“Hang on,” Jett said, “we’ll go around the block and see if we can find a parking spot.”
“Okay,” Kit said, though he peered out the window like an excited puppy the entire way, bouncing when it came back into view. If he’d had a tail, it would have been wagging the entire time, especially when Jett found a parking spot a few doors up from the restaurant.
“All you can eat country buffet,” Kit read aloud as we approached the building after Vale had given the okay. “Hell yeah!”
“I’ll save thehell yeah’suntil I see what they considercountry,” I grumbled as I held the door open so Jett and Vale could remain beside their principals.
I’d been raised on down-home cooking, complete with buttermilk biscuits slathered in melted butter and honey. I’d know the moment I bit into one if they were homemade or not.
“Oh man, do you smell that?” Rebel said, inhaling until his eyes closed and his head tipped back.
“Fried chicken,” Kit hummed.
Rebel just sighed and murmuredpie.
“You’re both right,” the hostess said. “Sit anywhere you’d like.”
We chose a table in the back big enough to fit us all and some distance away from the rest of the patrons seated near the front, and I watched with great amusement as Kit and Rebel used the soda dispenser to mix six or seven different drinks in their cups.
“whoa,” I moaned around the biscuit I shoved in my mouth.
It was sure as shit homemade, and after I’d smeared honey and butter all over it, it tasted almost as good as the ones my grandmother made.
“Exactly,” Rebel said, a heaping pile of battered fish fillets dominating his plate. The three hush puppies beside it lookedinsignificant in comparison. “I love places like this. Real, authentic, for a moment, I can just get lost and pretend I’m a normal guy.”
Watching him pig out on that fish, and the goofy grin on his face when he came back to the table with two pieces of pie heaped with whipped cream, drove home the point he’d been trying to make. He needed moments like this. Not for inspiration, not to help him create, but so he could forget all of that for a little while and just enjoy the moment.
And dammit all, I wanted to be right there beside him to ensure that he did just that.
Chapter 21
(Kit)
“Wait, wait, wait, let me see that again?” I said, a shove from behind, as I leaned over the arm of the chair to get a better look at Steel’s phone, sending me sprawling across his lap.
“If you’d given me a moment, I’d have brought it back up,” Steel said, fingers carding through my hair as I sat up.
I hadn’t expected him to be so tactile, but the longer I spent in his company, the more I noticed his tendency to touch my shoulder or stroke his hand down my back. He was the same way with Rebel. Sometimes, he’d brush Rebel’s hair to the side so he could squeeze the back of his neck when Rebel got impatient, but tonight was the first time he’d played with mine.
I liked it and lingered there, now that he had found the meme.If you don’t like my attitude, wait a few minutes; you won’t like that one either.
“We need that on a t-shirt,” I told Rebel.
“You’re damn right we do,” Rebel said, leaving me to flail and dangle while he went in search of his phone.
“A little help,” I yelped when all Steel did was chuckle when I couldn’t right myself.
“You’re fine right there,” Steel declared, one hand resting onthe back of my knee while Rebel giggled.
Of course he found my predicament amusing. He was the one who’d put me here.
There were better places Steel’s hands could be, especially with me in this position. Maybe he just needed a little incentive to adjust his hold. I wiggled, and his hand shifted from my knee to my ass and pressed me flat so my head was resting on his chest.
Much better.
Dammit!
His hand slid to the small of my back, the other one playing with my hair again now that he’d laid his phone back on the arm of the chair.