I wasn’t about to blab any information. I didn’t really know Ty, and my trust factor was like a 1.5 on a scale of 100. “Nothing. Just some family stuff.”
Ty looked like he might press me but seemed to decide that I wasn’t the kind of girl who likes to be squeezed. He read me right. Instead he gave me another pretty grin. “So what you been up to since I’ve been gone?”
“Not much. School, work, and I’m doing a little project for my dress for this shindig you’ve talked me into,” I said, darting my twenty-sixth glance toward Dak, who caught my eye. I jerked my gaze back to handsome Ty. Stop it, Ruby Lynn.
“A project?”
“So growing up, I loved to experiment with designing my own clothes. I found this cool dress”—I didn’t say that it was a Givenchy because I wasn’t sure if I knew how to pronounce it correctly, and Ty seemed like the sort of dude who might know that word—“and I’m pulling off the bodice and joining it to this great satin skirt that goes to just above my ankles. I’m thinking about adding an emerald bow or maybe a mulberry cummerbund at the waist. Oh, and maybe some beading just around the neck. I’m going to consult Cricket on that. I’m not sure how fancy Gritz and Glitz is.”
“You’re going to make your dress?”
He made it sound like I was going to show up in a gunnysack with a piece of hay clutched between my teeth. Maybe some boots rimmed with fresh cow patty.
“I was planning on it.” I tried not to sound defensive.
But failed.
Dak appeared and grabbed the half-empty coffee mugs. He glared at Ty, causing my “date” to slide me a what’s-with-this-guy look. After Dak set the used mugs aside, he folded his arms and stared at both of us.
I tried to figure out exactly what Dak was doing. But came up with exactly . . . nothing. So I looked back at him, my jaw clenched.
Finally, Dak said, “If she makes something for whatever the hell you’re talking about, it will be nicer than anything you’ve seen before.”
I fell off the stool.
Okay, not literally, but I might as well have. I’m pretty sure my mouth gaped open like a goldfish as I watched Dak attempt death by glare at Ty before moving to the other end of the bar as if he’d said nothing more than “It’s raining outside.”
Had my ex-boyfriend—the man who had taken my virginity and branded my heart for all time before vowing to never speak to me—just come to my defense?
Ty looked even more confused. “I’m assuming you know the bartender? And making the dress is cool. I didn’t mean anything by that. It’s just that I don’t know anyone who does anything like that. All the girls I’ve dated live for shopping in, like, stores and stuff. It’s awesome that you can make your own clothes.”
But his words sounded like rocks dropped into a tin can—flat and empty.
I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. “I know the bartender. We grew up together. And no worries. I’m sure you don’t know many people who can do what I do.”
Truer words never spoken.
And I may have said them with a little bit of bitchiness and a whole lot of confidence that I normally didn’t have but could fake pretty effectively.
“So you want to get out of here?” Ty asked, pulling on his traditional aw-shucks attitude. He reached over and took the hand I had resting on the bar and gave it a squeeze. An apology, no doubt. It sort of worked. He was a nice guy and trying, for heaven’s sake.
“Sure.”
But as I said that word, I realized that there was part of me that wanted to stay and talk to Dak. To see how his knee was healing. To ask about the house he’d bought on Caddo Lake, the same one my friends had raved about—a three-bedroom bungalow with a wall of windows that overlooked the sunset in the west. To remind him about the catalpa worms. The best fishing spot. To bemoan that the Bait and Burger had closed, ending double-meat Fridays. To watch the way his brown eyes sparked when he laughed, to see that flash of dimple. To regret forever that I had just thrown away what we’d been like the stupid girl I was.
But I wasn’t going to do that because I had vowed that I would not be that stupid girl. That’s why I had enrolled in college, moved across town, and found a boss like Cricket to mentor me in more than just the difference between an American tea table and a French one. I refused to chase a rabbit down a trail to nowhere. I wanted to be someone worthwhile.
So I left the Bullpen with Ty, stopping by Printemps to drop off Juke’s paperwork to Cricket before going to some coffee slash cocktail bar and pretending I was the hip, rebellious girl he seemed to want me to be.