“So why did you become a vegetarian?” she asked.
“Nope,” I said. “You grilled me about cage fighting last time. It’s my turn to annoy you with questions.”
“Ugh!” Tria groaned, and I laughed.
“Why did you decide to move here?” I asked. I shoved the tips of my fingers into the front pockets of my jeans and kicked a chunk of cement into the center of the road with the toe of my tennis shoe.
“I told you—I’m going to school.”
“Yeah, but why here?” I asked.
“Hoffman College gave me the best deal,” she said with a shrug. “Aside from the financial aid and scholarship, they have a service that will come and pick me up to get to classes.”
“You’re going to Hoffman?” I tried not to sound too shocked.
“Yes,” she affirmed. “Why?”
“You just hadn’t mentioned it before,” I replied nonchalantly as images of the tall brick buildings filled my head. I remembered the ladies in the alumni center who would always give me candy when I accompanied my mom on one of her visits. “It’s a pretty small school.”
“That’s one of the things I liked about it,” Tria said. “It’s actually family-owned and gives more money in scholarships than other programs. The econ department is really well known as well.”
There would be no argument there—Hoffman College was quite well known for a few of their programs. I hadn’t really heard about the economics department before, but I also didn’t pay much attention to that shit when I was a kid.
We continued along the sidewalk past the back side of Feet First and around the corner toward our street. When I looked up, there were two guys heading toward us, and I heard Tria let out a long breath. Glancing over at her, I could see the muscles in her arm tense as her fingers gripped the strap of her bag, and she moved a half step closer to me.
I was pissed that they had scared her even though I knew they were only walking at this point. I looked ahead, trying to determine if I had ever seen them before, but they didn’t look familiar. They certainly weren’t part of the group that went after her a couple of weeks ago—I was sure of that.
With a quick side step, I moved behind Tria to stand on the other side of her so the two guys would pass us beside me, not her. They didn’t even stop their conversation as they walked by, but Tria relaxed immediately after they passed.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“No worries,” I replied. She was still gripping her purse tightly. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Just remembering.”
“Well, don’t,” I suggested. Tilting my head to look over at her, I offered her a goofy half smile. She returned one of her own, so the desired effect was attained.
“Thank you,” she said again. “I mean, for the other night. I don’t think I ever really properly thanked you.”
“You were kinda in shock,” I reminded her. “Don’t worry about it.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” she told me. “You didn’t have to go after those guys and risk yourself for—”
I interrupted her with a sharp laugh.
“Risk myself? With those douchebags? Hardly.”
“Still,” she continued, “you got into a fight for someone you didn’t even know.”
“I like fighting,” I told her. “I like to beat people up. It’s what I do for a living, you might recall.”
“I remember.” She sighed and her nose wrinkled up a bit. “The point is still the same—thank you for rescuing me.”
“I was in the neighborhood.” I shrugged and offered her another half smile. She looked back down at her feet and shook her head a little before looking back at me. Her large brown eyes darted back and forth between mine.
“And for doing all of this,” she said with a wave of her arm. “You don’t have to do this—walk me home every night, especially when I get off so late. I wasn’t expecting you to do this, but I’m not even sure if Stan is going to hire another server at this point, and—”
“Tria, don’t worry about it,” I told her. “I only work two nights a week, and I stay up late every night. If I wasn’t doing this, I’d be sitting in front of the TV, trying to figure out why people watch the shit that is on there.”