“Gotta go.” Casey waved good-bye and marched out the door with a mighty flick of her blonde hair in the direction of Truck, who was forced to look, and then watch her leave, because Casey was, in a word, fierce.
The inevitable occurred about ten minutes into Mike McShane’s angsty, sensitive-boy acoustic set.
The big guy stood up from his table and made his way over to J. T., seized an empty chair, turned it around backward and straddled it.
Two of his friends followed him: smaller, wiry guys, the sort grown in the hills everywhere, it seemed, because J. T. had seen that kind before. Underfed.
“Truck Donegal.” He thrust out a hand.
“John Tennessee McCord.” He didn’t want to touch that guy. He was certain he would attempt to demonstrate his virility by crushing his knuckles.
Then again, he’d touched worse things in his life.
He extended his hand, did some alpha staring, got it briefly crushed and did some return crushing, and took it back and counted the moments when he would be free to wipe it on his jeans.
“You’re that guy fromBlood Brothers, ain’t ya?”
“Yep.” He didn’t blink. He also didn’t smile.
“Can you say that thing?”
“Nope. Sorry. Contractually forbidden.” He was all unblinking politeness. He was pretty certain a grown-up word likecontractuallywould frighten off a guy like Truck.
“I’llsay it.Daaaaaaamn, Truck!” one of his friends snickered.
“Shut up, Moses,” Truck said tersely, without turning around.
Moses shut up.
“Saw that movie you were in. Sorry, but I didn’t like it.”
“That breaks my heart.” J. T. didn’t ask which movie.
He saw Britt move into their orbit with the beers on a tray.
“Thought it was kind of... gay,” Truck expounded.
Her eyes went wide. They darted from J. T. to Truck.
J. T. actually sighed. It was such a grade-school attempt at an insult. It didn’t register remotely as one. Truck would have to do a helluva lot worse to top some of the things J. T. had heard about himself over the years.
J. T. took a sip of beer, and leaned back, as if preparing for a nice long chat. “Are you doing your master’s thesis on homoerotic subtexts in big-budget action films, too, Truck? Because I was interviewed by a film student on that very subject.”
He managed to say this evenly, and with every evidence of faint interest.
Truck froze.
And then his spine slowly straightened as if he suspected those were fighting words, but he didn’t know whether to be insulted or flattered that J. T. might think he was doing a master’s thesis.
He was absolutely the picture of tortured indecision.
He defaulted to staring J. T. down.
J. T. gave him back polite, unblinking boredom.
He had, in fact, been interviewed by a film student on that very topic. He supposed there were only a certain number of thesis topics for students in the world.
“You gonna give me that beer I ordered, Britt?” Truck said, finally.