In Rides Trouble (Black Knights Inc. #2)(53)

Yepper, maybe if she looked like an hourglass, he would finally give her the time of day and let her apologize, because if there was one thing she was sure of, it was she was sick and damned tired of walking on eggshells around him…or having him walk on eggshells around her…or whatever the heck was going on to make the room experience a sudden blast of nuclear winter whenever they both managed to inhabit it.

“Did that satisfy your craving?” Angel asked as he plunked a sweating bottle of Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout down on the polished bar and swung a muscled leg over the wooden stool beside her.

“I could eat two more,” she told him, dragging her eyes away from the pair at the end of the bar. “But I just bought a really cherry pair of 7 For All Mankind jeans, and it’d be a shame not to be able to fit into them.”

He tilted his head and smiled at her, and she wished she could read whatever it was she glimpsed behind his dark eyes, but…she couldn’t. Even after all the hours they’d spent together, he was still such a mystery she couldn’t help but wonder if there was anyone on the entire planet who knew what Jamin “Angel” Agassi was really all about.

Not for the first time, she tried to guess what his real name might have been. Maybe it was something cool, like Asher or Raphael. Although, given life’s little ironies, it was probably more like Bob or something equally disappointing.

“Who is that man?” Angel/Bob asked, dragging her from her fanciful thoughts.

She glanced in the direction of his gaze but could barely make out the shadowed profile of the man tucked into a dim booth in the far back corner of the bar.

“I don’t know. I can’t really see him. Why do you ask?”

“He’s been watching us.”

She squinted, trying to make out the face within the shadows. It was useless. “How can you tell? It’s too dark over there.”

“I can tell,” his raspy voice brooked no argument.

Okay, so Shadow Man was watching them. So what?

“Well, it’s not like there’s a ton of activity in here right now. We’re probably the only thing to watch.” She took an unconcerned sip of her beer.

And speaking of activity…

She figured it was about time to check in and see just how ol’ Frank was making out with the whole trying-not-to-drool-down-the-front-of-Delilah’s-V-neck-sweater thing.

When she glanced in their direction, she was pleased to find there was no drool involved, although there was a lot of playful grinning and flirtatious gazing.

Grrr.

“You should call him over here and do it,” Angel announced.

Uh, non sequitur anyone? Still, Becky couldn’t pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about.

“I thought you said I didn’t need to. That I should just forget all about it.”

“Yes,” he sighed, shaking his head in annoyance. “And I still believe that was good advice, but you’re not going to be satisfied until you get this apology…how is it you say?…out of the way. And I, for one, refuse to sit here and watch you fidget until you plotz.”

“Ew!”

“It does not mean what it sounds like it means.” With that, he grabbed his beer and stood up. And before she could stop him, he sauntered to the end of the bar where Frank and Delilah stopped their bantering to glance at him questioningly.

Becky lit up like a campfire when Angel said something to Frank that caused him to frown so fiercely she was amazed Angel didn’t immediately curl into a protective ball. That particular look of Frank’s always had that effect on her. Angel, however, seemed immune. He just smirked and crossed his muscled arms over his chest, standing his ground.

With a curse that even she, at the other end of the bar, could hear above the beats of the jukebox, Frank pushed past Angel, accidentally hitting the guy’s shoulder with his own—yeah right—to stomp in her direction. His big biker boots crushed the peanut shells scattered over the scuffed wooden floor into baby-fine powder.

“What?” he growled, towering over her. She tried to remind herself that he was just a very fit man, like all the other very fit men she worked with, operators who had to keep their bodies in peak condition because their very lives depended on it. But she failed, because despite what she told herself, Frank Knight would always be the toughest, meanest, biggest sonofagun she’d ever known.

“What what?” she asked, her hackles instantly twanging upright in defense.

“Angel said you wanted to talk to me, so what did you want to talk about?”

“What is it between you two, anyway?” she asked, thinking back on all that testosterone-y weirdness that’d gone down in Frank’s office.

“That’s what you wanted to ask me?” he thundered, causing every head in the bar to turn in their direction. Thankfully, given the early hour, besides the Knights there were blessedly few heads.

“No,” she hissed, trying to ignore the heat of embarrassment climbing up her throat to sting her cheeks. “I just don’t understand why you two—”

“Becky,” he ground out. Well at least he’d moderated his tone so the whole bar was no longer privy to their conversation. For that, she was grateful. Until he continued, “Just spit it out, for the love of God.”

Oh, and now it was her turn to make a scene.