Page 29 of Joyride
“How long did you know you’d be back in town today,” I ask him.
“Since yesterday. I wanted to surprise you.” He smiles his sexy half-smirk. “What do you say you let me steal you away from here for the rest of the evening?” He leans his elbows on the desk.
I lean toward him until I’m a couple inches from his face and whisper. “You’ll have to take it up with my boss.”
“He can deal with me later,” Sketch says softly. My eyes flutter along with the butterflies in my stomach as I stand.
“What are you doin’ to my employee,” Luke says from behind me.
“Kidnapping her,” Sketch tells him.
I turn to Luke in time to see him shrug. “Okay.”
“Are you sure y’all won’t need me tonight,” I ask Luke.
“It won’t be our first busy night without you,” he reminds me with a smile. “Take her, please.”
I glare at Luke, while Sketch laughs. Luke shrugs and walks away. When I turn around, Sketch is already looking at me.
“Ready,” he asks.
“Let me go grab my purse.” I walk into the break room to get to the office. Cheshire is sitting on the couch.
“So, you and Sketch, huh?”
“He’s a friend,” I tell him. “Want to tell me about the way you were looking at my friend, Elena earlier?”
He stands from the couch and stalks toward me, walking toward his station. “Nothing to tell, Sweetheart.”
He always has such a mischievous tone to his voice. It makes me wonder what he’s up to. I grab my purse out of the office and walk back to Sketch.
19
Sketch
We walk upthe stairs toward the parking lot. I have my hand near the small of her back, nearly touching her. The scent of jasmine and orange invades my nose. Even after working in the tattoo shop all day with the different incenses the guys use, Wren still smells like Wren. I smirk to myself. She pauses when she sees my bike.
“You brought your bike this time?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna be here for at least a month,” I tell her.
She gapes at me. “I get you for a whole month?”
I grin at her.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she says quickly.
“I didn’t say anything.” I hold my hands up, showing my innocence and chuckle.
She rolls her eyes at me and continues walking.
“I have a car here, too. One of the new guys drove it out here for me. You can drive it instead of this piece of shit.” I gesture to her car as we come closer. It’s a lemon Sienna bought to hideaway as a runaway vehicle. I get the feeling it’s going to break down on Wren any day now.
“I might take you up on that. The AC is about to give out on this thing and it’s too hot to be driving without AC.” She scrunches up her nose and it’s the cutest fucking thing I’ve seen.
“I’ll take care of you, don’t worry.” Wren looks at me like she’s trying to digest what I said. I smirk at her. “Would you like to go get dinner?”
“Sure, I’ll follow you,” she tells me. She winks, climbing in her car. I hop on my bike and bring it to life with a roar. I lead her to my favorite steak house in New Orleans. It’s a quiet, little restaurant. It’ll be a good place for us to talk. It takes twenty minutes to get there.
