It probably wasn’t charitable of Bea to laugh at his admission, but it struck her as funny. Typical. “Women don’t have that problem. We actually think with our fucking brains,” she jibed, aiming for good-natured, but it probably fell a little short of that. “I’d like to see if you’re really as fucking reformed as you make it sound…” she mused, a devilish twinkle in her eye. It was strange how the atmosphere kept pinballing for her. One minute she was uncomfortable and the next she was making jokes. She needed to get her fucking shit together.
“Only if it’s actually your credit to take,” she told him seriously. “I don’t take to people taking things that aren’t fucking theirs.” It might seem like she wouldn’t be the type, but she had a pretty firm grip on right and wrong. And she didn’t like people that took credit for shit just to make themselves look better. She’d dealt with that enough before.
It probably wasn’t that different. “Vi wasn’t that fucking bad as a sibling.” Why was she saying that? “She was a lot different than she is now.” And she wished that half the shit Vienna had gone through hadn’t happened, but she couldn’t do anything to change it, and she couldn’t get back the baby sister she had. Now she wouldn’t want to either, since she’d grown to understand the woman that Vienna had become. “It was fucking annoying that all the nannies liked her best though.”
How the fuck did the comparison make sense? She still didn’t get it. “Why? Because he’s got that sexy, gravel voice thing going? Or because he’s fucking solitary except for Rae, Regan and you? ‘Cause I sure as fuck know it isn’t because he’s some vigilante taking out the bad guys on some personal vendetta.”
She whistled at his comment about having to arrest his assistant chief. That would have been pretty serious. “I never thought you weren’t.” Because Stone was a good guy, and good guys were rarely bad people, in Bea’s experience.
“Oh whatever,” she threw back at him with a roll of her eyes. “I should’ve worded that differently. I know guys like looking good too. I knew this stylist, he was fucking straight as an arrow, but he could upstage anyone with how fucking put together he was.” It was too bad he’d also been a giant egomaniac, because he’d been really nice to look at too. She couldn’t figure out if the ‘you’ in his statement had been directed at her or if it was a generalization, but she didn’t want to put a ton of thought into it either. “No, but it’s a hell of a lot harder to make dirty jeans and a worn out t-shirt look good.” Not that she wore either of those things very often. If she did it was because she didn’t have anything else clean.
“Is that an offer to take me shopping, Stone?” she asked, another genuine smile on her face. “I haven’t made it out that far in Bedford, so I wouldn’t know, but hell, boutique’s are like fucking catnip for me.” She would need to remember to bring something back for Vienna too, since it was one of the few things they had in common.
She tilted her head, sizing him up a little. “You’d look fucking hot in a leather jacket. Probably made all the fucking women swoon and pant.” Probably wouldn’t serve to help her complicated thoughts either, if she caught him wearing one.