Page 98 of Fall For Me
“The woman’s a whore,” Granny says.
I cut her a glare that says to shut the hell up, then glance back up at Steve. “No. Comment.”
“Are you in a relationship with Sean Mackenzie?”
“No comment. I can go all damn night, Steve.”
“Alright that’s about e-fucking-nough. You need to leave,” the man who was sitting at the table next to us says, pushing Steve back.
Steve yells something unintelligible across the crowd, trying towork his way back to me, but the same man grabs him by the back of the neck and steers him out the door.
I shake my head, embarrassment flaming my cheeks. The audacity of people like him. Why can’t they just leave it alone? They used to do the same shit to my dad. I spent years watching him handle stuff like this. Especially when my mom died. It’s bullshit. Like we aren’t real people and don’t have a right to a private life of our own. There are some things we don’t want to share with the whole damn world.
The bar fills with cheers, and I glance up at the screen as people high five and whistle.
Petrov skates around the ice, and the team slaps his helmet. I wait for the replay, pissed off that I missed it live. He rears back his stick with a wrist shot and sinks the puck into the net for the winning goal. I pump my fist in the air.
Yes!
Granny holds two palms up, and I clap my hands against hers, grinning ear to ear and forgetting all about Steve. I’m not letting that asshole bring me down tonight. The bartender changes the channel to football, and the crowd winds down enough for me to pull up the app and book a ride home.
When my phone vibrates with a notification that our driver has arrived, I toss a good tip on the table, and wheel Granny out to the car, thanking the man who helped me along the way.
“I feel bad that time was taken away from you. I’m sorry.”
“That was nuts,” she says as I help her into the back seat. “All them people wanting to talk to ya and having ya sign stuff . . . and that guy asking all those personal questions.”
“I don’t get it. There’s nothing special about me, but whatever. It just comes with the territory of being Luke Jenkins’ daughter, I guess.”
“And Hot Stuff’s girlfriend,” she adds, and I laugh.
“Yeah. That too.”
I close her door, then stop to place her wheelchair in the trunk before hopping in the back seat.
She huffs a sigh as I settle in beside her, grumbling under her breath. “I’m not ready to go home yet.”
“What do you wanna do?” I tap my phone screen and open up Safari to google places we can go. It’s late, but the nightlife is in full swing. “There’s a speakeasy around the block.”
“That’s boring. Let’s go to one of those rage things.”
“Rage things? What are you talking about?”
“Ya know . . . the drums with the paint. Like that movie we watched last week. What was the name of it?”
“Miss Congeniality,” I say.
“Yes, that!”
“Ohhh, you mean a rave, not a rage.” I laugh just thinking about her at a place like that. “Sean and Aiden will literally kill us, you know that, right?”
“Fuck ‘em. They’ve held us prisoner long enough,” she argues, then leans forward to speak to our driver. “Sir, ya know a place we can bang on some paint drums?”
He glances over his shoulder, then focuses back on the road. “I know where everything is. You want Molly?”
“Who’s Molly?” Granny asks, causing me to choke out a laugh.
“We don’t need Molly, but thank you,” I tell him.
