Mia
“Hold still so I can see it,” I grumbled as I dabbed at Barrick’s lip over dinner later.
We were sitting at some diner a few miles from the Underground with Braxton. It was just the three of us since Lyla had gone with Howler after the fight. Most likely to an after party from what I’d overheard them saying, so it was anyone’s guess when my roommate would be home later.
“It’s fine,” Barrick complained, popping a fry into his mouth and then stuffing one in mine. “My teeth just cut into it when I got hit.”
“It’s going to bruise.” I wanted to wail because his face had just started to heal after his own fight earlier in the week. The gash above his eye was closed, and he only had a single butterfly stitch over it. “Doesn’t it sting when you get that grease and salt in it?”
He rolled his eyes and pushed two more fries into his mouth. “You’re acting like I broke my jaw, firecracker. It was just a pop to the mouth.” Dipping a fry in ketchup, he touched it to my lips. “Come on. Eat for me.”
Sighing, I glared at him for all of a second before opening my mouth and biting the fry in two. Smirking, he ate the rest before picking up his burger that was brimming with veggies and condiments.
Shaking my head at him and what smelled like a really delicious cow, I stabbed a fork into my grilled chicken salad.
Across from us, Braxton was trying not to laugh as he enjoyed his own burger and fries. “What?” I groused, chewing my salad unhappily.
“You two act like you’ve been together for fifty years already. Are you sure you only just met?”
“Maybe we knew each other in a previous life,” Barrick answered, wiping his mouth.
“Maybe she ruled your world in that previous life,” his cousin countered.
Barrick’s dark eyes caught mine, his dimple barely peeking out as he nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed in a low, deep voice that made something pull deep in my gut. “Maybe she did.”
The diner suddenly felt suffocatingly hot. I picked up my water and took a long, thirsty sip in hopes of cooling myself off. What was it about the way this man looked at me that made me want to strip myself bare for him…in every way imaginable?
“Lyla’s probably not going to go back to the dorms tonight,” Braxton mentioned when the waitress brought the check, and Barrick handed over his credit card.
“Wait,” I told the woman, reaching for my purse. “Let me pay for mine.”
“Yeah, that will be no,” Barrick said, pushing the card and check into her hands. “Don’t listen to her, ma’am. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
Lips twitching, the middle-aged waitress walked off to process his card, and he just flashed me that damn dimple again. “You didn’t pay for the jeans, and I sure as hell am not letting you pay for your own dinner.”
“I can pay my own way.”
“Of course you can, little dancer. But you’re not going to while I’m around.” He focused on his cousin, who was watching us patiently. “What was that about Lyla?”
“She’s either going to go home with Howler or back to Judge’s place. Do you think Mia will be okay at the dorm all on her own?”
“It’s a dorm. Nothing will happen to me there. Jeesh, you two act worse than my dad.” I picked up my napkin, wadded it into a ball, and tossed it at Brax’s face. He deflected it at the last second, hitting it with his hand and knocking it toward Barrick.
“Knowing Lyla, she’s liable to be there all weekend, especially if it’s Howler’s weekend with Josie,” Barrick said thoughtfully, then nodded his head decisively. “Let’s stop by the dorm and grab Mia some clothes for the weekend. She will stay with us.”
“Say what now?” I squeaked, glancing from one to the other like they’d lost their minds. “I don’t need to stay with you two. I have a perfectly good dorm room with a perfectly good bed and every other amenity I might need, thank you.”
“I’ll make you breakfast in the morning,” Braxton enticed. “Pancakes. Bacon. Eggs. Whatever else you might want.”
“No, really…” But pancakes sounded so good. I hadn’t had any in weeks, and I missed my dad’s Saturday morning special with a full breakfast he made himself since it was the housekeeper’s day off.
Barrick leaned in, touching his lips to the shell of my ear. “You can fall asleep in my arms,” he breathed before touching his tongue to my earlobe.
Goose bumps popped up on my entire body, and a delicious shiver went down my spine. Damn, he really knew how to sweeten the deal.
“I… Um…” I cleared my throat. “So, pancakes?” I said in a weak voice.
Barrick’s laugh rumbled in his chest, and Braxton grinned. I picked up my water glass, draining the rest of it in two gulps just as the waitress returned, and Barrick signed the slip before pocketing his card.
Still grinning like the devil he was, Barrick stood and offered me his hand. “Let’s go. I’ll even help you pack a bag.”
“Sweet of you,” I sassed but didn’t try to pull away when he entwined his fingers with mine and he walked me out to the Jeep.
Braxton climbed in the back as his cousin opened my door, but before I could move to get in, Barrick was touching his lips to the back of my neck. “I really want to see what all the fuss was about when you first got to the Underground tonight. Will you show me?”
All I could do was nod because I couldn’t find my voice to speak. He tapped me on my rear, urging me inside with a husky laugh at my ear. “You’re so damn beautiful. Let’s go, firecracker. Need to get you home safely.”
Back at my dorm, I made quick work of packing a few things to take to the cousins’ house for the weekend. Just pajamas, a change of clothes, and a few toiletries to get me through. They stood in the doorway watching me, and I handed over my small case before grabbing my books so I would at least get some studying done.
Barrick frowned down at the light weight of my case. “This it?”
“Yeah, why?” I slung my bag over my shoulder, made sure I had my phone charger and laptop, and then picked up my keys.
“I don’t know. Just figured girls needed more than this.”
I rolled my eyes and closed the door to my room. “I’m not most girls. I only take the necessities. Something you learn to do when you spend a good bit of your life living out of suitcases.”
“You went on tour with your pops a lot?” Braxton asked as he hit the button for the elevator.
“When I was little, they would do a tour every summer and take all of us kids. But that stopped thirteen years ago.” I pulled up my text messages, focusing on them so I didn’t have to look at either cousin. “But I was talking more about my summers in a different country, learning new styles of dance.”
Barrick’s hand touched my back, his fingers slipping under the sweatshirt and rubbing soothing circles on my bare skin, as if he knew I needed comforting. I did. Thinking of that last tour my father’s band did all those years ago was still a vivid nightmare I relived all the time.
“That must have been fun,” Braxton commented. “Where did you go that was your favorite?”
I began to relax, feeling safe with the two of them. And with Barrick’s touch calming something deep inside me, I was able to concentrate on the good things from my past rather than focusing on the scary.
“Paris,” I answered honestly. “But only because ballet is in my soul, and that was where I got to spend the most time focused on it. Plus, Paris. Do I need to say more?”
“You’re a girl, so no, I guess not. Paris is supposed to be every girl’s dream destination, right?”
“Maybe, I guess. Except my cousin Nevaeh. She would rather go to London and just disappear in all the libraries.” Any library would do with her, though. The smell of old books while she spent hours skimming through one from cover to cover was her happy place. “Speaking of which, I’ve arranged to Skype with her so she can help us with that first paper we have due for English.”
“But she’s a kid,” he said as we stepped off the elevator.
Barrick opened the front door, holding it open for me, but once I was through, two other freshmen came out behind me. They looked him over hungrily, and one of them even sucked on her lip as she glanced at him over her shoulder while she kept walking.
And he winked at her.
Jealousy hit me dead center, knocking the breath out of me for a moment. Clenching my jaw, I fell into step beside Braxton, determined not to let what just happened get the better of me.
“What do you mean ‘kid’?” I asked as we walked to the Jeep.
“She’s what? Twelve?”
“No, she’s about to turn sixteen in a few months.” And that was all I was going to tell him about her for now. I was super protective of Nevaeh.
Braxton opened my door for me, and I climbed in just as Barrick reached us and tossed my case in the back seat.
“Ready?” he asked, his jaw tense as he glanced between his cousin and me.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked as I took my seat.
“Nothing. Not a damn thing,” he muttered, starting the Jeep.
Braxton laughed from the back seat. “You two are adorable when you’re trying to pretend you’re not jealous.”
“Who’s jealous?” I countered, clenching my hands in my lap.
“Oh, please,” Braxton said with a snort. “If you could breathe fire, those two girls who came out behind us would be nothing but ash right now. You redheads are dangerous.”
“Shut up, Brax,” I growled at him, feeling heat engulf my face.
“And this guy can’t even see straight when I so much as smile at you,” he continued, tapping Barrick on the back of the head none too gently. “Relax, dipshit. We’re friends. Right, Mia?”
“Yes, of course we are,” I assured him.
The tension seemed to leave Barrick’s shoulders, and he winked over at me as he put the Jeep in gear. “Ash, huh?”
I shrugged, refusing to admit anything verbally. “You wink at all the girls, it seems.”
“Winking is one thing, firecracker. Taking them to my house and letting them spend the night cuddled up to me is something else entirely.” Reaching over, he grasped my hand, wrapped his fingers around my fist, and placed it on his thigh. “There’s only one girl who gets that part of me, baby.”