On the Rox Read online

  I smiled and leaned down, showing him my full cleavage, which wasn’t a lot—not sitting next to Betty Big Bags anyway.

  “We’ll be at the square today! Please come out. We won’t disappoint.” Betty grinned and licked her lips.

  “On me. You’re on me—us—it’s on us. Lunch. I got you.” I winked.

  “I’ll be there. And drive safe!” He patted the side of the truck and turned to leave.

  We sat in silence until we heard his car door shut, and then we burst out in laughter.

  “Easy-peasy.” Betty laughed, beginning to pull back onto the road.

  “We’re so rotten! Think he really will be by? He was pretty hot … and that uniform! I’d serve him my juicy taco.” Nikki sat back in her seat and inched her top back up and over her boobs.

  “You’d serve just about anyone your juicy taco.” Betty reached in the back and squeezed Nikki’s knee.

  “Nuh-uh! Not just anyone! I have standards, ya know!” She crossed her arms across her chest.

  “Like what? As long as his pecker is as big as his thumb?” I laughed, leaning my cheek against the window.

  “If y’all bring up the thumb incident one more time, I swear, I’ll quit playing social media queen and put Betty in charge of our PR. Then, see what happens!” Nikki huffed.

  “Well, shit. I’d better shut my mouth then.” I grinned over at Betty.

  “I’m still waiting on these standards.” Betty raised her eyebrows.

  “Rich. I’m easy.”

  “When the hell have you ever been with someone rich? I have seen all those ragamuffins you put out for. Wasn’t Tony fresh out of jail and broke as fuck? He hadn’t worked in years!” Betty laughed, slapping the steering wheel.

  “Those were my old standards. New standards are different. I need a man who can take care of me. Maybe that sweet officer. That was divine intervention right there! My future husband!” Nikki sighed and put her hand to her heart.

  “Officers are hardly rich.” I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Well, whatever. I can still fuck him. He was hot.” Nikki threw her hands in the air and settled back into her seat.

  “Mmhmm. We know you. He was hot! Better get on that one before I do. I like a man in uniform too, ya know.” Betty fanned herself, still not putting both hands on the wheel.

  “Oh, I’ll get on it,” Nikki assured her.

  “Get it, girl!” I reached back to give her a fist bump. “Now, let’s go sell some tacos and Shizzle!”

  “Beep, beep, bitches!” Betty called out, flooring the gas pedal and hurtling us toward the town square.

  The square bustled with crowds on Thursdays. Drink specials from the surrounding restaurants had people lining up and down the streets, especially in this perfect weather. Now that spring was in the air, every patio was full of diners. Most of everyone dined inside, but those customers who liked to drink did so outside. They sat in a prime spot to see our truck only a short distance away.

  We pulled into the middle of the square, parking our truck directly across from Scarlett Herb.

  “What?” Betty looked at me, jerking the parking brake up and into position. “It’s the best spot, and you know it. Look, they already have a full patio. Those people are going to get drunk on their high-dollar cocktails and then not have money for their high-dollar food. That’s where we come in. Cheap tacos. Drunk food.”

  I sighed, knowing Betty was right. I trusted her with everything. My friends were my family, but Betty was the nearest and dearest to my heart. She had stuck with me through the Tommy situation, no questions asked. She had stayed there for me, even when I kept going back to him, continuously building me up with the strength I carried so that I could finally leave his ass for good. The Pink Taco Truck had been born out of desperation on both of our parts. We had needed a better life, and we’d both worked our asses off to get it.

  We had met while waitressing together at a downtown diner for years. On some of the slower late nights, we would mess around in the kitchen, making ourselves food, tacos specifically. We tried them out on a few customers, unbeknownst to our asshole boss, and they were a hit. A few more ironing out of the kinks in our recipes, and our taco truck came to fruition, thanks to our favorite customer, Earl. He bankrolled the business. He was a retired old bachelor with more money than he could spend. His generosity had saved our asses and set us on this new path in life. Earl was the only male member of DTF. We let the vagina requirement slide for him and only him.

  “Sorry! I know I’m late. I got us something though! I think this is going to be good!” Layla opened the passenger door to the truck and shoved a bag in my face.

  “What is this?” I took a large glass skull out from the wrapping and turned it in my hands.

  “Skull vases. For these.” She held up another bag full of flowers.

  “We don’t do flowers or anything cutesy.” Betty narrowed her eyes down at Layla.

  “It’s not cutesy! I mean, come on! These skull vases are badass! I got them to go on a few tables I’d bought! Since it’s spring, the customers might want to sit outside the truck. I thought—” Layla stopped mid-sentence and put her hands to her hips.

  “It’s a good idea. Let’s try it. Show me these tables, and we can start setting them up. I have to finish prep with Nikki too. We’re opening in about fifteen minutes. Let’s go!” I smiled at Layla before shooing her away and hopping out of the truck.

  “Flowers, Rox? Really?” Betty huffed out and shook her head.

  “Well, at least they’re in a skull. Let’s just see how it works. I promise I won’t let her put glitter on anything.”

  “I heard that!” Layla bounced past me, carrying a folding table.

  “Good! Because if you bring glitter up in my truck, we are going to have problems. Big ones. Like my foot in your ass problems.” Betty shut her driver’s door and walked over to help Layla with the chairs.

  “Promise. Plus, you got to admit, the chairs and tables are a good idea. I even got a few candles to put on them for when it gets dark!” Layla perked up.

  Betty stopped walking and set the chairs down.

  “Relax! They’re black candles. Super dark and angsty. Just like you.” Layla blew Betty a kiss.

  “You’re lucky that I love you. Otherwise, I would be making your skull into a vase.” Betty shook her head and picked the chairs back up, positioning them into place.

  “Can you two cut the shit and help us in here?” Nikki called from the window. “We don’t have time for playing Martha Stewart. Tweets went out. Expect company in T-minus ten minutes!”

  “Or less.” I nodded toward a group of teenagers making their way to the truck.

  “Coming, coming!” Layla shoved the flowers in vases and set them out on the tables.

  Usually, four people in a food truck would be too much for me—or anyone. But when DTF got to work, we worked as one. Our seamless operation kept our business afloat and our customers happy. We worked well together in every situation, especially stressful ones. Each one of us had gifts … and issues. But we laughed the bad memories away and focused on the positive. Nikki had even smudged our truck and ourselves with sage sticks to release any bad energy. I had smelled like sage for a week. To clear the negative energy in my life, I would need to bathe in it daily.

  I wiped my brow with the back of my hand as I sat with a pen and my tattered notebook on a curb behind the truck. The night had been our most successful yet this season, and it would only be getting busier with the warmer weather.

  “Rox?” Nikki came around the back of the truck, interrupting my train of thought. “More poetry? Is this a funny one or a deep one?” She peered over my shoulder.

  “Deep.”

  “Oh.” She sat down beside me and pulled me in for a hug. “I love you just the way you are,” she said, kissing me on my forehead.

  “Thanks, Nikki. I love you too.”

  “Do you? Because if you really did—” she started.

&
nbsp; “Are you kidding me? Buttering me up for something, are ya?” I tapped the end of my pen on my paper and waited. “What do you need?”

  “No. I really do love you. I just wanted to tell you that the man from Scarlett Herb is here, asking about the Shizzle. He came to us, as you’d asked. Will you at least talk to him? Just hear him out?”

  “Fine!” I rolled my eyes. “Send him around back and get the girls to start closing. I think we are out of customers tonight.” I waved my hand in the air at the empty parking lot.

  The streetlamps had turned on hours ago, and a hushed murmur drifted across the square from the only two restaurants that remained open.

  “Yay! Okay! Also, he’s hot, so … you might want to take your hair out of that ponytail and fluff it up a bit. Come here.” She leaned down, swiping a lipstick from her pocket and tracing it over my lips before I could protest. “Now, sell some Shizzle for us and get us that new truck!”

  “I said, I’d hear him out only! What the hell?” I called to her as she bounced away.

  I stood up, smoothing down my oil-splattered white T-shirt and readying myself to greet whatever hot, pretentious asshat had kept bugging me for my Shizzle Sauce when Scarlett Herb’s owner peered from behind the truck.

  We both gasped.

  “Roxanne Corvus is it? Owner of the Shizzle?” came the sexiest damn accent from the sexiest damn man I’d ever seen in my life.

  I peered back into eyes that were familiar, warm, kind, and not at all what I had expected.

  “Yes,” I breathed out. “Part owner. The girls and I work as a team. You can call me Roxie or Rox.”

  Or anything you want as long as you keep talking, I thought.

  I looked him up and down, taking in his tall stature, his confident posture, his starched and pressed suit, and the perfectly manicured scruff that barely hid his chiseled jawline. But that accent …

  Oh, that accent.

  “Rox.” He grinned, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

  The way he said my name sounded like a song that I wanted him to sing all the time.

  Raaaaaawwwwwks.

  A hot flash ran through my entire body and settled in between my legs.

  What was that? A hot flash? I’m not even thirty!

  I tried to gather myself, but my brain had quit working the moment he opened his mouth. My body felt funny, and my legs fought back the urge to run to this stranger, so I could throw myself on him. I wanted him to put his arms around me. I wanted him to whisper into my ear. I wanted him to taste my Shizzle. I would give it all to him. He could have it anytime and anywhere.

  “Do I know you?” I cocked my head to the side and interrupted the awkward trance that we both couldn’t seem to snap out of. “You look familiar. I can’t say it’s from Scarlett Herb though. I’ve not eaten there—yet.”

  “Aye. I’m afraid you do know me. I’m your neighbor.”

  “Wait! The new one … the one in the window?” I put my hand to my mouth as my jaw dropped.

  This perfect man standing before me was the one who had been watching me that night. The one I played the trick on. I had barely been able to make out any of his features, only his shape in the window. My cheeks reddened as I remembered the humping dance I had performed while wearing the dinosaur costume.

  “Yes.” He nodded toward the back of the truck. “It all makes sense now. The T. rex stuff, poetry night.”

  He pointed at the mural Nikki had hired one of her friends to paint on the side of our truck. The T. rex was wearing lipstick and munching tacos with her tiny hands. Her claws were painted blood red, and her expression gave no fucks. We’d named her Rosie.

  “Poetry night? You were watching me there too?”

  “Yes, I was there last weekend. I saw you there and thought I had recognized you from under that costume.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels.

  “I knew you looked familiar! That’s where I recognize you from! I had no idea you were my neighbor though—or that … oh my gosh. You saw me in my bra and panties! I’m so sorry! I might have been a little drunk that night!” I fanned myself with my notebook. I lied. I had been a lot drunk that night.

  “Don’t be sorry.” He laughed, stepping closer to me. “It was a perfect show. I hope your husband wasn’t mad that I saws you through your window. It’s just that … I was there because the noise had woken me. I didn’t know you would be there, half-naked.” His voice rolled off his tongue, making my toes curl, my brows twitch, my thighs spread.

  I shuffled on my feet, catching the way he’d not-so-slyly asked if I was single.

  “Husband? I’m not married.”

  “You’re not? Oh. I thought I saw a man in your backyard, and I assumed—”

  “Earl! You thought I was married to … Earl? Eesh. Give me more credit than that. He’s old enough to be my dad, and … well, he is like a dad to me. Gross.” I shivered.

  He laughed in only a way a sexy Australian man could laugh; it was music to my ears. I wanted him to do that while he was inside of me. I wanted to feel his cock jump with every giggle as I clenched around him. This man already made me feel things I hadn’t known existed and only in the matter of the few minutes that I’d met him.

  Take my sauce. All of it. Take it. Take it, damn it.

  I fought the internal battle in my head, digging my heels into the pavement to keep me from jumping in his arms and wrapping myself around him.

  “So, you’re single?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  Take my sauce. Me. Everything.

  I clenched and unclenched my fist, holding back the weird convulsions my body ached to make as it tried to pull itself toward him.

  “Perfect.”

  “What does that mean, perfect?”

  He’s perfect. Buy this damn sauce, so I can see you more often.

  “It means, I’d like to hear more of this dinosaur poetry of yours, and I don’t have to feel guilty asking. Not that I would ask a married woman out, but … I had planned to meet with you for business anyway. Except I had no idea you were … you. The woman in the window.”

  “Wait. Let me get this right. Are you asking me out? You just met me!”

  “Yes, but I feel like I haven’t.”

  His eyes searched mine, lighting up the entire parking lot. I’d never seen a sparkle like that in my life.

  The hair on my arms rose as a slight chill shivered up my body. My heartbeat pulsed in my ears. This wasn’t the same feeling I’d had in the past with panic attacks. This encounter with him felt like a happy freak-out, not a spastic freak-out.

  “Let’s get back to that in a second. I thought you came here to talk about Shizzle Sauce?” I continued.

  “Aye. Shizzle Sauce. Shit. Sorry, I … you make me flustered. You’re gorgeous, and I came over here, thinking I would meet someone who resembled a lunch lady. But you’re no lunch lady, and I can tell you’re someone I’d like to get to know. T. rex poetry and all. I’m new here. I could use some friends.”

  I tugged at the bottom of my dirty work shirt and narrowed my eyes. “Look here, buddy. I don’t know what the hell that means, but in America, our lunch ladies will cut you for talking like that.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you! I was only imagining my lunch lady from my school days. I think she really was a witch. Mean as the dickens and a mole on the side of her nose with a hair growing on it and all.”

  I flinched. “Well, no, I’m not a witch. Not all the time. It depends on who I am dealing with.” I crossed my arms, aware of how I looked—and smelled—after being inside a taco truck all day.

  “Aye, I’m sorry. I think things are getting lost in translation. I’m not calling anyone a witch.”

  “What translation? You speak English.”

  “How’s this weather out here? Perfect, isn’t it?” He threw his arms up, motioning around the dead square.

  “Just peachy. Back to the Shizzle Sauce.” My voice fell flat, but I still would
jump his bones.

  “Or the date?” He lowered his voice and took a step closer to me.

  My chest tightened as my heart struggled to beat its way out of my rib cage. I could hear it thumping in my ear, and if he stepped any closer, he could probably hear it too.

  “You’d date a lunch lady?”

  “As I said, you’re no lunch lady. You’re … the most beautiful woman I’ve seen since I’ve been in the States. You’re gorgeous. Even in a T. rex costume. I thought so that night I saw you in the window and at The Lounge. I just figured you were taken. How could someone like you not be?”

  I put my hand to my chest and fluttered my lashes down. No one had ever said anything like that to me before. The best compliments I’d received were that I was hot as fuck or bangable. Never gorgeous, beautiful, smart, or any of that other stuff I wished I had been called.

  “I don’t mean to be abrupt. That is how we are over there. I can tell you all about it if you’d like. On that date perhaps? And we can talk Shizzle too. We can call it a business meeting, if you prefer. Just as long as I can hear more of this poetry, sneak that in there somehow.”

  “You haven’t even told me your name.” I shook my head.

  “Oh my. You really do frazzle me. How rude of me. I’m Jaxon. Jaxon Taylor, but you can call me Jay. A pleasure to meet you.” He stuck his hand out.

  I took it in mine and tried to firmly shake it in my best business handshake, but I failed miserably. I let my hand hang there and gave him a soft squeeze. Our palms made a farting noise, causing me to quickly jerk my arm away.

  “Well, that’s never happened to me before.” He scrunched his brows and tapped his chin. “Let’s try that again, shall we?”

  Fuck, he sounded so prim and proper and oh-so damn sexy. Pretentious or not, I didn’t care anymore. I needed him to keep talking.

  I straightened my back, pursed my lips, mentally quieted my embarrassment, and stuck my hand out, remembering that I was a boss babe and this man wanted my Shizzle Sauce.

  Take it all. Me. Take me. Straight to bed. With our farty hands and all. Let’s go.

  “There we go.” The corners of his mouth turned up into a smile as he shook my hand, not letting it go.