Page 76 of The Belle and the Biker

“Crash, she looks upset!” Tawny bellows. “Because they don’t want her at the homeless shelter. Come cheer her up. I suck at that.”

Crash comes tromping up the steps, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Why wouldn’t they want you there?” Crash asks.

“The same reason you didn’t like me when you met me,” I say glumly. “I’m running around offending people without even meaning to.”

“Hey!” Crash protests. “I always liked you. Even when I couldn’t stand you.”

Tawny punches him in the arm hard enough to make him wince. She does pack a wallop. “Dumbass. You’re not helping.”

He rubs his arm, grimacing. “Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault they’re a bunch of dickwads,” Tawny says to me. “Want me to go kick their asses?”

I manage a smile. “No, I don’t think that beating up the staff of a homeless shelter wins you any karma points.”

“I mean, you were born with a stick up your ass. It’s not your fault. It’s like a birth defect or something.”

I flinch.

“Now, who’s not helping?” Crash says.

“Making people feel better isn’t my thing. Generally, making people feel worse is my thing, and I like to use my fists to do it.” Tawny pauses. “There I go again. Okay, I’m coming back in a few hours for…more girl talk.”

Crash watches her go. “Girl, talk, my ass. What are you guys really up to?”

I make a motion of zipping my lips shut, turning a key in a lock, and throwing away the key.

Then I walk away and flop down on the sofa. He sits down next to me and puts his arm around my shoulder.

“How unbearable am I?” I ask. “It’s okay, and you can tell me the truth.”

“You are not unbearable at all.”

“But you said you didn’t like me when you first met me.”

He shrugs. “Some of that’s on me,” he says. “I tend to get defensive around people with a certain pedigree, and I felt like you were looking down on me.”

“I swear, I wasn’t. But who knows… I might have been a little harder on you than I needed to be because I was attracted to you, and you weren’t flirting with me. You big, hairy jerk.”

He laughs. “You’ve known me long enough to know that I literally do not know how to flirt. I don’t have the ability to be subtle. I’m trying harder to do more gentlemanly stuff you like, like opening doors and pulling out chairs for you.”

“You have been, I have noticed, and I really appreciate it.” I smile. And then I think about all the people at the homeless shelter I spoke down to without meaning to, and my smile fades.

“I really hurt a lot of people’s feelings, I think. Even when I was trying not to.”

“Well, you can be on the lookout for that in the future.” He takes my hand. “You want me to cook dinner again? You liked it when I cooked you dinner.”

“Listen, it’s okay,” I say. “I’m not going to go into another depression spiral. I’m fine. I’m just kind of feeling lost at sea. I mean, what am I going to do?”

“About what?”

“About anything? I can’t waitress forever. And even at Bone-breakers, I’m a novelty act. I was hoping that volunteering somewhere would become a job, and now I find out they won’t even take me for free. I volunteered at the Swampy Bottom Chamber of Commerce back home but couldn’t go back to work there. My mother is friends with most of those people.” I shake my head dolefully. “I really enjoy public service, but apparently, the public does not enjoy being serviced by me.”

Crash chokes down a laugh.

I shoot him a dirty look, and his face instantly turns serious. “Listen, you have all the time in the world to figure out what you want to do. Think of it like you’re just starting college. The college of life.”

“I’ve got a zero point zero GPA in the college of life!”

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