The Hookup (Moonlight and Motor Oil #1)(121)

The feel of the room went stunned, and sluggish again, this time with something that didn’t feel good at all.

“Yeah,” she said softly to his back. “Great.”

He turned her way, skimmed his eyes up the bed, noting in a forced-vague way she was up on a hand, holding the sheet to her chest, her hair falling down her shoulders, the rich, honeyed, sunshiny blonde of it made dark in the marginal light, even as her other hand was lifted, pulling the front of her hair out of her face.

Yup.

Not good he looked at her.

“Later,” he said.

“Right.” There was a bite to that. Bitter and barbed. “Later.”

That made Hix pause, hearing that in her tone.

And it made him make a mistake.

He looked through the shadows into her eyes.

He couldn’t quite see but he felt they were bitter and barbed too.

“Don’t worry about locking the door behind you,” she said, now each word that came out of her was ice cold. “As you know, there’s no crime in this town.”

Oh yeah.

He knew that.

But it didn’t change things.

“You need to lock up,” he said quietly.

She tipped her head to the side sharply. “And it’s my understanding you need to go.”

“Greta—”

She dropped her hand from her hair and a long, thick lock fell into her left eye, further shadowing her face in a way it felt like she’d taken a huge step back from him.

Nope.

He didn’t need to see that either.

“Bud. Please.”

Her words weren’t an entreaty.

They were scorn.

And yup.

He had to get out of there before he did any more damage.

Even so . . .

“Lock up behind me,” he ordered.

“Roger that, Sheriff.”

“You got a way to get your car back from the club?” he asked.

“Don’t worry about me, darlin’. I got a way to do a lot of things,” she drawled.

All right.

She would be good. She’d move on.

Now he could be done.

He made the turn to go but twisted right back and again caught her gaze.

“It was great, Greta,” he repeated the truth in a tone that, this time, it couldn’t be missed he meant it.

“Yeah, Hixon. Brilliant.” Her words were clipped, and even though he knew without a doubt she agreed with what he’d said, her tone didn’t share his sentiment.

As he hesitated—in the shadowy dark he couldn’t see her eyes narrow, but he would swear he could feel them do just that—she finished, stressing just how much she was done as she gave him her, “Later.”

He lifted his chin, turned back to the door and walked his ass out.

He put on his socks and boots just inside her front door and buttoned his shirt before he walked out.

No one would be awake at that hour, but it didn’t matter.

In that moment, Hix wasn’t thinking about what would run through people’s minds if they saw him come out of a house in the very early morning with his shirt undone.

In that moment, Hix was only thinking about what would run through people’s minds about Greta if a man came out of her house in the very early morning with his shirt undone.

He sat in his truck at her curb and waited until he saw her form, shadowed from the minimal light filtering through the sheer curtain over the window in her front door and he knew she’d locked herself safely inside.

Only then did Hix drive away.