Rock Chick Reborn (Rock Chick #9)(15)

This beautiful man wanted to have dinner with me.

Could I be in the now?

Not in the past?

(I didn’t care about the future.)

I stared into those eyes.

Then I looked away and left my clutch on the table as I grabbed my napkin to put it in my lap.

Moses walked around the table and sat across from me.

I tried to deep breathe without appearing to breathe deep.

The waiter arrived.

Thank the Lord.

“Would we like to start with a cocktail?” he asked.

“Bellini, please,” I ordered, leaving off the “and keep them coming.”

“Peroni,” Moses ordered.

The waiter nodded. “I’ll leave you with your menus and be right back.”

Moses didn’t watch him walk away.

He looked at me.

“So which one do I kill first?” I asked.

“Pardon?” he asked back.

I lifted a hand and whirled it in the air, indicating the table. “Who was the ringleader that arranged this? Indy? Daisy?”

“Lee.”

My hand dropped to my lap. “Say what?”

“Lee. He made the approach and he made the reservation. He also made it clear he would not get his wife or your friends involved if he didn’t have to. But apparently he had to.”

I could not believe this.

“Liam ‘Badass isn’t my middle name, it’s my way of life’ Nightingale is playing matchmaker?”

Moses grinned at me and my heart died a little.

“Yep,” he answered.

I was shocked.

Okay, freaked.

And that was the entirety of my dinner conversation.

Which made me even more freaked.

I stared at my clutch on the table.

It was a hot clutch.

I still didn’t think I could stare at it for an hour over dinner with a hot guy.

“You might want to read your menu,” Moses suggested. “It’ll give you something to do while you try to think of something to say.”

My gaze snapped to him. “So you got practice with this, do you?”

He shot me another smile. “Been divorced for eleven years, Shirleen, and in that time did not enter the priesthood.”

I wished he wouldn’t smile. It was annoying because it wasn’t annoying.

It was amazing.

I took up my menu even though I already knew what I was going to order.

“Get what you want,” he stated like it was a command. “And if you even consider suggesting we go dutch, rethink. There’ll be consequences you try to pull something like that.”

I looked to him again. “Do you threaten all your dates at the beginning of the date?”

“Only ones I think might be difficult, that being only you.”

I made a noise that sounded like a humph and then wished I hadn’t humphed.

I decided to check out my menu again.

I was pretending to consider my options when Moses asked, “What are the boys doing tonight?”

I didn’t repeat my mistake of looking at him again.

I answered my menu.

“Roam, probably his latest girlfriend. Sniff, probably a two-fer, one already down, one on the go, and if he’s got time, he’ll find a third one and get that action in before he has to be home for curfew.”

“Seriously?”

At his tone, I looked to him.

Yep.

His face matched his tone.

I decided I should try to make him think I was at least a decent foster carer.

“My friend Hank keeps them in condoms,” I shared.

His brows went high. “And you’re okay with this?”

“Hell no,” I replied. “I don’t even want to be talking about this. Though I am because I can’t quit thinking about it since I ride the razor’s edge of one of them getting a girl in trouble. Or getting a girl in so deep she becomes a stalker, something not only they’ll have to deal with, but I’ll have to deal with her crazy ass too. Or getting a girl whose parents aren’t all that big on young love, so their father comes to my house with a shotgun.”

“These are all valid concerns,” he decreed.

“No shit?” I said by way of agreement. “And they’re the only ones I’ll let myself think about. What really scares the snot outta me is that the first part of their lives hasn’t been sunshine and rainbows. I want the next part to be what they want it to be. I don’t want them forced into a situation they have to cope with. I want them free and clear to make the decisions about who they’re gonna be and the kind of lives they want to lead.”

That bakery-oven goodness wafted over me across the table.

Lord.

I’d always wanted to live somewhere where there was no snow.

That just proved I could bask in warmth the rest of my days.

Especially that kind.

“Do you know for a fact they’re having sex?” Moses asked.

I tried a trick that Ally often tried.

“La la la,” I chanted, looking back down to my menu. “I’m sorry I started it but now this conversation isn’t happening.”

“Shirleen,” he called, and I was forced out of politeness (okay, the proximity of his hotness) to look at him again. “You need to tell them to abstain.”