Page 10 of Marginally Yours
Callie’s lips curl up and she sticks a hand out for him to shake, seemingly oblivious to his perving. The look on his facewhen he grabs her hand is borderline feral, and he starts to pull her to him.
"Well, it's an absolute pleasure to meet you, Miss Callie," he coos, the words dripping from his mouth like sludge. I'm definitely about to hit him. He pulls her hand a little harder, trying to bring it to his mouth to kiss it, and she stumbles forward. Before I can step in and probably end up getting arrested, she yanks her hand from his grip and slaps a saccharine smile on her face.
"It's lovely to meet you, Brendan. Next time, maybe I can meet your wife." She eyes the hand he didn't just have her in a vice grip with, and the plain gold band on his ring finger.
At least he has the decency to look embarrassed. He jams his left hand in his pocket like being married was the only issue.
Callie takes a step back and tucks herself under my arm, sliding her hand across my back and looking up at me. I'm not sure if she's just trying to get Brendan to leave her alone, but I’m definitely not complaining.
"Food time?" I think she only mouthed the words, but Brendan unfortunately either heard, lip-read, or guessed what she said because now he's nodding his head and accepting an invitation that wasn't even for him.
"I'll go get Jay and meet you guys at a table!" He disappears into the crowd.
"Sorry," I grimace. I'm waiting for her to pull away from me now that he's gone but she's still stuck like glue, and it feels like every part of me that’s touching her is on fire. "He's kind of a giant douchebag. He wasn't that bad when we were kids."
"It's okay, I've dealt with much worse," she laughs. I'm about to ask for a detailed list of who could possibly be worse, for science of course, but then she squeezes the hand that she's got wrapped around my waist and I forget what I was mad about. "Glad I had you around, though." She pulls away fromme and I'm immediately disappointed, but then she snags my hand and laces her fingers in mine. I can feel the heat rush to my cheeks, and I know she sees it because she flashes a triumphant grin at me, her vengeance for her earlier embarrassment finally attained.
What a great fucking night.
Chapter Seven
Callie leads me back to the lobby and through the door to the restaurant, my hand still firmly clasped in hers. We break apart long enough to hit the bathrooms and wash off all the arcade germs. I drop into a booth, and she scoots in next to me.
"Thanks for that," she hums. "I had a great time. I'm starving now, though. What's good to eat here?" She reaches over me to slide a menu out from the stand on the table and lays it out in front of us. "Oh, this looks good!" She points to a picture of a giant plate of nachos and then looks at me expectantly, but she's so close to me right now that my brain is short circuiting. I'm not even sure what she's asking but it doesn't really matter so I just smile and nod. I could have just agreed to give her a kidney, and I'd be fine with it.
A waiter comes over to take our order, and she takes the reins, greeting him with way more sunshine than he's used to. She orders a big platter of supreme nachos, a sweet tea for herself, and manages to coax a preference of root beer out of me. I realize she was asking if I wanted to get this gigantic plateof nachos to share with her, and I'm glad I managed to respond because fuck yes, I do.
As the waiter turns to leave, she gently lays a hand on my knee and leans into my shoulder. Somewhere in my little lizard brain, an instinct tells me to wrap my arm around her shoulder, so I do. Her contented sigh tells me it was the right thing to do, and for the first time, I think I might actually pull off a successful date.
Then, of course, the Dickhead Brigade enters the chat.
Brendan and Jay come bounding through the door, beer sloshing out of the bottles in their hands as they shove each other around and make asses of themselves. They're shouting at each other, and people in the restaurant are turning to glare now. I genuinely couldn't imagine being that embarrassing in public.
Then they spot us and start whooping, and I cringe when I realize it's because my arm is around Callie. I'm trying to remember how many years you get for manslaughter when they rush our table and slide in the booth, shaking the table with their general buffoonery.
I look at her in silent question.Should I move my arm?She squeezes my knee with a small smile and thank fuck because I've already considered soldering it to her. I sigh.Time to get this over with.
"Callie, you already met Brendan, and this is Jay. Jay, Callie." I point to the poof of long curly hair surrounding the vague shape of a human being. He's got a red flannel tied around his waist over a black Metallica t-shirt that's more hole than shirt at this point, and he's sliding a beanie back over his mess of hair after swiping it back from Brendan's pocket. That must be what they were yelling about when they walked in. I shoot them both warning looks.
Brendan holds up both hands in surrender, and Jay is significantly less of a pig than he is, so I relax a little.Callie starts rubbing little circles on my kneecap with her thumb and my soul leaves my body for a second. She really is trying to kill me.
"It's nice to meet you!" She beams, but she learned her lesson about handshakes and her hands are currently preoccupied with driving me insane, so they stick to verbal pleasantries only.
"It's been a while. How have you been, dude?" I'm pretty sure Jay watched Dazed and Confused at one point in his childhood and just adopted it as his personality for life. I actually kind of like him, to be honest. He just has questionable taste in friends.
"I'm good. Working security at the Panacea Center. What about you?"
"Oh man, I got this new machining job at that factory in town, and they pay like forty bucks an hour. It's boring as fuck but it's easy money. My girl moved in with me, too. So now my apartment's got all kinds of girly shit in it, but it's clean now and it always smells nice so it's all good.”
Callie lets out a soft giggle and I'm positive I can feel it in my bones. Jay's a nice guy, and he's good with tech, but otherwise I’m pretty sure he's got maybe three brain cells hiding in that beanie. Callie seems to like him too, and I feel a little better about them crashing our date.
Thisisa date, right? As if on cue, she squeezes my knee again and I swear she can read my mind. The contact brings me back to the conversation.
"That's awesome, man. I'm happy for you."
“Thanks, dude. Shauna’s great, too. She’s got me doing all kinds of healthy shit. She got me new clothes for work and everything. She made me…" He pauses before backtracking, quieter now. “I, uh... I didn’t have time for the band anymore, so I quit. We still play in Johnny’s garage sometimes, though.” I can tell there’s definitely more to that story, but I’m not going to push it tonight. “What about you? What have you been up to outside of work?"
It's a simple question, but now I'm debating whether I want to mention my book idea to them. I wanted to tell Callie all about it tonight, but I'm not sure if I want it to be a group project.Fuck it, I decide. I'll give them the bare minimum and talk to her about it after they leave.
