Hot Sauce (Suncoast Society #26)(31)

“Do you work on your own car?”

At that she did let out something resembling a chuckle. “I wouldn’t have time to even if I wanted to. I mean, obviously, I know the basics, the parts. I’m not a diagnostician.”

“So how did you end up doing that?”

She told him about how her brother had gotten her the job originally…

And then he felt like shit, realizing that talking about her work wasn’t actually getting her mind off her brother, now that she’d pointed that fact out to him.

He desperately tried to come up with a way to salvage this. “I guess there aren’t a lot of women in your field.”

“More than there used to be,” she said. “Although I’m still a rarity at the monthly corporate meetings. There’s only one other female regional manager east of the Mississippi River, and she’s up in Tennessee, near headquarters.”

“Wow. That’s impressive.”

“There are a lot more female store managers, though, than there used to be. That’s something. I’ve tried to encourage any female employees who go to work in the stores to push harder and learn as much as they can to try to advance. It’s not a bad career once you hit the store manager position. The salary and benefits start to finally add up then, and the work isn’t exactly rocket science. There’s a lot to learn, but once you do, the routine is keeping up on the reports, watching sales trends, making sure inventory is correct, riding your crew to keep up with truck shortage checks, loss prevention protocols, things like that. It’s not like lives depend on what we do.”

She went quiet for a moment and he suspected he shouldn’t interrupt her.

Finally, she spoke again. “Is there anything I should wear or bring special tomorrow?”

“Oh, a hat. Sunglasses, if you have them. Sunscreen, or I have some in the boat. Might want to wear a bathing suit if you want to catch some sun or go swimming.”

“Food?”

“We’ll pack drinks and snacks, unless there’s something special you want to bring or you have a special diet.”

She snorted. “If you haven’t looked at me, I’m not on a diet, even though I should be.”

He was a little surprised to catch the bitter undertone in her voice. “I think you’re beautiful,” he said, and meaning it. “What’s wrong with you?”





Great. There’s a blind man driving my car. And I’m riding shotgun.

She stared at him. “Are you serious?” she asked.

“Dead serious.”

She scoffed. “Um, I know Basco said this outfit looked great on me, but I didn’t know it hid my extra pounds so well.”

“That outfit does look great on you, and so what if you have a few extra pounds? I do. So does Lyle. Not every man is into a woman who starves herself into a size 0, you know.”

She didn’t want to hurt his feelings and call him a f*cking liar. “Then I guess I’ve never met any of those men before,” she said

“Lucky for me.” From the way he snapped his mouth shut, she wondered if he’d meant to say that out loud.

He finally looked at her when he stopped for a light. “Seriously,” he said, as if he’d regained a little bravery. “You’re beautiful.”

“You’re also gay.”

“FYI, I’m bi, not gay. So’s Lyle. Ask him. He’ll be honest with you, too. I’m also not blind or dead. When my dick tries to get hard over a woman, duh, I find her attractive.”

Oookaaay…

That put a slightly different twist on things. She wondered if Tilly and Eliza and Jenny realized the men weren’t gay.

“And, also FYI, sometimes I tend to speak a little too honestly,” he added, his hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. “I hope I didn’t just freak you out and make you want to cancel tomorrow, because, seriously, Tilly will kill me if you do that, and Eliza will castrate what’s left.”

That made her giggle. She could picture Eliza doing that.

“Is that why you invited me out?” she asked. “Because Tilly and Eliza told you to?”

“No, that was all my idea. My charter for tomorrow cancelled. And I realized that trying to talk there at the club might not have been the easiest thing for you. Alone, just the three of us…” He shrugged. “I’m not going to deny I have my own reasons for wanting to spend time with you.”

“Like?”

He let out a sad sigh. “You’re looking for answers about your brother. I’m looking for any last trace of him I can hold onto. This might sound weird, but Lyle and I were talking about asking Basco if he wanted to be more than just play partners with us.”

“You were?”

“Yeah. And I feel guilty as f*cking hell we waited. Maybe if we hadn’t waited…maybe we would have known he was so sick and maybe we could have helped you get him to the doctor sooner. Maybe he’d still be alive.”

Her heart nearly broke at revelation. She hadn’t thought about things like that.

Taking a chance, she reached over and rested her hand on his thigh. He covered hers with his and gently squeezed.

“I’m looking forward to tomorrow,” she softly said. “I’d like the chance to spend time with both of you, talking about him.”