Smoke and Steel (Wild West MC #2)(20)

It was that, sometimes when those closest to you see something you don’t, if you want that something, you can find ways disregard it, telling yourself they’re being overprotective or jealous, or you have daddy issues (bluh). But when someone objective outside your group says it, you take note.

I mean, it was worth a shot.

“Text her, and your girl Marcy, set a meet. Soon. ’Cause, see, if we get to her, she dumps him but doesn’t expose you, he might know the jig is up and relay that to his buds, and they’ll consider cutting ties and moving on.”

It was annoying because this was a great idea.

I didn’t tell him that.

I pulled out my phone and sent Marcy a very long text about all I’d discovered, and what Core was offering to do.

When I lifted my head from doing this, he said, “Let’s get lunch. I’ll drive.”

And before I could agree to this, or not, just like last night, he strolled to his truck.

I stood there watching him, and once he was in, I walked to the passenger side and stared at him through the window.

It whirred down and he said, “It’s open.”

“I’m hungry, Hellen, are you? Wanna grab some lunch with me?” I intoned. “That’s how it’s done when you ask someone to lunch, or a version of it.”

He smiled. “Just get in the truck.”

“I know you know you’re all that, and I’m not stupid enough to try to convince you that you aren’t, because you are. But I’ve been around a lot of men who think they’re all that, and as such, I’m immune to your bullshit.”

“You hungry?” he asked.

I was actually starving.

“That’s beside the point.”

“I’m going to Las Delicias,” he declared.

I climbed in his truck.

He was chuckling when he pulled into traffic.

My phone emitted a selection of recorder notes from The Mandalorian.

That meant I had a text.

“What the fuck? Core asked.

“Text,” I answered then read Marcy’s reply. You’ve talked to Core!? Which was followed by a big-eyes red-cheeks emoji, and that was followed by a tongue-out yum emoji and then a drooling emoji.

God.

I texted a reiteration we needed a sit-down with Bree and avoided her response.

I shifted my gaze to the windshield and asked, “What’s your real name?”

“Come again?”

“What’s your given name?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Just making conversation.”

“Dustin.”

Interesting.

“You don’t seem like a Dustin.”

He sounded amused when he inquired, “What do I seem like?”

“Butch. Blade. Chuck.”

He burst out laughing, and I remembered what I’d discovered the night before.

He had a great laugh. Robust. Uninhibited.

Real.

Bryan had a variety of laughs depending on who he was with and what version of himself he was trying to be. He had a laugh for his boss, which I knew was fake. He had a laugh he laughed with his buds, and it made him sound like a deviant frat boy.

I liked to think when I made him laugh, it was real.

But if you put out a different you for the different people in your life, how could you be real at all?

Not so with this man.

Core was Core.

The end.

And I was already attracted to him but understanding that just made me more so.

By a lot.

Even if he was a jerk.

Fabulous.

“Chuck?” he asked, his voice trembling because he was still laughing.

That, too, was attractive.

I was so glad I decided to go to lunch with him.

Shit.

“You give off Chuck vibes,” I lied.

He let loose laughing again.

I sighed.

When he quit, he shared, “No one has called me Dustin for fifteen years.”

This begged the question how old he was.

My guess, mid-thirties.

I didn’t ask though.

“Not even your mom?”

“Nope.”

I looked to him. “She calls you Core?”

“She’s dead,” he told the road, his usually expressive voice completely flat. “So she doesn’t call me anything.”

Oh no.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” I said softly.

His aviators swung my way, then back to the road, and he was talking softly too when he replied, “You didn’t know, baby.”

“Still, I’m sorry.”

“It’s cool,” he muttered.

It wasn’t, though it was nice he tried to tell me it was.

I faced forward and decided to shut up.

“What’d Marcy say?” he asked.

I gazed down at my phone.

No new texts.

“Nothing, so far. She just expressed surprise I’ve talked to you.”

“Right.”

We made it to Las Delicias, and that ended the conversation. Core found a parking spot, we walked in, were seated in a booth, and I found something else to like him about.

He didn’t touch his menu.

Neither did I.

In other words, we were both LD regulars.