Page 9 of A Favor Owed

I stare at him, not sure if he’s joking.

“I’m kidding,” he says with an eye roll. “My ma would kill me if I did shots at breakfast. You wanna breathalyze me?” He winks.

“Um, no, that’s okay,” I say, suppressing a smile. My feet are killing me and my eyes are starting to gloss over from exhaustion. Maybe it would be okay to get a ride home with him.

Brady hits a button on his key fob, and the back of a dark Jeep Grand Cherokee with New York tags opens. He grabs my bike like it weighs nothing, brings it to his car, and puts it in the back.

“Thanks,” I say once I’ve climbed into his car and buckled myself into the passenger seat.

“No problem. It creeps me out to think of you going home alone on your bike at this time of night.”

“Well, unless you’re going to be a middle-of-the-night one-man car service for the foreseeable future, you’ll have to get used to it. I work a lot of night shifts, especially on the weekends.”

“Thanks for the beer, by the way. You didn’t have to do that.”

“You didn’t have to do what you did, either,” I say. I deal with drunk idiots like that all the time. I think about how I got an extra forty dollars of tip out of them and smile smugly to myself.

“I didn’t like how he was touching you,” he says, and the boy-next-door suddenly sounds like the ass-kicker-next-door.

“Well, that makes two of us,” I say. “I can handle it, though. I don’t need anyone looking over my shoulder.” I’m done with big men shadowing my every move. From my father to my security detail, it’s a part of my old life that I was more than happy to leave behind.

“I didn’t do it for you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothin’.”

We arrive at the corner of my street in just under five minutes. “This is me,” I tell him.

“You live on a deserted lot? Wow. You’re a hard-ass and all, but this is taking it a little far, don’t ya think?”

“I’ll walk from here,” I say. “I’m just a little ways down the block.”

“I don’t think so, Pines. I’ll take you to the door.”

I manually unlock my door when he doesn’t put his car in park. “Can you pop the back, please?”

“I could do that, but I’m going to drive down the street next to you and not leave until I see you unlock your door and go inside your place.”

I heave a sigh. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t want anyone to know where I live?”

Brady looks at me with an amused expression that makes me want to smack his cocked eyebrow right off his forehead. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe you take yourself a little too seriously? I mean, you do look like one of those hot mutant chicks from theX-Menmovies, but I don’t see a pack of paparazzi following your ass around.”

“It’s not about paparazzi.”

“Whatever it’s about, you’re not walking home alone, princess.”

I stare at him, weighing my options. He may be laid-back and everyone’s friend (except men who touch me without my consent), but there’s a determination in his pretty green eyes that hints at stubbornness. Stubborn men are the bane of my existence.

“Fine.” I sit back in the seat and cross my arms over my chest. “Third house on the right. And stop calling me princess.”

“Sorry. I can’t help it. You look like this purple-haired fairy princess doll my sister used to play with.”

I laugh in spite of myself. “I guess it’s okay, then.”

“This is it?” he asks, pulling up in front of Lizette’s house.

“Yeah. I live in the back.” I point to the garage at the end of the weed-lined driveway.

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