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Rowdy side-eyed me before spearing another piece on his fork and lifting it toward me. “Here, man.”
I giddily accepted his reluctant offering, but when I begged for another, he shut my assdown. When Felicia returned, I ordered one to go, and Rowdy asked for the check. She returned minutes later with my cheesecake and the bill.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?” she asked Rowdy with a wink.
“No,” I answered before he could. I watched her irritated gaze shift to me. “I can take care of his needs from here. Thank you. Bye.” I waved and caught the smirk on Rowdy’s lips as he pretended to study the bill.
“Okay, but I wasn’t asking you,” Felicia snapped back.
So the hoodrat wanted to go there. Okay.
“Aye, you can do something for me,” Rowdy interrupted before I could curse her out. Usually, I’d refuse to argue over a man who wasn’t mine, especially not one who gave me whiplash like Rowdy, but sometimes, you just had to check a bitch. “First, you can keep this shit.” His ignorant ass crumpled up the bill and threw it at her forehead, where it bounced off and landed at her feet. “Even if I wanted to disrespect my girlandmy dick by sticking it in you, I wouldn’t need your number to do it. Now, go get the manager with your unprofessional ass.”
What little sympathy I had left for her flew out the window when his words registered, and I realized she must have written her number on the receipt.
Felicia resembled the shocked man in that famous painting,The Scream, as she continued to stand there, jaw agape and dumbfounded that Rowdy hadn’t fallen all over her.
“Oh. Okay, um, sure.” She scurried away like her botched BBL was losing air, and we both cracked up as we watched her go.
“You ready, Dream?” Rowdy asked me after draining the last of his Hennessy.
I blinked at him. “We can’t leave yet. The bill hasn’t been paid.”
“Nah, it’s on the house,” he said, taking my hand and yanking me out of my seat before I could protest. I just barely had time to grab my cheesecake before we hauled ass for the door. I caught sight of our waitress standing by the bar with the manager as they both watched us flee the restaurant with matching dumfounded expressions.
“Bye, Felicia!” Rowdy just had to yell before he pulled me through the door.
Out in the cold night air, we didn’t stop running until we reached the Hellcat and dove inside. For a few moments, the only sound was of us both fighting to catch our breath, but then, once our gazes met, the momentary silence broke, and we both started cracking up.
I was the first to recover, and once the laughter subsided, the guilt started to hit me hard. “I cannot believe we just did that!” I squealed. I’d never dined and dashed before.
On the other hand, Rowdy felt no shame whatsoever as he laughed even harder at the look on my face.
“Yo, you look like Macaulay Culkin fromHome Alone.”He snickered. I had my hands pressed to my cheeks as the horror of what I’d done sunk in. “Your ass is going to go to jail!” he teased, pointing his finger at me.
Believing him, I gasped. “Really?”
Slowly, his laughter eased as he stared at me from his side of the car and took his time answering. “No, not really.”
“Oh.” I released the breath I was holding and sat back in my seat. “Okay, good.”
“You so damn square with yo’ scary ass.”
“So.”
“That’s all right,” he said, leaning over and slipping me his tongue. I loved and hated how nasty he was. He didn’t pull away until my panties were thoroughly soaked, and even then, it was only enough so that I could see the green of his eyes and nothing else. “I’m bad enough for both of us.”
I couldn’t even muster a reply until he pulled away fully. “A bad influence, you mean.”
He shrugged as he pressed start on his car. The seat underneath me vibrated as it rumbled to life. “I’ll be that if it means you have what you need.”
My heart fluttered in my chest, but my guilt wouldn’t allow me to let it go. “Still.” I threw a remorseful glance at the restaurant. “That was wrong. What if it comes out of her paycheck? Waitresses don’t get paid enough as it is.”
Rowdy shook his head as ifIwere the disappointment and grabbed the blunt he had hidden in the middle console. “You got to stop setting your feelings aside to make room for people who wouldn’t think twice about yours.Clearly. Earning chump change doesn’t give her the right to hand you a shitty experience and still expect to be rewarded for it. What that bitch did went beyond bad service. Istillwould have paid and tipped her because I’m aware of everything you said, but she took it too far. The shit was foul, so I treated her as such. And if the owner wants to get paid, they can either come see me or hire more professional employees.” Rowdy slipped the blunt between his lips and lit it before adding, “My money is staying in my pocket where it belongs either way.”
“Okay, you’re right,” I agreed for expediency’s sake and because, secretly, I knew he was right. Ihadbeen looking forward to eating there for weeks, and our waitress almost ruined the experience by hitting on my date right in front of me, so fuck her.
I’d never considered myself a pushover, but I guess the four people I’d loved most and lost tragically within the span of a few months had taken my fight with them.
