“How’s work?” he asked, the two words sounding dumb even to him.
“Uh, good,” Alex said, her gaze on her lap. “I’m training a new guy and he’s . . . yeah it’s good.”
Silence again.
And Spencer was relieved because the empty words were worse than the silence.
When they pulled into Bomer’s Burgers half an hour later, Alex sucked in a breath, staring at the neon sign.
Spencer had spent way too much time on his laptop looking for a place to take Alex. He hadn’t wanted to take her to Bellini’s, because he’d wanted to take her someplace new. “Have you been here before?” he asked as he shut off his car.
She shook her head but didn’t look at him.
“Okay, so they have a beer sampler. I thought you might like that. And this appetizer apparently is very popular. A fried onion thing that supposedly looks like a flower? Very American, I’d say. And their burgers are supposed to be quite delicious. And I . . . ” His voice trailed off as Alex’s face tightened by the minute.
He’d thought this place was perfect. He wanted Alex to be somewhere she was comfortable and so he’d stayed away from uptight, posh places. He thought a pub with beers and burgers would be ideal for Alex.
Although he hadn’t anticipated showing up at her house and her wearing that dress either.
He . . . might have miscalculated.
But there was nothing for it now. So he got out of the car, and when he walked to her side, she’d already stepped out and was smoothing her dress over her thighs. When she looked up, her eyes seemed a little wet. “Alex?”
She blew out a breath and shook her head, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Yes?”
“Are you okay?”
“Fine. Why?”
He didn’t know. He didn’t know at all.
She began to walk toward the front door, and he followed, wishing they were back in Cal’s yard playing washers, because then Alex had been happy. Now? Not so much. He didn’t know how to fix that, to put a smile on her face. How had this gone so wrong in such a short time?
This is why he didn’t date. Because apparently he was awful at it.
Bomer’s was a large brick building with a massive red neon sign. Spencer mused, as Alex pushed open the door in front of him, that this restaurant could probably be seen from space.
There were several couples sitting on benches along the wall near the hostess station. Spencer walked up to the desk and smiled politely at the pretty teenager. “Uh, hello. I have a reservation for two. Spencer.”
“It’ll be fifteen minutes,” the girl said, smacking her gum.
“I’m sorry?” Spencer asked. “But I have a reservation.”
“Yeah, I know. Sorry. Little bit of a wait.”
He turned to Alex, who stared at him with a blank look on her face. “Um, they said it’ll just be a minute.”
“Fifteen,” she said.
“Well, yes, fifteen.”
Her jaw clenched and then she turned around, sitting down at an empty space on the bench. Spencer ducked his head and took a seat beside her.
The couples talked around them, some holding hands. Alex sat stiffly, flexing her feet in her heels, drumming her fingers where they gripped the pleather seat.
“I heard they have great burgers,” Spencer said.
Alex shifted her eyes in his direction, then resumed staring into space in front of her.
“Are you . . . did I do something wrong?” He didn’t want to ask, but so far, this date was torture.
Alex shook her head and looked down at the floor. “No,” she whispered.
“You sure?”
“Yep.” She popped the p, and he leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest and hoping like hell they were seated soon.
A rumbling sound came from outside and necks craned toward the clouds beginning to roll in. Spencer glanced at the weather app on his phone. “Looks like it’s going to storm.”
A small smile crossed Alex’s face. “I love storms.”
“Where I’m from, it rained more than stormed,” he said.
She turned to him, light in her eyes for the first time since he’d picked her up. “Really? Summer storms are the best. When it’s so humid all day, you can’t even bear to be outside, but then right around dinnertime, the storm comes in and the sky opens up and it pours.” Her gaze returned to the window. “Fall storms are great too. Looks like it’s gonna be a good one.”
Five minutes later, the hostess called his name. She led them to a booth in the corner and Alex slid in one side as Spencer took his seat across from her.
The menus were almost as large as the table, laminated until shiny and smelling faintly of grease.
The pictures showed juicy burgers and massive drinks and gooey desserts. Spencer scanned the menu for something that wasn’t going to give him an instant heart attack.
When the waitress came, Alex ordered a shot and a beer. Spencer stared at her, but she didn’t meet his gaze. He ordered a pint.
When the drinks came, Alex downed the shot and then gulped half of her beer.
“Better?” Spencer asked.
Alex shifted in her seat and tugged at something in her dress. She took a deep breath and exhaled with her mouth shaped in an O. Finally, she met his eyes. “Why’d you bring me here?”
Spencer took a swallow of his beer and set it down on the table gently. “What do you mean?”
She gestured around them. “Why here? Why not somewhere else?”
Irritation crept up his spine. “What do you mean? Where’d you want to go? Someplace with a Michelin star?”
She stared at him, eyes wide, nostrils flared. Through gritted teeth, she asked, “What’s a Michelin star?”
“It’s a . . . ” He waved his hand. “A culinary award. Given to top restaurants.”
“And what? That would be ridiculous to take me to a place like that?”
“Well, yes!” Spencer said, knowing his voice was rising but unable to stop it. Why was she being so difficult? “I mean, you’re you!”
Alex jolted back into her seat as if she’d been slapped, a flush of red creeping over her chest, up her neck, and into her face.
Spencer replayed the conversation, what he said. “Wait, I didn’t mean—”
Alex swallowed thickly. “I think that’s exactly what you meant.” She threw her napkin on the table, slid out of the booth, and walked out.
“Bloody hell,” Spencer muttered, throwing cash on the table to cover their drinks and following her through the restaurant. By the time she burst out the front door in a flash of purple, Spencer at her heels, the sky had unleashed hell.
Fat raindrops fell on Spencer’s head, immediately soaking his hair and shirt. “Alex, what the hell?” he yelled, trying to cover his head, but giving up when his arms were no match for the torrential downpour. Alex was stomping ahead of him toward the car, wobbly on her heels, and he was worried she’d twist an ankle. “Will you slow the hell down and tell me what the fuck is wrong?”
She whirled around, fists clenched at her sides, long hair dripping, dress plastered to her body like a second skin. She hopped on one foot as she pulled off a shoe and hurled it at him. He dodged that one, but the other one hit him in the thigh when she threw it with a frustrated growl. “What the fuck, woman?”
“I can’t believe . . . ” She growled again. “I can’t believe I did this.” She gestured to her body. “I spent an hour and a half getting ready. Do you even know the last time I spent an hour and a half getting ready for anything?”
Spencer stood, staring at her as she hollered at him in the rain. He shook his head.
“Never!” she yelled. “I’ve never spent that much time putting on makeup and doing my hair and picking out a stupid fucking dress!” She reached up and cupped her breasts, shifted the dress over them, and tugged on the fabric. “Ugh. I hate this dress. I hate those fucking shoes that hurt my feet. And I hate, I hate, that I took all this time trying to
impress you. To show you that I can be a fucking lady, worthy of . . . I don’t know . . . being on your arm. And instead, you bring me here. Because that’s all I’m worth, right? A beer and a burger?” She snorted. “The thing is, you’re not wrong. That is all I’m worth. Those burgers looked goddamn delicious. I’m so fucking angry at myself that I expected something different. That, for once in my life I expected something more.”
She shook her head, her shoulders slumping, as she seemed to run out of steam. She looked so tiny without her heels, shaking in the rain as it continued to pour buckets on their heads.
He’d done that. Him. He’d taken the light of his sprite’s eyes. In an attempt to make her feel comfortable, he’d done the exact opposite.
He ran his hand over his hair and looked up at the sky. “I’m an arsehole.”
“No—”
“Yes. Yes, I am, Alex. Fuck, I’m so sorry, I . . . ”
She was watching him, her top teeth sawing into her bottom lip. He held up his keys and gestured to his car. “How about we get out of this rain and talk?”
Alex looked down at herself and wiggled her feet in the puddle she stood in. “But we’re wet—”
“I don’t care,” he said. “I don’t care one bit. I want to talk to you. Will you let me explain? Please?”
She took a deep breath. “Okay.”
Spencer let out a breath. “Great.” He took her hand and led her to his car.
Chapter Ten
ALEX CURLED HER prune-y toes into the carpeted floor of Spencer’s Mercedes, wrapped her arms around herself, and shivered.
Spencer reached into the backseat and tugged some kind of jacket around her shoulders. She gripped it and looked up at him through strands of wet hair. “Thanks.”
He smiled uneasily, and she wondered what the hell he was thinking. Because that back there . . . that had been a little crazy. Surely her mascara was tracking down her face in little black rivers. Her hair that she’d spent time curling was now a wet mop on top of her head.
But most of all, she’d thrown her shoes and yelled at him in the rain. Like a crazy person.
The giggle bubbled up her throat uninvited and she tried to stuff it down. But that only made it worse, so she curled in on herself and let out the laughter.
When she was able to regain her breath, she leaned back in the seat and looked over at Spencer. He’d turned on the car and was blasting the heat, but he made no move to drive.
He ran his hands over the bottom of the steering wheel, brow furrowed.
She wiped her face and under her eyes, trying in vain to get rid of the raccoon look she knew she was sporting. A quick glance in the side mirror told her that yep, she looked like a train wreck.
Which was how she felt.
Her muscles ached and her head pounded, but here, in this car, with the white noise of the hot air blasting from the vents, she stared out the windshield, feeling protected since the world outside was a blur.
She hadn’t felt safe in . . . a long time. And maybe it was the breakdown she just had in the rain or the steady presence of Spencer at her side, but she was too tired to replace the armor that had melted off her body in the parking lot.
“I’ve only lived here for about a year,” she began. “Before that, I lived in Indiana with my boyfriend.” She licked her lips, preparing for the name to drop off her tongue like acid. “Robby.” She stared straight ahead, but she felt Spencer’s gaze on her skin. She didn’t talk about Robby. Not even to Ivy. “I loved him. Or, I loved him in what I thought at the time was love. And I thought he loved me back. Things were great, until . . . until I realized they weren’t good. They were horrible, actually. He . . . ” Her voice trailed off.
Spencer took her hand. “Alex—”
“He didn’t, ya know, hit me or anything. I mean, sometimes I thought he might, but he didn’t. His words were slaps and punches and stabs to the heart enough without the actual . . . physical pain.” She took a deep breath. “I hadn’t realized how much damage he’d done until Ivy moved in. And then it was like, I finally saw our relationship from her eyes and it was horrible. I finally realized that it wasn’t okay for my boyfriend to call me a whore and tell me that he was the only one who’d put up with me. That he kept me around because he liked how I blew him.” Her voice shook, and she wasn’t sure anymore of the source of wetness on her cheeks. “So we moved. One day while he was at work. It’d been years by then, and Ivy had Violet. Violet . . . heard the things he said and is still sort of scared of men. I blame myself for that.”
She lifted her head then, to see if Spencer’s lip was curled, to see if he was looking at her like Robby had for all those years, like she was weak.
But Spencer looked . . . angry. His jaw was clenched, lips thinned, eyes hard. She registered pain in her head and winced, noticing Spencer’s knuckles were white where he held her hand. He let out a ragged breath and let go of her hand, then stared out the windshield, gripping the steering wheel.
“So that’s why I kinda lost it. Out there,” Alex said. “It wasn’t about you, really, or this date. It’s about me and my fucked-up head. And my baggage. I know that’s not what this is. That you just wanted something fun while you’re here in town and now I made it . . . not that at all. I’m sorry, I—”
“Don’t apologize.” Spencer’s voice was whip-sharp, but he didn’t turn to look at her. “Don’t apologize for an asshole who needed to beat down a woman to feel like a man.”
She curled her lips between her teeth and bit down.
Spencer turned then, his blue eyes icy. “I’m . . . not always so good at saying what I feel. But right now, I’m angry. Really fucking angry. Because Alex, you . . . are vibrant. And confident. And so beautiful, it hurts to look at you sometimes. I think about you in Cal’s backyard, playing with your friends and family, smiling and laughing, and to think that a man wanted to take that spark from you . . . ” He exhaled loudly. “It makes me fucking crazy. If that arsehole was in front of me right now, I might commit vehicular homicide.”
He sounded like Ivy, but Alex’s mouth wasn’t working—to talk or smile. Because Spencer wasn’t done talking and every word was pumping fresh, hot blood into her limbs.
He ran a finger down the side of her face, his voice softening. “He was threatened by you. Because you loved and were loved and he wanted some of that for himself. He was jealous of you. Wanted your strength and your confidence and your talent and he tried to suck it right out of you for himself.”
She closed her eyes. “He succeeded.”
“Ah, Sprite.” She lifted her lids to meet his gaze. “No, no he didn’t. Because I saw it in you when we first met.”
“You did?”
“I did. It’s why I wanted you so badly. Not so I could have it for myself, but because I wanted so badly to bask in the afterglow for a little while.”
He turned in his seat to face her fully. His hair was sticking up where he ran his hands through it. She touched the top of one spike and smiled. He blew out an exasperated breath and patted it down.
“But I—”
“I brought you here because I thought it was what you wanted. I . . . thought you’d be more comfortable at a place that wasn’t posh and stuffy.” He reached out and took her hand. “I didn’t stop to think how that would look to you, that I thought this was all you were—a beer-and-burger joint. I’m not good at this. At reading people. And especially at reading women. My mum died when I was a kid and I was raised by my dad. But those are all excuses, really.” He stared at the windshield as the rain drummed on the car. “I miscalculated this. It’s why I haven’t dated in . . . who knows how long.”
She wanted to cry. How big of an asshole was she? What had she expected, a five-course dinner at a country club? He’d tried to do what he thought she’d like. “Well, shit, when you put it that way, I just sound like a big brat.”
He tugged on her hand so she’d look at him. “No, no you don’t. Tonight you . . . ” His gaze
trailed down her body and then back up. “You look beautiful.”
“Looked,” she smirked.
“You still look beautiful, just a little drowned.”
She shook her head, her voice dropping, because this was a confession she hadn’t wanted to make. “I wanted to look good enough for you. So you weren’t embarrassed to be seen with some roughneck girl.”
She hadn’t known Spencer could move that fast, but with a cry of alarm, she was tugged out of her seat and splayed across his lap, her knees on each side of his hips. Spencer’s hands were on her face, pushing back her wet hair, and he was swallowing convulsively, his lips thinned. “Oh, Sprite. Oh no,” he muttered.
She gripped his wrists. “What?”
He huffed out a sad laugh. “You don’t even know.”
“I don’t even know what?” She wasn’t cold anymore, even though the jacket had slipped from her shoulders. The warm air blowing through the vents heated her back, and Spencer’s body was like a furnace. He surrounded her with his big arms and shoulders. A drop of water ran down his temple and she caught it with the tip of her finger.
Spencer’s chest expanded against hers, then contracted. “I grew up in Stockport. Do you know where that is?”
“No.”
“It’s a small town outside of Manchester, which is north of London.”
“Okay.”
He paused a moment, his eyes going distant before focusing back on her. “My father is a mechanic. He owns his own repair shop. He does all right, but we were poor. Always poor.”
She sucked in a breath. “Wait, what?”
He nodded. “Yes, I grew up working on cars with my dad.”
She was about to ask why he hadn’t told her, but then stopped herself. Because that wasn’t what they’d been. It wasn’t what they were, to talk about themselves. So she realized the shift now, from what they had to what they were building. This was something, this closed-off man admitting his roots. And it was something for her to admit what Robby had done to her. “Okay.”
He soldiered on. “But I didn’t want to work on cars. I never did. I don’t even really like cars.” She gasped in mock outrage, and that made him smile. “My dad and I never got along. He thought I was embarrassed of him, and as a punk teenager, I was. I didn’t want anything to do with him or his shop or my fucking low-class town. I wanted money and success. So as soon as I could, I left. Went to school in New York and got a job and that’s that.”
Dirty Deeds (Mechanics of Love #3) Page 11
