I staggered, blinking back the fight of slumber. I’d already asked him about four times if he wanted me to help him carry stuff but each time he’d insist that he didn’t. And shoot, I wasn’t about to ask again.
Instead, I yawned as well. “Me too.”
Dex’s mouth was wide open, recovering from the nonstop trip that took us to the Hyatt closest to the convention center. The corners of his eyes wrinkled with another yawn, exhaling something that sounded like a groan. A two and a half hour drive in the middle of the night after a full work day would kill anyone.
After the confessional slash strategy session we had back in the truck—which he finally mentioned belonged to Luther—we’d exchanged maybe twenty more words. Each and every single time consisted of me asking if he was fine, and Dex responding with an assured “Yeah.” One heart-to-heart was enough.
The second that the door was unlocked and the hotel room was open, I beelined toward the couch the instant I was inside. It was almost six in the morning and we had to be up by ten and parked in front of the convention area to unload around eleven before setting up the booth.
The idea of unpacking—even worse—the idea of even taking off my clothes to crawl onto the couch made me sleepier. I pulled the cushions off and threw them on the desk across the carpet before unbuckling my belt.
"Ritz."
My mind was completely focused on getting in that friggin' bed as quickly as I could, as I yanked the mattress out. "Yes?"
"What are you doin', babe?" Dex asked.
"Going to sleep," I said, shoving my pants down to my ankles. It was a blessing my shirt was so long it covered the most important piece of my anatomy.
“What the hell?” was Slim’s lazily yawned question.
I barely turned my head to look over my shoulder. Barely. My eyes were somehow managing to stay open but they were about to lose the battle. So I hardly managed the effort to see Slim standing at the foot of the bed the closest to me, holding the hem of his shirt in hands. Dex meanwhile, stood at the sink across from the bed, a hand braced around the edge of the sink, eyes on me through the reflection.
I didn’t even have the decency to blush.
“So sorry guys. I’m tired.” It was the truth. I was embarrassed that I’d just been an exhibitionist and yanked down my pants in front of two men that I didn’t think even knew my last name.
"Get the bed, honey," Dex said.
I waved him off. "You can have the bed. Just wake me up please,” I muttered, smiling in the general direction of where they’d been standing a moment before. “Goodnight, suckers.”
Two "goodnights" wafted through the room. I closed my eyes and tried to go to sleep. As tired as I'd been the entire drive and walk to the room, I couldn't shut off my brain. The sound of the sink running, sheets rustling, and low murmurs kept me up. No matter how hard I tried to fall asleep, I couldn't. The light from the guys' half of the room was right smack on my face either way I lay.
At some point, the whispers and the running water stopped. The sheets shuffled once more, and I heard one sigh after the other before silence ensued. I tried to steady my breathing, and I still couldn't fall asleep.
And then, I heard it.
It started as a whisper, a hiss, a pssssssssst.
And then it grew progressively louder before the smell hit me.
But by that point, my stomach was hurting. Pure, pleasurable pain stabbed me right in the gut. And I started giggling like crazy. Crazy. Tears pooled in my eyes and I gasped.
A deep growl of a laugh mixed with mine from the other side of the room. It was Dex. Dex!
"Oh my God," I wheezed, smothering my mouth with my hand. "Did you crap your pants?"
Another bout of grumbling laughter came over Dex that made me suck in a breath.
My stomach hurt even more as I heard his wind-breaking in my imagination. The badass Dex Locke that Trip and Sonny had told me about so carefully, the one who probably beat a man for talking smack to him, was passing gas like he was on the verge of pooping his pants. And he laughed about it.
"I thought you were sleepin'," he muttered before laughing even harder. The sound was even richer, more pure in the dark room.
I pinched my nose to keep from laughing louder. It was only a miracle that Slim was a heavy sleeper and didn't wake up. "Holy moly, I want my own room."
“Go to sleep,” his gruff voice barked at the end of a laugh.
“Sleep?” I gagged so loud it was another miracle that Slim still hadn’t woken up. “How am I supposed to go to sleep after that?”
Dex groaned. “Ritz.”
My stomach hurt from how hard my muscles were cramping. “Your butt should be a weapon of mass destruction.”
Dex chuckled low, rough and sugar sweet at the same time. “Get to bed.”
I let out a long breath trying to control myself. It worked.
For about half a second.
And then I started laughing all over again, pulling the extra pillow over my face to muffle it. I really had no idea why I thought it was so funny. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been around Will the Farting Machine most of my life. His goal for the longest time had been to fart the alphabet. I mean, everyone passed gas. Everyone.
But this was Dex. My smoking biker boss that wore black on a regular basis.
I pulled the pillow away just long enough to hear him having another laughing fit as well.
So I said what came to mind. “You’re funny.”
Because he was, who would have known? My chest felt all loose and fun for the first time...in forever.
It might have been because the dark took away the intimacy of my admission but whatever. It just came out of my mouth. “I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much.”
“Me neither,” his low voice carried across the room right before I felt something hit my stomach. It was a pillow. He’d thrown a pillow at me. “Night, baby.”
I rolled over and tossed my leg over my new pillow with a snort. “Night, Charlie.”
I fell asleep with my cheeks hurting that night.
~ * ~ *
“I don’t fuck my employees, man.”
Shane shook his head, and then tilted it forward just a little. “Not even that one?”
I was trying my best to pretend that I couldn’t hear them. Like I was so wrapped up in watching Slim transfer the fresh stencil onto the customer in the chair, that I was able to zone out my boss and his friend. But I couldn’t, and a huge part of me, the sadistic part, didn’t want to.
For the last thirty minutes I’d been trying to ignore Dex and this Shane fella talk about who'd they’d seen up until that point at the convention. Up until Shane had shown up, I’d been having a good time with both of my coworkers. Dex had teased me about how I thought everything was cool while we’d walked around bringing the shop's things in.
That’s right. Dex was teasing me. Apparently our middle of the night hysterical laughing session had been a transition in the Iris/Dex battle. Who would have known? I still felt a little uneasy and unsure but it wasn’t anything like before. I’d take it. I had told myself before I wasn’t going to be pissed off at him any more, and I was going to stick to my guns and go with this new attitude for however long it lasted.
Because it wouldn’t last but I’d worry about that when the time came.
We spent the morning making our way around like zombies trying to set up the booth before opening. The people, the colors, the designs, everything in our surroundings sucked me in with the back and forth trekking from the truck.
The people and the piercings were beyond interesting. I'd seen one girl who had rows of piercings that lined up her back with streams of ribbon laced through that made it look like she was wearing a corset. Another man I’d seen setting up a table down the row from ours had tattoos all over his face. There was literally no inch of clear skin on his entire head except around his eyes. That was just the start, Slim had warned me.