Rock Chick Reawakening (Rock Chick 0.5)(16)

“That’s funny,” I told him unnecessarily.

He didn’t find anything funny. He still looked closed off but also there was a hint of transfixed that I didn’t get.

“Your laugh sounds like bells,” he whispered.

I immediately stopped giggling.

He visibly pulled himself together and kept talking.

“Even so, I’m not certain what was funny.”

“You,” I shared.

“Me?” he asked.

“You, thinkin’ I’d have a problem with you bein’ Marcus Sloan,” I expanded.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Nope.” I shrugged. “Don’t care either. Though, that’s to say ‘nope’ don’t mean that I don’t know. I just don’t really know. I still don’t care. And that’s not why I don’t wanna have dinner with you.”

“I’m still not understanding.”

“Honey bunch, I’m a stripper.”

“Yes. And?”

I shut up.

Dear God, he thought I thought I was better than him.

No.

He thought I thought I had reason to think I was better than him.

“I don’t judge,” I said quietly. “Life’s life and a person’s gotta do what they feel they gotta do to get along in it.”

“This is correct.”

“So I don’t care what you do or who you are.”

“And this delights me.”

My heart started racing because it did. It delighted him.

And I knew this because his eyes were again twinkling.

“Men are *s,” I shared.

“Some of them are, yes,” he somewhat agreed.

“Not met many who aren’t. My count, all my life, that number equals two.”

Those twinkling eyes stopped twinkling in order to flash.

“Just two?”

“Yup. Two,” I confirmed.

“Although I find that knowledge upsetting, I’ll share I’d like to make that three,” he told me something I already (mostly) got.

“Listen, Marcus, this,” I gestured between us with my hand and this time he didn’t watch it, he didn’t tear his gaze from my own “it’s sweet, honey. Real sweet. Thanks for it. For the daisies. All that’s real nice. But a woman lives the life I’ve lived and finds herself raped in a parking lot, she makes certain decisions. And those decisions don’t include dinner with a hot guy who wears a suit real well, has a superior set of lips, and opens the door for her. She goes about her business her own damned self and that’s that. I got me a good job. I got me a Porsche. I’m in the market to find me a house I like where I can garden and set the table like a good Southern woman should. What I don’t got and don’t want is a man.”

“Would you allow me to try to change your mind about that?”

I shook my head and his eyes moved then, watching my hair shake with it.

They came back to mine when I answered, “Nope.”

“Would you allow me to not allow you to not let me attempt to change your mind about that?”

That was convoluted for certain, but I still got him.

And what else I got was that I could probably repeat my “nope,” but I knew he was going to find a way to try anyway.

He was just not going to succeed.

So I shrugged again and said, “Knock yourself out, darlin’.”

His lips curled up again and I wished they hadn’t because a normal curl was fine. A smile rocked my world.

The way they were right then set my coochie to tingling.

Seriously.

And my coochie hadn’t tingled for months, not to mention no way in hell I thought it ever would again after my time on the asphalt out back.

“Dinner tomorrow,” he said.

“No,” I replied.

Slowly, his head tilted to the side and that hit my coochie too.

Damn.

“Thank you for speaking with me, Daisy.”

He was ending this.

But he was absolutely not ending this.

Crap.

“Not a problem.”

“Would you like me to escort you to your car or back to your friend?” he asked.

“Been gettin’ around mostly okay on my own, honey bunch. So thanks. I’m good.”

“Would you…like me to escort you to your car…or back to your friend?” he repeated, his words firmer, he took his time saying them and I got his message.

“I see this is gonna be interesting,” I muttered.

“Agreed,” he did not mutter.

We stared at each other.

This went on awhile.

Marcus ended it.

“You shouldn’t have laughed.”

“Pardon?”

“I might have let you be, but you laughed.”

Oh Lord.

I didn’t feel that in my coochie.

But I felt it.

Oh yeah, I felt it.

“Marcus—”

He cut me off. “To your friend. But I’ll leave a man, and when you’re ready, he’ll be outside the dressing room and he’ll escort you to your car.”

“That isn’t necessary.”

“I know you think that. But you’re wrong.”