Instead, he used those two seconds to dip his head to the flowers and ask, “Those for Ivey?”
“None of your business…” pause then, “bro.”
“They’re not,” Gray whispered, his eyes locked on Casey, his arm still locked around me, my front still tight to him but he’d shifted to facing Casey so I was tucked to his side.
“What’d I say?” Casey whispered back. “None of your business.”
“Plans tonight,” Gray deduced.
Casey opened his mouth to speak but Gray looked down at me.
“You’re free for steak and me.”
My belly flip-flopped, my heart squeezed and my legs went weak.
Casey got in our space and thus in Gray’s face.
“That is not gonna f**kin’ happen,” he growled.
Gray turned his head and tipped it down the two inches he needed to stare down Casey. This gave me confirmation of his height. Casey was six foot. I was five foot eight. This placed Gray at six foot two.
See? Tall.
“Why?” Gray asked.
“Again, none of your business. Now, one last time, move along.”
I could tell by Gray’s vibe and the tenseness I felt in his body that things were deteriorating. I knew by Casey’s vibe and the look on his face that they were already gone.
I needed to wade in.
“Casey, he’s a nice guy. It’s okay.”
Casey’s eyes cut to me. “Stay out of it,” he bit off and that made me mad.
Suddenly mad and really mad.
For a lot of reasons.
A lot of reasons that had been bugging me, not just then but for a long, long time.
But just then, he was connecting with some woman, buying her flowers, throwing away money I won putting my ass on the line. Gray was right. He was off having fun and I, as usual, was not.
Casey didn’t have a lot of fun?
Casey didn’t laugh a lot?
I wasn’t shits and grins?
Well, he wasn’t either.
He was a pain in my behind.
And he had been for awhile.
If he could decide Mustang just might be where we put down roots then who was he to decide I couldn’t make a connection?
Just one.
Just one since I was twelve stinking years old.
He “connected” all the time.
Not me.
And I was not twelve anymore. I was twenty-two. I could drink legally in every state in the Union. I could drive a car. I could vote. I could join the Army.
I was an adult, darn it.
And I had been awhile.
I didn’t need my big brother looking out for me and, frankly, if we were honest about it (though, that was something Casey would never be) for the last at least five years, it had mostly been me looking out for Casey.
I turned to Gray and said firmly, “I’ll be ready at five thirty.”
The tension slid out of his body, Gray looked down at me and grinned.
With dimple.
Darn but I liked that dimple.
I smiled back.
“That’s not happening, sis,” Casey warned, his voice trembling with fury.
I looked at him. “It is.”
“Don’t be stupid,” he hissed and that made me even more mad.
“Seriously?” I asked. “Do you see that cut on Gray’s forehead, Casey? He got that for me. I put those plasters on. You were off having fun and I was in danger and Gray stepped up for me. You should be thanking him not getting in his face. He’s a nice guy. He has a lovely Grandma. She makes really good preserves. And I’m having steak with him tonight.”
Casey’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. “You met his Grandma?”
“Yes, and she makes really good preserves.”
That was when Casey’s eyes narrowed on me. “Thinkin’ there’s shit you left out this mornin’, sis.”
“You’d think right but I don’t ask, you don’t tell and I don’t ask because even when I did, you didn’t tell. My turn,” I fired back.
Casey scowled at me.
Then he whispered, “I’m not likin’ this shift, sister.”
I knew he wouldn’t.
But at that moment, standing in a pretty town square pressed up against the warm hard body of a handsome man who was a good guy who took care of his Grandma, a Grandma that, even in a wheelchair, made delicious strawberry preserves, I didn’t care.
Therefore, I made no response.
He kept scowling at me.
I held it and as I did, Gray held me.
Then Casey’s eyes cut to Gray and he demanded ridiculously (and embarrassingly), “I want her home by ten.”
Gray burst out laughing.
I rethought my rebellion hearing it and knowing I loved it.
Yes, loved it. It was love. It went down to my bones. That was to say, I loved it with not a small amount of intensity. I’d heard it twice and that was how deep his laughter had rooted into me.
Yes, definitely rethinking my rebellion.
“I wasn’t jokin’, bro,” Casey warned and Gray sobered, kind of. Mostly he chuckled while smiling and looked back at Casey.
Then he said, “You gonna be at the hotel at ten to know?”
Casey’s teeth clamped and his jaw tensed.
That meant no.
And Gray knew it.
“Right,” Gray muttered, still sounding amused.
Casey leaned even closer, rolling up on his toes and I held my breath when he got nose-to-nose with Gray.
“I think you get I’m not likin’ this, you do anything to my Ivey, you got a problem,” he whispered.
“And I think you don’t get that all men are not like you,” Gray returned on a low growl, no longer even minimally amused. “I would never do anything to Ivey or any woman they didn’t want me to do. Now back off before I do somethin’ to you Ivey won’t want me to do.”
Oh dear.
Casey held Gray’s steady stare.
Gray returned it.
I held my breath.
Then I couldn’t anymore and therefore announced, “If you two don’t stop it, I’m gonna pass out.”
Surprisingly instantly, Casey leaned away. When he did, Gray moved back taking me with him.
Casey shot Gray a death glare, modified it only slightly before he swung it to me then he turned on his boot and stomped in the direction of the hotel.
Gray shifted so my front was not tucked to his side but his front.
I looked up at him.
And at a glance, I knew this was worth it. Enduring that scene was worth it. And this was because Gray wasn’t grinning, no dimple, no tender look, no laughter and just his eyes soft on me, but still, I knew it was worth it