Page 83 of Mistaken Prejudice

“Na svidanii so svoyey shlyukhoy?” On a date with your whore? I narrowed my eyes at him. By now, I was more disappointed with his behavior toward Miles than angry.

“Prekrati.” After telling him to stop it, I looked back at Miles. “He just asked what you want to eat.”

“Yeah, sure.” Miles shrugged. “Fried chicken, please, with iced tea.”

“I’ll have the same,” I added before I collected the menus and handed them back to Diesel, who finished typing our order on his tablet.

“Since when do you drink iced tea?” he asked as he grabbed the menus from me.

“I started recently. It’s nice. You should try it yourself. New things are good for you.”

“Yeah. No, thanks,” he rasped and turned to go, not before rolling his eyes our way.

“He’ll come around.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Eventually.”

“Yeah…” Miles took a deep breath and leaned back in his seat. “I don’t think so.”

“I mean it. He’s cool. I know he looks tough and everything, but he’s a real softy.”

“Tough?” Miles almost choked on his laugh. “He doesn’t look tough, Andrei. He looks like he wants to rip my guts out and bathe in my blood. But it’s cool. I don’t give a shit about what he thinks of me.”

“You don’t?”

He leaned forward and grabbed my hand. “Of course not. You and I?” He paused for a second to look me in the eyes before he continued, “We’re meant to be. We’re perfect together.”

The smile on his face made it easier for me to digest the intensity of his words.

“Forever kind of perfect.”

My heart flared, and my temperature rose in an instant. Did he mean what he just said? It looked like he did. I loved him. Hell. I was nuts about him but forever? We were just kids.

“I—” I opened my mouth to say something when somebody slammed his hand on my back in what I assumed was supposed to be a friendly tap on the shoulder. I wasn’t surprised that the hand that rested on me belonged to that prick Shay-Lee. And as if his smug face wasn’t bad enough, he had to be with the twins.

“Funny running into you here.” He flashed his perfect white teeth at me, and I was pissed off by how charming his cruel face could look. “Such a coincidence.”

Yeah, sure. You probably stalked us, you freak.

“Yeah.” Miles beamed. Unlike me, he seemed to be happy with the unpleasant encounter. “What are you doing here?”

“Me and the guys played tennis,” he answered as he sat beside me while Don took my other side and Lin slid into the opposite seat. Great, now I felt like my car that time they blocked us.

“Really? Dressed in jeans?” I eyed him skeptically.

“We changed.” He shrugged before he looked at my cast. “Oh my, what happened to your arm?”

“He was robbed,” Miles answered while I hoped he’d keep quiet.

God, this is hell.

“Seriously? Who would rob you? I mean, what’s there to rob, right?”

The twins laughed while Miles poked Shay-Lee’s arm.

The idea of Miles touching him, even just with the tip of his finger, boiled my blood. I wanted him as far away as possible from that psychopath.

Just in time, a bowl of fries and fried chicken landed on the table, forcing Miles away from Shay-Lee.

“Watch out, or you’ll get burned,” Diesel recited as he put the other plate on the table, his eyes focused on Shay-Lee.