Just Kidding (SWAT Generation 2.0 #1)(45)

I curled my arm around Rowen’s chair, and the move didn’t go unnoticed by any man at the table. Not Derek, who’d been surprisingly quiet throughout the lunch. Not Michael, and for sure not Luke.

The one that surprised me the most, however, was Logan. Katy’s husband.

He looked like he wanted to rip my arm off and beat me with it.

Instead of moving my hand, I curled it around her tighter and squeezed her shoulder.

“Listen to this. Our lovely mayor just posted it on his Facebook page,” Rowen said, sounding distracted. “We encourage each and every one of you to take time out of your day to greet your new SWAT team. Each person that collects all twelve autographs will be entered into a contest to win a trip for two to Cabo as well as five grand in pocket money to spend while you’re there. Buy your calendar today!”

I felt my stomach sink.

“I just don’t understand,” I muttered, scrubbing my hand over my eyes.

“That makes two of us,” Rowen admitted. “Why bother with all that extra shit? Those calendars were going to sell anyway, regardless of if there was a prize attached to it.”

I agreed.

Not to mention I was about to be signing freakin’ calendars every time I was out in public.

There wouldn’t be a single man, woman or child in Kilgore that didn’t know who I was by the end of all of this. And they’d likely know that it was my bare ass that’d been spread like wildfire just as fast.

Perfect. Just perfect.

I’d only thought that I’d gotten out from under that cloud of embarrassment.

Speaking of embarrassments, my life’s biggest regret walked through the front door with her husband in tow.

She looked so out of place here that it was comical.

“Speak of the devil,” Rowen said, spying what I’d just seen seconds before.

“We weren’t talking about the devil,” Katy said. “What…oh.”

Rachelle cased the room, and her eyes landed on us.

“Son of a bitch,” Logan muttered.

“What?” I asked.

“This woman is a fucking nut job,” Logan said. “I pulled her over for speeding a few weeks ago. She came in and filed a complaint about me to the department supervisor. Said I was ‘inappropriate’ with her.”

Katy snorted.

“Yeah, right. She’s delusional,” I said. “But, saying that, her going in there and filing a complaint is just like her. She’s not used to getting into trouble. She could always manage to weasel out of it because of her good looks or her money when I was dating her.”

“Why did you date her?” Katy asked curiously.

I looked over at Rachelle, who was still just as beautiful today as she was when we were in high school.

“I was a teenage boy,” I told them. “There are things that I don’t want to talk about, and why I was with Rachelle while I’m out to eat with my girlfriend’s family is one of them.”

There was silence at the table after that for all of two point five seconds, and then Derek said, “Hey, Dad. Did you know that Dax and Rowen are living next to each other?”

The little shit-stirrer.

“Actually, yes,” Luke said. “Now, what are we getting to eat?”

“Excuse me,” a soft, feminine voice said from beside me. “But would you mind signing my calendar?”

So it began. I guess the only reason they weren’t asking Derek was because it wasn’t his month yet. That, or they didn’t realize who he was.

Dax gave the table at large a long-suffering glance, then took the calendar.

After signing, she asked him for a picture.

He stood up, smiled, and looked downright constipated.

Something in which I gave him hell for after we left the restaurant.

“And when she asked you for a selfie, I thought you were going to self-combust,” I snickered.

Dax pulled his truck into the spot in front of his duplex and got out.

I started to bail out of my side, but before I’d even swung my legs around, he was there, pinning me in.

“You find my torture amusing?” he challenged, smoothing two rough hands up the length of my thighs.

I’d worn a dress to dinner.

I wasn’t sure why, really. I didn’t usually wear dresses period, but while I’d been unpacking, I’d seen the dress in the closet and thought, huh. That’s interesting.

What was interesting was that I’d bought it because it was so cute and so not me. Meaning that my family would approve because I was so anti-dress.

I hadn’t been planning on wearing it to dinner, but when the black slacks that I’d wanted to wear weren’t clean, I’d gone to my closet and looked at the dress for five minutes contemplating whether it was too sexy for a dinner out with your family.

I’d just decided on not wearing it when Dax had come into my bedroom.

He was dressed and ready to go.

Wearing a nice white Oxford shirt, faded blue jeans that were faded from use and not from the store, and a black hat with a white clover on the bill that said ‘Get Lucky.’

“You ready?” he asked me, raking his gaze over me in a long sweep.

I snorted and looked past my hips, which were the only thing covered at this point in time, and said, “Yep. All I need is shoes.”