Page 29 of My Rose

“So, are you going to fess up about Jasmine’s best friend in there, or do I need to threaten you to get it out of you?” Dean’s freckles stood out in the hazy yellow lights of the diner, the smirk he was giving me raising them higher toward the light. Why I agreed to come was beyond me, other than the fact that Dean toldme he wanted me to hang out with him and Jasmine, and I was too loyal to turn him down. He neglected to tell me it wouldn’t be just us. And I certainly had no fucking clue Jasmine was the girl listed as ‘Minnie’ in her file all but twice. Those PIs were never going to get another job doing their line of work again.

I raised my hands slightly above the table. “No threats needed. She’s my friend.” I cringed internally at that.

“You don’t have friends. Especially not friends who look like that.” I clasped my fingers together on the table, cocking my brow right back at him. “Oh, cut it out, Briggs. I’m taken, but I’m not fucking blind. She’s hot.”

“Watch it, Dean.”

He made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Well damn. If she’s just your friend, then maybe Jasmine wouldn’t mind a three—”

“I’m not above kicking your ass right here if you even think about finishing that sentence.”

Dean’s knowing smirk turned up more. “That’s what I thought.” He pushed the blinds aside and peered through the window. “Your father is going to be home in a few days. You might as well take advantage of it and take that girl home.”

“I would never bring her to the estate.” My words cut sharply through the air as my fists curled in. Dean nodded and then let go of the blinds, turning his attention back to me.

“What about one of your other houses, then? Or is she more of the ‘fuck and dump’ type?” A waitress came by with another glass of water and walked away quickly when she heard Dean’s notion oftreating Rose as if she was trash. My jaw worked. “Ah, so you do like her, then. Is this who you’ve been so busy with?”

“Hardly.”

He leaned in over the table. “Listen here, Briggs. If you like her, you can’t push her away. I know you like to do that shit, but some people are worth letting in. And if Jasmine is her best friend, I can only imagine how wonderful of a girl she really is. So fuck her, don’t fuck her, whatever. But stop playing games and do something.” His eyes fell to my hand. “Your father didn’t say anything about someone needing to be dealt with. My trainer do something?”

I squeezed my hand shut. “No. He’s fired, by the way.”

Dean scrubbed his hand down his face. “What the hell happened with this one?”

“He got busy snooping in rooms he had no business looking at.” More specifically, the room I probably had no business setting up myself in the first place. But fuck Kevin-Carl for trying to invade my privacy.

“I’ll have a word with him.”

I flexed my hand out. “Don’t bother. I’ll go at it alone for a while. Help with all those games I keep trying to play.” I grinned at him as he kicked me with his booted foot under the table.

Jasmine and Rose appeared at the table a few minutes later, and my shoulders immediately relaxed back on the bench as she slid in next to me.

The next thirty minutes were painful. I struggled to keep my attention on the words coming out of Jasmine and Dean’s mouths,and the few times Rose spoke up were the only times my ears seemed to settle and focus.

For lack of better words, I was fucked.

I pushed up my sleeves and took the check from the waitress when she came by, noticing Rose tracing the lines of my tattoos—the beauty that covered the pain I didn’t want to show—with her blue eyes the second they were exposed. I followed her gaze to where my sleeves stopped along my forearms and adjusted the sleeves to cover the one I didn’t want her analyzing too deeply. She should have found more interest in the artwork—the statues and quotes relating to the most obvious thing we had in common. Instead, she found the one piece that represented something deeper—ink that threaded in and out of most of the pieces on my body. A mark of agony that was mine to bear.

“Briggs, hello…” Jasmine was snapping her fingers in front of my face, dragging out the last syllable.

“What?” I held back on using the tone I wanted because Dean would never let me treat his woman with such disrespect, and besides his slight misstep in what we will call a misunderstanding earlier, I would never let him do the same to—

“Rose took the bus here. Do you think you can give her a ride?” Jasmine batted her eyelashes as if that would have some effect on my answer.

“Of course.” Then I turned to Rose, whose brows pinched together in confusion as she pulled her eyes from my arm. “You took the bus? You have my number, you know. You should have called me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I could say the same to you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I could see the faint outlines of Dean and Jasmine getting up and leaving their seats, but Rose and I remained locked in place on our bench.

“You know what that means.” Her tone was vicious. I liked it.

I folded my arms across my chest. “The phone works both ways. If you were waiting for me to call or text you, you could have done so as well.” Rose texted me the day I saw her at the graveyard after I took her home, thanking me while presuming she was gracing me with her number. Little did she know I’d had her number stored in my phone since long before then.

Rose shook her head and buried her face in her palms. And then, she started laughing. Forcefully laughing. “You know what? No.” She popped up from the bench and snatched her jacket from between us. “Bye, Briggs.” She didn’t even put her jacket on before she left.

I knew because I was right behind her. No way I was letting her avoid the fight she wanted to have. I wanted to hear it—her words were becoming a vice, almost as addictive as the way her body moved when she was angry. I wanted to fuck the fight right out of her— grab her hair and yank her back, put her on her knees. The things she said with that mouth only made me imagine what it would do if I shoved my cock into it.

---