Page 76 of Kane's Awakening
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m great.”
“And your new man is treating you right?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows.
I had told him about Ryker; not a whole lot, but just a little about him and how we were dating. Craig was the closest thing I had to a best friend, but there were still things he didn’t know. The times we hung out outside of work were mostly spent in bars or clubs.
“Maybe,” I answered with a smirk before walking to my desk.
“Am I ever going to get to meet this guy?” Craig stuck his head up over the small barrier behind him to pin me with a stare.
I shrugged and looked away. The captain approached a few minutes later and said he had an important job for me. I got my hopes up as I followed him to the back of the station, excited to be doing something different than filing police reports.
“I need you to watch this security footage and keep an eye out for a guy in a Razorback ball cap,” he instructed, pointing to the monitor. “Make note of the timestamp when you see him.”
Lovely.Not exciting at all. Just hours of watching people walk by inside a gas station.
“Sure thing, sir.”
***
Going to great lengths to impress a man was something I’d never done or even considered doing. Until Ryker. He made me want to be better than I was. I’d insisted that I pick him up for dinner, just like a real date.
When I got to his house, I checked my hair in the rearview mirror and made sure I didn’t have a bat in the cave before I got out and walked up to the front door.
Three heavy knocks. Or mypolicetalk as he called it.
He opened the door and smiled before going still, tilting his head. “You brought me flowers?”
“Hey, thisisa date,” I said like it was no big deal. It was to me. “And you seemed to really like the one I got you before, so now you have, like, a million.”
“Lilacs?” he guessed.
I looked down at the purple flowers before meeting his gaze again. “Uh, yeah, sure.” I handed them to him and walked inside. “Honestly, I didn’t know what they were. The lady at the flower shop asked me what they were for, and I said a date, and she showed me those and roses. Roses were a bit too cliché for me—yeah I know I got you a rose for Valentine’s Day, but that was one rose, not a dozen. So, I picked those purple things.”
Ryker smiled. “You ramble a lot when you’re nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.” I looked into his blue eyes and felt my heart twinge. He was too damn handsome. “Okay, maybe I am a little. Throwing you on the bed and fucking you senseless is easy, but taking you out to dinner makes my palms all sweaty.”
Another smile crossed his face. Sometimes when he smiled, his mouth went askew in a side grin that made the left side of his face scrunch in a fucking adorable way. It was one of the things I’d noticed about him and felt my heart start to race a little faster each time I saw it.
My attention was drawn to his lips and to his stubbled jaw, one I wanted to nip at and run my own lips across. He was wearing a navy blue vest over a white V-neck shirt that was pushed up to quarter sleeve and dark wash jeans. The shirt revealed his throat and the very top of his collarbone… fuck. He was mouth-watering.
I felt underdressed in my black T-shirt and frayed jeans from American Eagle.
“Give me a sec to find a vase for these,” he nodded to the flowers, “and I’ll be right back.”
After that, we went outside and he locked the door before we got into my truck. A country song played on the radio, one of the older ballads and not the new shit.
“I didn’t take you for a country guy,” Ryker said, looking at me from the passenger seat.
I focused back on the road and answered, “There’s quite a bit you don’t know, Rye. But I hope that changes.” Then, feeling my words were heavier than I intended, I relaxed and shot him a grin. “I love all music, honestly, but country just has a place with me, I guess. I grew up on a farm way out in the country. We raised cattle, had three chicken coups, and had some pigs, goats, and two horses.”
“Wow,” Ryker commented, tilting his head at me and giving a crooked smile. “I would’ve never guessed that. But, now that you mention it, Idosee that good ole country boy heart of yours on occasion.”
I scoffed, but inwardly liked what he’d said.
However, then I recalled Devon and how he’d mocked me for caring too much.
“You’re an open book, Kane,” Devon had once told me. We’d just finished having sex, which was basically the only time we hung out, and I’d told him I loved him. In return, he’d punched me in the chest and laughed. “You’re too soft and need to toughen up. This isn’t love. It’s fucking. That’s all you’re good for, so get used to it.”
