Offensive Behavior (Sidelined #1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

that night than the four nights before it combined. That sucked in a
good way.
    She was
last to leave the dressing room again because she stopped to rearrange her
costumes, taking stock of the sexier ones, the ones more like fetish wear than
fun and games, and packing what needed washing to take home.
    Lou had
agreed to letting the staff leave Lucky’s through the front door. She had a
feeling that rule wouldn’t stick, but it meant she didn’t spare a thought for meeting
trouble and she was mentally running a bath and adding the bubbles when she saw
him.
    Reid. Sitting
on the pavement with his long legs out in front, head slumped forward, his back
against the window of the Liquor Barn next door.
    Not her
problem. Not . She had sleep on her agenda, not drunk men.
    He
looked utterly useless. So don’t look . Watch for a cab instead. There
was usually a good steady flow of them. She looked back, he’d lifted his head,
but his eyes were closed. He was pale and sweating. His shirt was wet and so
was the front of his jeans. Was he so drunk he’d pissed himself?
    She
took half a dozen quick strides across the pavement and kicked the sole of his
boot. He grunted but didn’t stir. He smelled bad, but not of urine or spirits.
    “Get
up, Reid. You can’t stay here.” He mumbled something she didn’t care to
interpret. The palm of one of his hands was torn and bleeding. He’d had a fall.
She looked at the sky. He wasn’t her problem, then she kicked him again. “Get
up.”
    His
eyes opened but he had trouble fixing on her. “Not drunk.”
    “That’s
what all the good drunks say. You need to get home.”
    He
approximated a nod and she looked at him more carefully. He was sweating
profusely and it wasn’t a warm night.
    “Dizzy.”
    She
snorted. “You mean legless.”
    “Sick.”
    She
took a deep breath. That’s what she could smell, he’d barfed and tried to clean
himself up. “Did you eat from the menu tonight?” One of the kitchen hands had
been vomiting and got sent home.
    He
rolled his head on the window. “Yeah.”
    “Shit, you’ve
got food poisoning.”
    He
grunted assent.
    “Can
you get up? I’ll put you in a cab.”
    She
left him trying to get his limbs organized and waved a cab down. The driver
looked at her, looked at Reid, shook his head and drove off.
    “Hey!”
she yelled after him. But then another driver pulled over and Reid had made it
upright. She took his arm and led him to the curb and pushed him into the
backseat, where he seemed to pass out.
    “You’re
coming too or he’s out,” said the driver.
    “I’m only
the Good Samaritan. I don’t know him.”
    “Well
I’m an Arab infidel, and my tea-leaf reader is in the shop for repairs. I don’t
know where he lives and he’s cramping my style.”
    She
leaned in and shoved Reid till he rolled on one hip and she could get his
wallet out of his back pocket. On another occasion she might’ve noticed he had
a very nice ass.
    “In or
you’re both out,” said the driver.
    “Aarrgh.”
She wedged herself into the seat beside Reid and read out the address on his
driver’s license. He had a couple of fifties and hundred dollar bills in his
wallet, more than enough for this cab. She’d drop him off and continue on home,
call herself a superhero for saving someone’s butt after all.
    His
place was only a five-minute ride away. Total swank job. A South Beach
warehouse conversion, all steel and glass and nothing like she expected from a
man who seemed as if he’d left good times behind. But for all its imposing
grandeur and probable view of the bay, dropping him at the hospital might’ve
been a better idea.
    The
driver shifted eyes up in the mirror. “He your boyfriend?”
    “Nope. Don’t
know him from Adam.”
    The
driver sighed. “I’ll help you get him to his door.”
    “You
are a Good Samaritan.”
    “No, I
want my backseat available and there’s no way you, tiny person, can get him home
alone by