Page 51 of Bad Medicine
“It’s already in your phone, numb-nuts.”
Pulling my phone out, I laughed when I saw shehadalready texted me Mia’s address, along with a death threat and several emojis that seemed to indicate she’d cut off my balls if I messed up.
I spent the short drive wondering what the fuck I was actually gonna say when I got there, considering Mia had done nothing but push my ass away every time I tried to hit on her.
Of course, maybe that was the problem; Mia certainly wasn’t a “hit it and quit it” kind of woman, but I wasn’t sure that I was a “stick around and bang the same woman over and over until you die” kid of guy. I mean, in theory, I knew that’s how relationships worked, but I hadn’t ever been in a relationship.
Hell, I didn’t think I’d even been with the same woman more than, like, three times.
I considered that, considered the women I usually spent, uh, time with. They were all the same kind of woman, gorgeous, sultry, and over the top desperate. It wasn’t like they had expected any more from me than I gave them.
It was a situation that worked.
But with Mia, there was certainlymoreon the table, and if I started this thing with her, there really was no guarantee that we wouldn’t end the whole thing in a fiery ball of emotional damage and likely a ruined credit score courtesy of Lexi.
Frankie would probably kill me.
I was still considering the pros and cons of the situation as I turned onto Mia’s street, frowning at the unexpected shittiness of the area. Her neighborhood consisted of run-down looking duplexes, their sagging fronts looking very much like every sad sack gambling addict in this city, hoping for that one lucky break that would change their lives. The whole thing was depressing.
Parking on the street, I double checked the locks on my Chevelle, because there was no way it wouldn’t get jacked if I left it open, and climbed the steps to the porch of her place shared with the neighbor. Pressing the doorbell, I waited, feeling like a jackass, chasing down a woman who had clearly said she wanted nothing to do with me.
But I just couldn’t get the look on her face outta my head, the sheer terror that whatever she had seen had driven her to, and I knew that, if nothing else, I wanted to make sure she was okay.
I rang the bell again, and when she still didn’t answer, I started to get worried. Lifting my fist, I pounded on her door, hard enough to rattle the windows.
“Mia!” I shouted, wanting to make sure she could hear me from inside. “Mia!”
I noticed a window to the right of the door, and I stepped over to it, pressing my face up against the glass to peer inside. Not seeing any movement, I pulled back, ready to kick the fuckin’ door down, my brain swirling with thoughts of all the things that could be wrong if she wasn’t answering the door, when the one to the other house opened.
I froze, hoping some nosy as shit neighbor wasn’t about to call the cops, but was saved from having to talk my way out of an arrest when the woman herself stepped out onto the porch.
Mia looked... shit, she looked incredible. I had seen her just an hour ago, dressed to impress in that little black number, and she had looked fine as fuck.
But seeing her now, in leggings and an old t-shirt, her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail and her face relaxed, I realized I had never seen her look more beautiful.
Comfortable. That’s what it was. She looked comfortable.
All the previous times I had seen her, she was either at work, trying to impress her colleagues, or with Frankie and the crew, trying to navigate her place in the criminal underworld when she was clearly not used to it.
But tonight, seeing her barefoot in an outfit she probably got at Target, I could feel my heart beating double time, knowing that for all my posturing earlier, I was fuckin’ gone for this woman.
Son of a bitch.
Chapter twenty-three
Mia
Hewasstaringatme.
Not in a way that he had before, a way that said he was picturing me naked and liking what he saw.
No, this time, Rocco was staring at me as though he’d never seen me before. His face was slack, his mouth slightly open, and his eyebrows were halfway to his hairline. He looked shell-shocked, and as I looked down at myself, it was easy to see why. I looked like crap.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I stepped toward my own front door, drawing him away from Linny’s place and all my secrets.
“What are you doing here? How did you even get here?”
“Uh.” Rocco swallowed, licking his lips as he blinked at me. “I, uh, drove,” he finally managed, hooking his thumb over his shoulder toward his beautiful blue car.
