Did he say he was sorry?

"I can be a f**kin' ass**le sometimes," he kept going.

Well, I wasn't going to argue with him on that point, though I wasn't exactly positive why he felt obligated to care whether or not he'd hurt my feelings. Probably because of Sonny. I could only imagine what he'd threatened him with.

"You're impatient and you're mean," I corrected him, not bothering to admit that I'd called him an ass**le in my head at least a dozen times. A dozen times an hour that is. “You’re rude—and forgive me for saying it, but you make some dumb friggin’ decisions. And you think I’m stupid? Why the hell would you risk hurting your hand by getting into fights with people? That’s stupid.” Should I have stopped? Yes. Did I? No. “What do you have to be so pissed off about anyway?”

It took me a second before what I said really hit me. What had I just done?

Stood up for myself. Sort of. It wasn’t like I could take it back either.

Dex's nostrils flared, his face still impassive. "Said I didn’t mean it," he repeated in a crisp tone.

"It's not that easy." I stood there, waiting for something I wasn't even sure of.

"Yeah it is. I said sorry, now you can quit bein' pissed," he said the words like a command.

Oh my God. "No." I narrowed my eyes at him. "It doesn’t mean anything if Sonny had to threaten you to be nice.”

That same muscle in his neck quivered again as he stared back at me. “Look…” That burning blue gaze made a slow trek from my face down my body and up again. Slow, slow, slow. Under the thick black stubble of his neck, his throat bobbed. The texture of his voice got rougher. "I'm sorry, all right? Ain’t that enough?"

This was pointless. I loved words. I’d always loved words. I loved the freedom you could find in them. I loved manipulating them. I loved the way they sounded and the power they held.

But sometimes, sometimes, they weren’t enough.

Sometimes strings of letters were meaningless in comparison to actions. Actions held the power of a choir versus the strength of a solitary singer. My bones recognized that this was all I would get, this one person a cappella.

“Be the bigger person,” my mom would have said. I didn’t really want to but I lifted a shoulder anyway. My breath came out shaky. "Saying that you’re sorry doesn’t take back what’s been done, at least in my book. I can’t just forget it overnight."

Dex's throat bobbed again, those eyes beamed a hot line straight into me. "I wanna ask if you’re bein’ serious, but I think you are."

When I didn't say anything in return, he licked his bottom lip, looking down my length one more time.

“Say somethin’."

I didn't.

He stared at me for a minute, the tension in his shoulders tightening before he let out a whoosh of air. Pure exasperation. "C’mon."

Was I that resentful that he could see that I wasn't happy with him? That I'd rather sit in a portable toilet than next to him? I'd spent the last few years trying my best not to stress about things, trying to take care of myself, and the first time someone was genuinely mean to me–upset me—I crumbled?

I could still be hurt, but I didn't want to let that linger in me too long. Not anymore.

"Ritz?" he asked in a low voice.

I shrugged. God. There really wasn't a point in being bitter forever. Constantly raging against him went against the majority of the cells in my body. “Forget it. Apology accepted. I won't say anything to Sonny again.” Words, words, and more empty words. I wasn't lying, I was going to find another job and never say a word about Dex again.

Beeping the doors unlocked with the key fob, I lowered my eyes to his throat, noticing for the first time that Dex had put on his Widowmakers vest at some point.

I cleared my throat and eyed his Adam’s apple. “See you Tuesday.”

Dex didn’t say a word as I got into my car. He only took a step back when I turned the ignition.

When I glanced back in the rearview mirror after pulling out of the lot, he was still exactly where I’d left him.

Chapter Seven

“Son, on a scale from one to ten, how mad would you be if I quit my job?” I asked over breakfast.

And by breakfast I meant we’d both gotten up well after noon, but since it was the first meal of the day, I figured it was still considered breakfast. Wouldn't it? I didn’t have a clue what time he’d finally gotten home. I was in bed by three and promptly passed out before the backlight on my cell phone was out.

Sonny made a noise that sounded like a muted chuckle in his throat before peering up at me, chewing on a piece of bacon while raising a tired auburn eyebrow. “More trouble in paradise?”

I scoffed. “Dex is kind of an ass**le.”

Sonny’s nostrils flared and his lips twitched. The doofus was trying his best not to laugh. "Kid, tell me something I don't know."

The second person I was going to beat after Dex was my brother. "You sent me to work with him," I might have hissed out.

"Because I know you can handle it."

Handling Dex Locke would be like handling a scorpion. You were gonna get that poisonous sting at some point. Unfortunately for me, that sting had a taste for Iris Taylor. The urge to babble to him that Dex had gotten an attitude with me in the parking lot was right on the tip of my tongue. But... I'd just told Dex that I wouldn't keep going to Sonny and whining.

Damn.

"Right?" he egged on, taunting me.

I had to settle for grumbling. "Yeah."

He lifted that dark eyebrow. “I told you I'd knock his teeth down his throat.”

"Don't forget his kneecaps." I kicked his shin underneath the kitchen table.

Sonny laughed before shoving another piece of charred bacon into his mouth.

"No, it's fine I guess I’m just not used to his type of personality You know—bossy and brooding." By bossy I meant jerk. Because that was the question. He was good-looking—very good-looking—and he had a successful business, what could really be that bad that sent him into such a crash?

He smirked. “Ris, you just described all my friends," he chuckled. "But I get it. He's not so bad, kid. I promise I wouldn't have sent you over there if he was a bad guy. He's a loner," he paused, thinking about what he said before adding, "usually an ass**le, too, but he won't do a thing to you. He’s got sisters, he knows how to behave around Widows’ family."

Besides make me cry and yell. No big deal.

"But why?"

Sonny looked at me long and hard, his mouth twitching with indecision. He finally sighed. "Same reason we all have issues."

Because of other people?

What a lame excuse. There was more to that story but whatever he wanted to say, whatever he should have said, he wouldn't.

"If you really hate it, we can find you something else. The bar always needs help, but I don't know about you being around the MC constantly."

“Maybe. You’re not a dick, and Trip is really nice,” I tried to explain to him.

“I’m not a dick to you, and Trip’s nice because he likes you,” Sonny said.