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“Aw, c’mon.” I roll my eyes and push his hand away, even with the icy death stare that lands on me. “What’s the point of coming someplace like this if we aren’t going to check it out?”
“Safety, Fin.” Ian rotates his head on his neck when I can see that his rolling of the eyes is no longer conveying the true irritation tensing him up. “Fucking safety.”
“I’d also love to actually get to my wife sometime today,” Rex pipes up and leans his head back on the faded wallpaper holding the drywall together.
“Not your wife, yet,” Ian quips.
“Fuck you, close enough.” Scoffing, Rex runs a hand through his hair like his nerves are starting to get to him and props a foot up on the wall beneath him with his gig bag leaning on his raised knee. “She said she was hungry when she woke up. That was almost an hour ago.”
“Shit.” Ian’s watchful eyes do a sweep of the hall and come back to land on Rex. “Only a few more minutes.”
“Until all hell breaks loose? Yeah,” I return. The down-turn of his lips and the furrow to Rex’s brow almost makes me feel bad for the woman who’s carrying his baking bun. Almost.
“She’ll survive, Rex, Jesus.” I roll my eyes but keep my ass planted against the wall when our escort shows back up from the dining end of the establishment with a damn box wider than him in his grasp.
“S’all here, man.” Ian and the cook share a look over the box as it’s exchanged from one set of hands to the other.
“Next time, don’t come through my kitchen.” We’re pointed to the opposite end of the hall where an exitsign lights up the ceiling in a neon orange and we follow the direction until we’re back out in the open air and nearly a block down from where we parked the car.
“It smells fucking great,” Rex mutters as he accepts the box from Ian and shoves it and himself back into the back seat. “So hungry.”
I snort and slam myself into the front as Ian jogs around the car and plants his big ass behind the wheel. “That’s the real reason for the rush, wasn’t it.”
“You try to live with a pregnant woman,” Rex growls as he fishes a container out and pops it open. “I give half my damn food to her.”
“Then maybe don’t make a baby so damn big.” I chuckle and snap my seatbelt in place. “She’s a grown-ass woman, Rex.” I face the front when all I really want to do is snag a container for myself. My own stomach growls as the engine roars to life and we’re back out in the still-early traffic. “She can feed herself just fine.”
“Shut up,” Rex grumbles around his mouthful. “You sound like fucking Cedar.”
I feel my face fall almost as quickly as I hide it when her name rolls off his lips.
Shit, I didn’t think about her being there.
“Beeee bah bee baaah bebebe,” Rex mocks in a high pitch. “Iknowmy girl can take care of her fucking self.” He reaches between the seats and smacks my cheek with a piece of bacon that leaves a streak of grease behind. “But I want to, too.”
I sigh and rip the thinly sliced meat from his grasp when he smacks me with it again. “Pretty sure that makes you fucking whipped, bro.” I take a vicious bite out of the strip and grind it between my teeth.
“Meh.” I catch his shrug in the rearview mirror. “I call it in love, but whatever. I’m here for it.”
Snorting, I force the bite down my dry throat and wipe my palms on my thighs. My shoulders are tight when Ian pulls into another parking lot, tighter than they get before my guitar strap lands across them on show nights.
Is it too late to back out?
“Get me to my wife.” Rex bursts out of the car the moment it’s mostly stopped and leaves Ian cursing from the driver’s seat, the box of food and his instrument completely abandoned in the back.
Goddamnit.
Inhaling a deep breath that burns my nose, I sigh out the oxygen and fold my body out of the car to collect the shit Rex left behind.
There’s a pregnant woman inside that needs to eat.
Or, at least, that’s what I tell myself as I sling the gig bag over my back and collect the box of delicious-smelling shit instead of taking the car back to the bus.
And I completely ignore the way my stomach lifts with the possibility of seeing Cedar.
Chapter Ten
Cedar
