Rock Chick Reborn (Rock Chick #9)(16)

I stared at him.

Then I threw back my head and burst out laughing.

When I was done laughing, I saw he didn’t share in the joke.

Still, he said, “First, you’re gorgeous when you laugh.”

I was?

“Second,” he went on, “I neglected to tell you I really like that dress.”

Every inch of skin under said dress got hot.

“And last,” he continued, “I wasn’t being funny.”

“When did you lose your virginity?” I asked.

That shut him up.

“Mm-hmm,” I murmured, turning my attention back to the menu I had no intention of reading since I’d memorized it that afternoon when I should (probably) have been sending invoices.

“I wasn’t a father with two teenage daughters back then.”

Oh my God.

My eyes again went to his. “I should tell them that.”

“Sorry?”

“I should tell them to catapult themselves into the future thirty years and give themselves teenage daughters,” I explained and nearly clapped my hands, but considering the Ritz factor around me, decided against it. “Hot damn, that’s perfect. They might listen to that.”

They might not.

But they also might.

Well, Sniff probably wouldn’t.

But Roam might.

(Maybe.)

“Glad I could give you a new strategy,” Moses said.

“I’m glad you could too, though I don’t hold high hopes.”

He shot me another grin. “I wouldn’t be able to see past my hormones at eighteen either.”

I thought back to when I was eighteen.

I was dating Leon when I was eighteen.

I quit thinking about when I was eighteen.

“Why don’t you just tell them that part about wanting them to be in the position to make the decisions about what’s next in their lives?” he asked.

I gave up on the menu and set it aside before I answered, “Because I don’t like to remind them that they were forced into the position to do something about the early part of their lives, that bein’ becoming runaways.”

“Are their parents in the picture at all?”

“No. They. Are. Not.”

At my words, more I suspected at how I spoke them, fire lit in his eyes. The same fire that I felt burning inside me anytime I thought of Roam’s and Sniff’s parents.

It took time for the stories to come out. They both told Jules before they told me.

But then they told me.

And that was that.

I never made them speak of it again.

And that was when I retired my switchblade.

Too much of a temptation.

For certain.

But it was not good that with four words, Moses understood and shared that emotion with me for two boys he didn’t know. It was not good he was that kind of man. It was not good that kind of man was sitting across the table, having dinner with me.

It was not good because it was beautiful and I knew I wanted more, more of that, more of coming to know how much better he could get.

“That bad?” Moses asked quietly, taking me out of my thoughts.

“Worse,” I said sharply.

At this point, fortunately, the cocktails arrived. The waiter then ran down the specials, through which I chanted “la la la” again (but only in my head) because I didn’t want him to take me off target.

We ordered and I was pleased Moses ordered all different food from me.

What could I say? It was a thing. If he ordered the same as me, I’d have to change mine and I’d been looking forward to my choices since I made them at two o’clock that afternoon.

And no, this was not so I could taste all he got (even though it was, or it would be with anyone else), just that I couldn’t even begin to think of eating off Moses Richardson’s plate. The room would get too hot for me to breathe.

“So what are the boys really doing tonight?” Moses asked when the waiter moved away.

I was sipping my Bellini.

Yes, I needed those to keep coming, and not just so I could get through this date.

It was delicious.

I put it down and answered, “They’re manning the control room at the office tonight while doing their homework.”

“The control room?”

“Where the men do surveillance at Nightingale Investigations. They’re kind of interns.”

“That seems . . . unusual for high school boys,” he stated carefully.

“They need good male role models. And there they have a lot of them.”

“I see,” he murmured. “Is that going to be what’s next in their lives?”

I shrugged. “I hope so.”

Another grin from Moses. “You like herding badasses.”

And so he obviously had his answer about what I’d shared during the grocery store incident.

He was also right. I liked herding badasses.

What I liked more was the fact that, if Lee took them on permanent-like, I’d see my boys every day. Even when they moved out, I’d see them at work and thus could keep tabs on them (and ride their asses) for the foreseeable future.

“Yes,” I replied.

The look on Moses’s face said he’d read my thoughts but he was smart enough not to comment on them.