Page 95 of Her Paramedic
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Talia recognized a few of the car parts at the vendor they were currently at, but the rest were foreign to her. They saw all the cars in attendance, and she’d asked Slate so many questions she was sure she might have gotten on his nerves, but if she had, her boyfriend had said nothing and answered her each time.
She looked around for a bathroom that she was sure they passed when they first arrived. She spotted the sign for it, and she placed her hand on Slate’s arm, drawing his attention.
“I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going? You need me to go with you?”
Talia shook her head. She knew he was asking because he didn’t want to lose her in the crowd. “To the bathroom. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He nodded, and she left him to keep looking.
Several minutes later, she was exiting the bathroom when she heard her name called. The voice was familiar, but with the sea of people and other noise around, she couldn’t place it until they called her again.
“Talia? Hey, I thought that was you,” Charlie said, grabbing her wrist. She pulled it free and kept from groaning. She thought she’d seen the last of him when he’d shown up unannounced at her house, and she couldn’t believe she’d run into him in a different city. “I didn’t know you liked cars. Are you here with your sister or that mean ass friend of yours?”
Talia didn’t owe him an explanation, but she couldn’t stop herself from answering. “Neither. I’m here with my man.”
“Really?” he asked. “Wow, that’s funny.”
“Why is that?” she inquired, crossing her arms.
“Because you can come with some other man, but not me, while we were dating.”
Talia wondered if he was serious. “I didn’t even know you liked cars like that.” And because she couldn’t help herself, she continued. “It’s hard to learn anything about a person when every time you try or ask them something, they give you surface-level ass answers, and are more interested in what you have between your legs.”
He scoffed. “Here you go with this shit. You act like we both didn’t get what we wanted, that we didn’t have fun together. Don’t act like you weren’t interested in what was between my legs, too. I’m sure you still think about it.”
Talia had not given that man a thought until he’d shown up at her door, and then until now. She did not think about him. If anything, she’d forgotten he existed since she started dating Slate, but it wasn’t just him. It was any man she’d dated before her boyfriend. They paled in comparison and were nonexistent.
“It was nothing special, but you’re a great eater,” she shot back.
Charlie’s jaw ticked as his eyes narrowed, and she could tell that she’d hit a nerve and pissed him off. She didn’t care. He could have left her alone and gone about his day like he didn’t see her. But since he hadn’t, here they were.
“I hate your fucking guts,” he spat through clenched teeth.
“I’m sure you do. Since you never could reach them.”
Slate’s chuckling pulled her attention as he joined them. Talia didn’t notice he’d approached them. “I was going to ask if you were good, but I can see that you are,” he said. He wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her into his side.
“I’m fine,” she responded.
“As wine, I’m aware, but I asked if you were good.”
“Corny,” Charlie mumbled under his breath, and Talia rolled her eyes at him.
“Maybe,” her boyfriend responded with a shrug. “But I prefer to be corny while I rearrange her guts, then never to have reached them.”
She couldn’t help but laugh, which was only compounded by the shocked look on Charlie’s face before Slate led her away. Sometimes she forgot how petty her man could be. When she sobered up a minute later, she noticed a bag in his hand.
“What’s in the bag?” she asked.
“I found one of the parts I needed.”
After they’d stopped at other vendors and saw all the cars, she’d handed his wallet back to him when he started looking for parts. Talia had volunteered to pay for them if he found them, but he’d declined, telling her original parts were pricey.
They weaved through the throngs of people. The crowd seemed to almost double in size, but she assumed it was because there was a local band playing at seven. She’d contemplated them staying for it, but knew the genre wasn’t one she or Slate enjoyed.
She checked that there wasn’t anything else he wanted to do before they headed to the parking lot. They would have dinner in Denver, and when they returned to her house, she’d give him his birthday gifts.
