Slow Twitch - Реинхардт Лиз (читать книги онлайн без сокращений TXT) 📗

“Sensitive? About being a girl? About being undressed with every pair of eyes out there? About being fantasized over? It creeps me out, but it fills my damn bank account, too. And there’s no one else to do it, you asshole!” Her eyes filled with tears that I knew for sure were the product of fury, not sadness. Just then Jimmy stuck his head in and offered us the drinks he just finished. She took her heavy tray and whirled out of the door, her smile big, fake, and for anyone and everyone but me.

I continued to take orders and bring food out. Cadence was right; the girls and women loved me, and they made it clear with their tips. And, like her, I felt a little cheap, but mostly grateful. Aunt Helene had been eyeing this ridiculously expensive farm sink and faucet, and I wanted to bring enough in to convince her to get it. By the end of a few hours, I had a steadfast argument based on a fat wad of cash.

But I wasn’t the only one with good luck in the customer generosity department. Cadence was chatting with a group of guys in a big, shiny pickup truck. She giggled and tossed her hair, making the most out of her generous breasts and touching one of the guys lightly on the hand and arm. The guy looked like one of those Scandinavian giants who hurl logs and drink beer out of animal tusks for fun. I’m no small guy, but he made me look like a toothpick. And that was the one Cadence was smiling at and rubbing the bicep of. By the time she finally tore herself away, I felt a lump of anger in my throat.

She skated into our booth breezily, her face relaxed and happy.

“Your customers’ drinks are practically warm,” I snapped. “Jimmy set them out here half an hour ago.”

“Half an hour?” She rolled her eyes at me. “You’re exaggerating.”

She snatched the tray of drinks up and skated away, clearly aggravated by my little outburst. I was also pretty aggravated at myself. I was pissed both that I gave a shit about her little flirtations and that I was being too much of a pussy to admit that it was normal and human of me to give a shit about it if Cadence was going to mean what I wanted her to mean to me.

I skated outside fast and almost collided with Cadence’s Goon.

“Watch it!” he snapped, his eyes already on Cadence, a few feet away, taking someone’s order.

“You watch it!” I yelled back. “You shouldn’t be out here! This area is for workers!”

It was. For workers. That didn’t make me sound like any less of a complete dweeb.

“Back off, Skates,” he snickered. His boys hooted. I felt a slow burn work its way down my arm, collecting right in my fist, which I was preparing to slam into Goon’s face.

Just then Cadence skated back. “Hey Jeff.” She gave Goon one of those little cutey girly kisses that girls give everyone; friends, babies, puppies, guys they don’t want to climb in bed with.

Except Cadence was looking at Goon with a look that I knew well. Because it was fairly often directed my way. It was the look of a girl who was definitely thinking about beds and climbing in.

She skated next to him while he walked back to the huge truck and she wasted another fifteen minutes with him before she skated back.

I hadn’t felt like that in…ever. I had never felt second best. Except with Brenna, and in that case I was second to Jake, so who the hell could blame her? But this asshole?

There was nothing appealing about him. Though he did drive. Which I could, but not now, without a vehicle. And he didn’t have to work six days a week, so I guess he could take Cadence out if she wanted to go. I noticed a Rutgers bumper sticker on his truck. He was probably older. A college guy.

I wished I hadn’t been such a pussy. I wished I had punched him in the face. Because now I had to live with thoughts that he had one-upped me in so many ways, I couldn’t even begin to get a handle on all of them.

When Cadence and I were alone again, I couldn’t help myself. “So you’re making the beast with two backs with Monstro?” I sneered.

She looked at me for a long minute. “That’s none of your damn business,” she said evenly. Her green eyes showed how clearly pissed she was. At me.

“It is my damn business if I’m spending all my time picking up your slack while you flirt.” The rage coursing through me was white-hot and completely blinding.

She just shook her head. “You’re pathetic, Saxon,” she said, and skated away.

I felt like I wanted to scream at someone. I felt like I wanted to break something. I couldn’t get a handle on myself. By the end of the night, I had a fat wad of money and a massive headache.

Cadence sat on the counter in the skate booth. She didn’t look up when I came in with my last tray.

“Cadence?”

“Mmm?” She was looking down at her phone. It looked like she was texting.

“Can I fucking talk to you?” I asked, my voice louder and meaner than I meant it to be.

She looked up slowly, tilted her head, and stared at me for a minute. “What do you want?”

“I want…to know if you want to go on a date with me?” I asked, and I felt my traitor wussy heart hammering in my chest.

“As sweet as that was, I’m going to have to say no,” she said absently, staring at the screen of her phone.

I grabbed her hand, the one holding the phone, and she jumped back a foot.

“Don’t touch me!” she hissed.

“Hear me out.” I realized that I was about to throw a match onto a big ass pile of lighter-fluid-soaked timber. “I feel like there’s something between us. I think you know what I mean. And if you’re willing to get busy with a meatwad like that Jeff guy, I deserve a chance.”

She stared at me with those killer eyes and that perfect pouty mouth and gave me a look of pure disgust that I should have expected but honestly hadn’t.

“Let me set you straight.” Her words frosted out, total ice. She was just as scary as her mother, and I was trapped in a tiny-ass booth with her. “You are a piece-of-shit, spoiled rotten, arrogant, unmotivated jerkoff. Guys like you are a dime a dozen. You’re going to compare yourself with Jeff? Jeff’s been working since middle school. Jeff has respect for the girls he dates. Jeff is enrolled in college and paying for it on his own. He’s interesting, he’s good-looking, and I like him. So back off, Saxon. You don’t stand a chance.”

“So you’re telling me that you don’t feel anything. Between us,” I demanded, forcing myself into her line of sight.

She kept her eyes down. One hand reached up and twirled a piece of silky black hair around her fingers. She looked straight at me. “That’s right, Saxon. I. Feel. Nothing. For. You.”

But her chest was heaving up and down from how hard she was breathing and her cheeks were red and her eyes were bright.

She was full of shit.

And I, Saxon Maclean, resident piece-of-shit, spoiled rotten, arrogant, unmotivated jerkoff was about to woo Cadence Erikson like a motherfucking romantic.

  Chapter Six

Jake

For the second time in my life, I had to sit Brenna down and tell her what an asshole fuckup I had been, and this time I told her face-to-face, so I had to actually watch all of her happiness crumble away and see her eyes get teary and blink hard.

I had to tell her about how I drank even though I didn’t want to, and how one drink turned into more than I could count faster than I could control. I had to figure out how to tell her about Caroline and skinny-dipping and my idiotic rescue, and I tried to make it sound less damning than it was, but also tell it fast, like ripping a tooth out by root instead of wiggling it slowly when you were a kid. When even the painful things were pretty simple.

When she finally opened her mouth to say something back to me, her voice was cracked and scratchy, the way I hated to hear it. Because I really did love her more than I could say, more than I could get a handle on. And that meant that seeing her sad or upset for any reason tore into me, and I hated it.