"Because I meant what I said. For what I did to you, I deserved a good ass-beating. Still do. Butsomebodywouldn't take me up on it. So that car, it was the closest thing I had."
I thought of all his possessions – the breathtaking mansion he called home, the fleet of late-model vehicles, the clothes, the electronics. The logic made a weird kind of sense. Of everything he owned, the car was probably the only thing that was truly irreplaceable.
Still, it was majorly messed up. Who does that sort of thing?
"You shouldn't have done it," I said.
"You're right," he said. "I shouldn't have done it. But I'm not talking about the car."
I didn't know what to say. My head was swimming. "Speaking of cars," I said, "I've got to leave for work in a little bit, so I'll catch you later, alright?"
"Alright," he said. "We're still on for tomorrow, right?"
"Yup, it's a date."
Oh crap. A date? I didn't know what our plans were, but it seemed far too early, or maybe too late, to be thinking of this as a date.
I heard the smile in his voice. "A date, huh?"
Crap. He'd caught that?
Distracted, I mumbled something about meeting up sometime in the late afternoon, and then disconnected the call.
Lawton did funny things to my brain. And even funnier things to the rest of me. What he did to my heart, well, there was nothing funny about that.
Pushing Lawton out of my thoughts, I picked up my phone again and gave Erika another try. Again, she didn't answer. This time, I couldn't help myself. I left a message, mostly an apology.
But all of that was forgotten, at least temporarily, a couple hours later when I walked into work and checked the schedule.
I found Keith in his office, thumbing through a catalog. I marched up to his desk and looked down. Two girls in micro-bikinis smiled up at me.
"Thinking of getting a two-piece?" I said.
He flapped the catalog shut and shoved it into his top desk drawer. Then he glared up at me and said, "You think you're real funny, don't you?"
"You know what's funny?' I said. "The fact that I'm only scheduled for two nights next week."
"So?"
"So, I usually work five."
He shrugged. "It's a slow time of year. What do you expect?"
"I expect you to live up to your end of the agreement."
"Oh yeah." He smirked. "What agreement is that?"
"You know which one."
"Oh stop griping," he said. "You haven't been fired. Have you?"
"No. But how am I supposed to make any money working only two days?"
"Sorry, not my problem." He glanced at his desk drawer. "Is that all?"
"No." Damn it. I really didn't want to do this. I leaned in close and lowered my voice. "Because you know damn well I could make it your problem."
He looked only mildly interested. "Really? How so?"
