Free What He Explores (What He Wants, Book Twenty-One) by Hannah Ford Page B

never take a girl like you home in a million years.
    God, he was just playing you, Caeli. He was trying to show off to his friends how easy it would be to get that poor little fast food bitch to get her panties wet if he showed her even a little attention.
    Even if he insulted her.
    I shook my head and redoubled my efforts at work, wondering what had gotten into me in the first place…
    Not five minutes went by, and like a magnet was pulling me, I found my head turning to look once more at the table.
    Only this time, I found it empty.
    My heart sank and I felt my stomach do a sad flip. It was like high school when you’d see the most popular boy sitting so close to you in class and you just hoped for one glance, one smile, one bit of acknowledgment that ultimately never came.
    I did remember exactly how that felt, and it bugged me that I’d fallen for Green Eyes’ act. Men like him could treat women however they wanted to, and they got away with it because they were good looking and came from good families and had good jobs.
    I prided myself on not being silly and insecure enough to fall for that sort of thing, but it turned out, I was no different or stronger than anyone else.
    Maybe I was even weaker.
    Finally, we were closing up the restaurant. And one good thing was happening, at least, which was that I was being paid for the week.
    Devin handed me my check as he walked by and locked the front doors. “Closing time,” he said. “Hopefully tomorrow we can keep the incidents to a minimum, Powers. My Dad is tired of hearing about you screwing up.”
    “Whatever,” I said, tearing open the envelope. I walked out the doors as I opened it, and it was only as I was leaving, Devin and his brothers coming out behind me as I noticed that the amount was wrong.
    It was way wrong.
    Sure, they always took out fifty percent to pay off my parents’ debt, but this time they’d left me practically nothing.
    “Hey,” I said, calling out to them as they made their way to Marvin’s Porsche that they all drove home together. The burger joint did that well—Uncle Billy made sure his boys had the best cars, the best clothes.
    But no amount of expensive toys could hide their white trash ways.
    “Good night!” Blake shouted in a singsong voice, cackling afterwards.
    I ran toward them. “Hey, this check is short!” I said. “It’s almost two hundred dollars short and I need that—“
    “Bring it up with my Dad tomorrow,” Devin said as he unlocked and opened his door.
    “Dammit,” I said, the tears finally starting. “You can’t do this to me again. Last time he never paid me what he owed—“
    Suddenly, Marvin came towards me, pointing, shouting. “We never stiffed you, you dumb cunt. It’s not our fault your broke ass parents needed my Dad to bail them out. Where would ya’ll be if we hadn’t bought your fucking shitty ass house so they didn’t take it to auction? Huh?”
    I backed away, tears pouring down my face. “Just go away,” I said.
    “You have the balls to complain about a couple hundred bucks when you’d be fucking homeless without us.” He smirked. “Get the fuck outta here.”
    Suddenly, a deep male voice boomed from nearby. “Damn, your folks should have taught you better manners, son.”
    The three men turned to see who had been talking. I followed their gaze too.
    The parking lot was almost completely dark and empty, but there was a pickup trunk idling nearby, and a man was sitting in the truck bed, bathed in shadow.
    My body awoke with a jolt. That voice. It couldn’t be but it had to be—
    No. No way. He’d been waiting in the parking lot? For me?
    “Hey, buddy, why don’t you mind your own fucking business?” Devin said.
    Uncle Billy’s three sons were knuckleheads and I knew that first hand. They liked to fight, and they weren’t afraid to fight dirty. I’d seen them stomp guys at parties in the recent past.
    They found it funny to gang up on people.
    Green Eyes spoke again