Impatient, I lay the phone on the table between Logan and me, and look up to find his gaze on my face.
“Leave it there or go call her. Up to you. I’m the last person to claim to be a babysitter.” His easy nature drains a measure of my anxiety away.
The waitress returns with a tray holding two cheeseburgers, fries, and another beer for Logan. After she unloads it and walks away, Logan smiles.
“Hope you don’t mind me joining you for dinner. Thought it might be better that way. Keeps the vultures from trying to land on the fresh meat.”
Vultures?
I casually scan the room and find dozens of eyes on us. A solid fifty percent of them are on Logan, the eyes of all the females, but he’s right, there are plenty of men looking at me like I’m as delicious as the burger in front of me appears to be.
Dropping my gaze back to my food, I shrug. “And here I thought I was flying below the radar.”
Logan chugs a swallow of his beer before once again unleashing his deep chuckle. “I don’t think you understand the true meaning of flying below the radar, sweetheart.”
Picking up my burger with both hands, I lift it to my lips. “You might be right about that.” I take a huge bite, holding back a moan at the deliciousness of it, then chew and swallow before adding, “I’m not sure you do either.” I follow my words with a meaningful scan around the room at all the women who still have their eyes fixed on the attractive man across from me.
Logan digs into his own burger and washes the bite down with beer before he responds. “Most of the women in this town have one thing in common.”
“What’s that?”
“They didn’t think I was good enough before I left for the military, and didn’t think I was good enough when I came back from the military.”
“So, what changed?” I sip my soda water and take another mammoth bite while I wait for his answer.
“Money,” he says, his tone dripping with derision.
Honestly, the response doesn’t surprise me a bit. “That happens. People come out of the woodwork when all of a sudden you’ve got what you didn’t have before.”
“They can all go straight to hell, for all I’m concerned. I’ll take their money to work on their cars, but I’m not going to let myself get trapped by some chick who’ll just try to get knocked up to get a child support payment out of me for eighteen years. Or even worse, the ones who think I’d marry them.”
I’ve never before considered the intricacies of small town life. Never having lived it, I had no reason to. But now that Logan Brantley lays it out, it makes perfect sense. The women in this bar look at him like he’s the golden ticket out of their paycheck-to-paycheck lives. Now that he’s mentioned cars, I remember Holly talking about the garage he bought and expanded, and the cool work he did. She’s way more of a car chick than I am, so I’m a little ashamed to admit most of that went in one ear and out the other.
But I think he’s missing a major point. I set my hamburger down on the wax paper in the red plastic basket and pick up a french fry. “I think you’re probably right to a certain extent, but to put it crassly, I also think there are a lot of women in here who probably just want to take you home and let you bang the hell out of them.”
Logan chokes on his beer, and the mug lands on the table with a thump. He leans forward and coughs into his hand as I squeeze more ketchup into my basket for my fries and proceed to dip away.
“Did you learn your bluntness from Holly? Shit, woman.”
I smile. “Actually, no. That comes from years of not being able to say what I think. I embrace the filterless lifestyle whenever I can get away with it. If you think I’m bad, you should meet my best friend, Banner.”
“She’s the one you texted?”
I nod, my gaze dropping to the phone between us that hasn’t lit up with a response.
“She’ll get back to you.”
I smile weakly. “I hope so. But if she doesn’t, at least she knows where I am so she won’t freak out any more than necessary.”
“And what about the press? You’re supposed to be laying low.”
“You shouldn’t insult my friend by assuming she’d tell the press anything. She wouldn’t. She’s good people.”
He holds up a hand in a placatory gesture. “Didn’t mean any harm. I’m still recovering from your blunt-force honesty.”
With a shrug, I grab another fry. “It’s the truth. There are generally three camps of women—the ones who want what you’ve got to offer in bed—of which Banner is a perfect example, the ones who want what you’ve got in your bank account, and then the ones who just want you.”
Logan’s blue eyes fix on me. “Which camp do you belong in?”
“We’re not talking about me.”
I told myself when Cav walked into the picture that I could be in the first camp. Just have a fling and move on when it ended. And then in Belize, I started falling for the man the same way I did three years ago.