With an effort, I pushed aside thoughts of his naked body and said, "Get this. He said the car was forhim, not me."
"Oh. So it's like a loaner or something?"
"Not likethat," I said. "What I mean is, he tells me that he wants to buy me a car, and I tellhim, 'Thanks, but no freaking way.' And we go back and forth and argue like crazy about it, andthen, he tells me that it's forhissake, not mine, so I should just do him the favor and be done with it."
Allie's eyebrows furrowed. "A favor? Forhissake? You mean so he doesn't have to drive you around or something?"
"No." I forced a laugh. "So he doesn't end up – in his words – 'beating some driver's ass.'"
Her brow wrinkled in obvious confusion. "What driver?"
"Not any driver in particular," I explained. "Just in general." As she listened, I went on to tell her how Jax had reacted after learning that I'd taken a ride-share to his house.
Allie frowned. "You didn't seriously?"
"Do what? Take a ride-share? Yeah. I mean, people do it all the time, right?"
"Sure," she said. "Butyoushouldn't, not here, anyway."
"Why not?"
"Because your mom's pimp—"
"He's not a pimp."
"Fine," she said. "Your mom's 'boyfriend' is big into that sort of thing. He's got that limo company, the taxi service, and he's a partial owner in that local ride-share, too."
"He is?"
"Yeah. You didn't know?"
"No. I didn't." In truth, I didn't know a lot about my mom's activities, but that was no accident. I'd learned a long time ago that it was best to not think too much about whatever she was doing, orwhoshe was doing it with.
Allie said, "And that guy, Dominic, he's bad news, especially for you."
"Why me?" I asked.
"Hello?" she said. "He was trying to recruit you."
"Technically," I said, "my mom was trying to recruit me." Hearing this, even from my own lips, I almost shuddered.Getting "recruited" by your mom wasn't exactly an improvement.
Allie gave me a serious look. "Yeah, well,sheprobably asked you a lot nicer thanhewould've."
Recalling that argument in the limo, I mumbled, "Actually, she wasn'tthatnice."
"Gee, that's a shocker," Allie said. "So tell me, did Jax totally flip out when he learned how you got to his house?"
"No." I paused. "Okay, maybe a little. But really, he didn't need to. The service was national, not local."
Allie looked at me like I was nuts. "So?"
"So Dominic had nothing to do with it."
"Yeah, well, a lot of national names are locally owned. What, you've never heard of franchising?"
"Yes. Ihaveheard. But it was totally fine."
She made a scoffing sound. "I doubtthat."
