

Nivea hissed. “I don’t eat the rolls here. Do you know that each one of those rolls has over two hundred and twenty-nine calories? And that’s not even including the honey butter.”

“Huh,” Camryn said as she picked up the little cup of butter. “Imagine that.”

Then she proceeded to dip the entire roll into it, taking up half of the butter, and then biting off a rather large chunk.

The Chief started to laugh. “That’s what I say every time I take a bite, too. Well, y’all have a good night, ya hear?”

I offered my hand to the Chief one last time, and then he took off back to his table where his wife was talking to a woman the next table over. When my eyes returned to Nivea, it was to find her glaring daggers at Camryn.

“Is there something we can help you with?” I asked, sounding a whole lot more in control than I actually was.

Nivea turned her glare on me and then crossed her arms. “Is there a reason y’all are here, and ruining mine and Carver’s anniversary dinner?”

My eyes moved to Camryn.

“Well, is there?” Camryn asked me.

I shook my head, unable to stop myself. Then squeezed her foot that started to move along my crotch again.

“We’re here because I had reservations since last week,” I said softly, trying not to draw anybody’s attention, unlike a certain other person. “And I had no idea it was yours and your man’s one week anniversary.”

Nivea lifted her chin up even higher. “Well, let me just say that I had a lot of different plans for today. Now you’ve gone and ruined them.”

With that, she left, and I was left staring at Camryn who was trying hard not to laugh.

“I swear to God,” Camryn said. “I don’t know what you ever saw in her.”

“Convenience,” I answered.

She rolled her eyes and tried to once again pull her foot away, but again, I wouldn’t allow her to pull away.

“You’re a pig,” she said. “I don’t understand you at all.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know why I decided to do anything with her. She was there, convenient, and I was trying hard to stay away from you. A distraction.”

An inhaled hiss had me turning to see Nivea, who’d turned around to obviously give us more shit, listening to every word that I said.

“What?!” Nivea screeched.Chapter 13That moment when you leave Target with the receipt in your hand trying to find a mistake and realize that no, that was all you.

-Text from Camryn to Flint

Flint

“Shut up!” I yelled at Camryn as I tried not to start laughing right along with her. “That was my favorite steak joint, and I was just kicked out!”

“They gave us our food!” Camryn held up our bag.

“Yeah, but they didn’t give me any butter or rolls to go, and now I have to eat my mashed potatoes without them,” I muttered darkly.

That really wasn’t the point of why I was mad. I was mad because once again Nivea made a scene, and we were forced to leave to calm her ass down.

We weren’t really kicked out. We were more asked, gently, by the manager who didn’t want to piss off the police officer or the chief of police, who also decided to come back to the table.

“I snagged some on the way out,” she said, holding up two paper cartons with steaming rolls in them. “And butter!”

I looked into the bag she was holding up and saw about four times the amount of butter that we would need.

Grinning and ignoring the woman behind us, I walked Camryn over to my bike. “How about we make this a picnic? We’ll stop by that convenience store next to the park and grab some drinks.”

She batted her eyelashes at me, and I tilted my head sideways. “Is there something wrong with your eye?”

“No,” she rolled hers. “I was trying to be all lovey-dovey and shit.”

I snorted. “You failed.”

She flipped me off and walked over to my bike, coming to a stop directly next to it.