Page 70 of Small Town Beast

Anyway…

The food smelled too good, awaking her long-buried hunger. Since Amari went missing she had barely felt like eating. Butthis… Maybe just one bite of the crab cake? Delicately she picked up her fork and tried it. Next thing she knew she had polished off all three, and was moving on eagerly to the salad.Saverin still hadn’t touched anything. Tanya pushed the bread basket towards him and he just shook his head.

“Aren’t you hungry, baby?”

Jet-black eyebrows went up. “I am,baby.”

“What are you thinking about?”She flushed, hoping he didn’t take it the wrong way. She saidbabya lot, everybody did. ButBabywas for boyfriends…sugar daddies too, maybe.

Is he my sugar daddy?Lord.

“How much do you know about the McCalls and the Baileys, Tanya?” he asked.

She frowned at the unexpected question. What she had learned since moving to Florin, most of her information coming from Bee or the far more knowledgeable Gwen, could fit on a postcard .

“The McCalls run businesses on the white side,” she answered slowly. “People say they grow weed and sell it out of state. I don’t know much about you Baileys, except it’s another big family, like the McCalls. There was a dust-up with the McCalls a while back, I think. I remember hearing about that.”

“A dust-up,” he repeated. “Meaning what?”

“There was a big fire somewhere,” Tanya frowned, struggling to remember. “A shootout. All that. People said it was over a black girl but I never believed that.” She took a sip of the wine. “You know about that?”

“I was there.”

“Oh.” She stared at him. “Oh.”

“The building that exploded was a meth lab. I was sent to blow it up. I’m no chemist, put it that way. That’s how I got my scar.”

Tanya could read between the lines. Her heart skipped several beats. “Are you a drug dealer, Saverin?”

“Not anymore. On everything I’m done with that.” His eyes got that glassy look again. “I just figured– you were probably wondering.”

She began tasting the scallops. Saverin tore up a piece of bread but didn’t eat it.What is he thinking…

“Saverin, would you say you’re happy?”

He blinked. “Right now, yes. Why?”

“I’m just wondering if money makes you happy.” She showed him the lottery ticket Gwen had given her. “After getting Amari back, there’s not anything in the world I want more than to be safe, with a roof over my head nobody can take away from me. I’ve dreamed of that since I left home. But if I don’t get him back, even if I won this billion I don’t know if I’d be happy again. ”

“You won’t win,” he said briefly, returning the ticket. “It’s just a tax on the poor.”

“Thanks,” she grumbled. But she remembered she’d said basically the same thing to Gwen.

Saverin took her hand– above the table this time. He said, “You won’t win that lottery, but you’ll have your son back, Tanya. I promise.”

Anger and false hope warred in her chest. She snatched her hand away. “I tell my son don’t make promises he can’t keep. You shouldn’t either.”

“I meant it.”

“Stop, Saverin.” She glared at him, but he seemed dead serious. Maybe he was just trying to be hopeful, to make up for shooting her down about the lottery ticket. But it wasn’t helping. She didn’t need false hope and lies. She needed reality. The reality was that her son was still missing and nobody really cared.

Saverin backed off and she chalked up his strange comment to his even stranger mission to make her happy. Well, she might as well enjoy the dinner and go home to her lonely house with a full stomach.

What if Colton is there? Should I tell Saverin?

But it wasn’t Saverin’s problem, number one, and number two, how was she so sure she hadn’timaginedColton standing on her doorstep?

“Alright?” Saverin asked, nudging her foot under the table.

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