Page 37 of Tarnished Hands

“Well, since your boyfriend likes to shoot people who touch you, let’s not.”

“He isn’t my boyfriend. And what do you mean he shoots people?”

He pulls out his phone as I come to a stop outside his house. Passing it to me, he presses play on a video. That’s when I see myself, hands up in the air, as I dance with some man grinding against me. I look so drunk.

And then Ezra appears.

And he’s mad.

Hellishly mad.

Ezra grabs me, and the man gets pissed. The guy then pulls a gun. Ezra seems to smirk as he disarms the guy and turns the gun back on him. My heart rate picks up as I watch Ezra lower the gun and shoot the man in the foot before he drops the gun, grabs me, and leads me out of the bar. I sit there stunned and shocked. My breath catches. I don’t even realize I’m gripping the phone tightly until my knuckles turn white. The video cuts off, the ringing in my ears doesn’t.

“You didn’t tell me he was a sharpshooter,” Lucas accuses.

“Sorry, what?”

“In the army, he was a sharpshooter.”

“I knew of the shooting part…” I tell him.

“Yep, and he was good too.” He takes his phone back and gets out of the car. And without saying another word, he’s gone. I pull away and drive around, wondering what I should do.

Ezra looked so angry when he saw me with another man. His eyes in that video… I’ve never seen him like that. It wasn’t just anger—it was possession, like the guy had already signed his death warrant by touching me.

Does that mean he thinks about me as often as I think about him? Surely not.

We went months without a word to each other.

I get why now.

I even understand the reason he was so angry.

Without even thinking about it, I end up parked in front of his shop.

All the lights are off, and he’s gone.

“I read the book,” I tell Adora.

Joey is wrapped around her, kissing her neck, as I stand on the other side of the counter in her bookstore.

“Did you like it?” she asks.

I glance at Joey, not wanting to answer her question in front of him.

She elbows him in the chest and says, “You can leave now. I have to work.”

“I can stay. I’m sure Piper can watch the shop while we work in the back room.” He winks and her cheeks redden.

“No, you go, and tonight we’ll play. Cook me dinner, too, please.”

He says something in her ear, which I can’t hear, before he kisses her and walks out.

“So, did you like it?” she asks again.

“I did,” I tell her. She claps her hands, comes around the counter, and heads to the section where she grabbed the last book.

“You read it pretty fast,” she notes.

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