“Daisy seems . . . trusting.” Daisy and Nick were perfect for each other. He was a crazy psychopath, and she didn’t know any better that he wasn’t normal. I vaguely remember giving Nick dating advice at one time. He’d laugh—if he knew how—if he saw the state I was in.
“Yeah, too much so, I guess.” Regan sighs and then pushes her eggs around on her plate a bit. “I called my boyfriend when you were in the shower.”
Boyfriend? Oh right, the Mike dude who can’t keep it up for more than five seconds. That’s deflating. I’m cooking up fantasies about the fifty ways I could make Regan come, and she’s worried about calling the guy who’s never given her an orgasm. “That’s fine. Phone’s a burner.” I wondered if she was worried that we were going to get tracked down. “You should call your parents.”
“What can I say to them? I’m here in Brazil, but I’m on the run because some crazy guy with a blonde hair, green-eyed fetish is preventing me from flying home? And by the way, Mike’s already moved on to my girlfriend Becca.”
“Sounds like she’s not much of a girlfriend.” I try to hide my satisfaction that Mike’s not in the picture. I wonder if I should off him, though. Just for being a douchebag. I think the world can only sustain so many asswipes, and I’d be doing a favor making sure the scales were even.
“Yeah,” she answers glumly.
I wonder if she’s the most torn up about Mike or Becca or her parents? Girl has a lot on her plate. Guess she has the right to be upset about any and all things. I make what I hope is a sympathetic face and continue eating. It’s either that or get on a plane and shoot Mike in the nuts.
“I’m in college, you know. I’m working on getting my CPP.”
Taking the last bite of my chorizo, I look disapprovingly at Regan’s nearly uneaten plate. I wonder if she doesn’t like the food or the company. Too bad. She needs the fuel. “Start eating. We have places to go.”
She frowns but mechanically starts eating again.
I lean back into my chair and stretch my legs out. Man, I’m tired. Regan and I need to get to Luiz, and then we need some serious sleep. Or I’m going to make a mistake—like touch her the next time she licks my neck. My fingers curl into my coffee cup as I think about that and her wet body and her pussy-slicked fingers pressed against my lips. That non-sex was just about the best sexual encounter I’d had in far too long.
“What about you?” She gestures toward me. “Did you always want to be a gun-toting maniac?”
“Nah. Thought I would go home after I got out of the army and help my dad out on the ranch.”
“So why aren’t you?”
“Because I was a hothead. I got into a fight my senior year with some guy, and I broke a few ribs. Jackass was making fun of my sister. Judge told me I could have a blot on my record or I could go enlist for four years. I choose enlistment. My dad was pretty pissed off, and we exchanged some angry words about me not being good enough to run the ranch and him being too much of a control freak. I ended up staying in the army and then . . .” I trail off. “Then something happened, and I haven’t been able to go home. But once I right that problem I’m heading for the ranch, and I’m not leaving.” I change the subject because I’m done talking about me. “What’s a CPP?”
“Certified Payroll Processor. It’s a pretty intensive certification program that you take so you can work in accounting and human resources. Once I’m certified, I have a standing job offer from a company that provides payroll services to Fortune 500 companies."
“And you are going to do what?”
She shrugs. “Nothing anymore. I’m not going to be able to take the test in time, which means all my prep classes are wasted, which means I won’t be able to start my job, which means . . . I don’t even know anymore.”
“This is a fucked up world, darlin’. That you’re still breathing oughta be counted as a win.”
“It’s . . . how do I go back to that?”
“To what? Your dick-for-brains boyfriend? Your job that you talk about with all the enthusiasm of a goat herder?” I’m getting angry, and I can’t even pinpoint the real cause. Is it because I am pissed off that she still cared enough about her boyfriend to contact him? That she actually called him a boyfriend? That she didn’t care enough about herself to be with a guy who could give her a real life orgasm? That she is thinking about going back to Minneapolis, the coldest tit a witch ever froze, to take up a job that would turn her into a zombie in under three years? Or that she is so achingly goddamned beautiful, and that I want her so much my balls might fall off?
Even though my external word vomit doesn’t match my internal bloviating, Regan still looks taken aback, but she rallies quickly.
“You know, I’ve gone through a lot and am still standing, so you can dial back on the Robin Williams Die Hard inspirational speeches. You suck at them.”
“It’s Bruce Willis, and I know.” I grin at her because I’ve never been one to stay angry long and her confusion between Bruce Willis and Robin Williams is funny as shit. “Let’s go, fighter.”
“Fighter. I like that. You can keep calling me that one.”
“How about baby fighter? Or fighter doll?” I tease. I pay the bill and gesture for Regan to step out in front of me.
“You staring at my ass? Is that why you always want me to go first?” She sasses back, whatever hurt my incautious words may have caused apparently gone.