Jameson (Face-Off Series Book 4)

by Jillian Quinn

  “I’ve mentioned it to her a few times,” I say, edging closer to where we will place our order. “She doesn’t listen to anything I say. I’m hoping at some point it will all sink in, especially with Alex on the road for the playoffs.”

  Regan’s face lights up. “I’m really impressed how they’re playing right now. My dad stopped by my office before I left to meet you, and he was the happiest I’d seen him in a long time. I hope they make it past this round. This city really needs a win.”

  “Charlie is planning to go to their next home game.”

  “You should come with her,” she says, hopeful. “And if you don’t have a ticket, I can get you one.”

  “If you’ll be there, I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Are you ready to order or what?” A guy asks us in a thick South Philly accent.

  Startled, I spin around to face him. I point to Regan after I’m done, and she orders a sausage and peppers sandwich, which doesn’t shock me one bit. Most girls would eat something less…messy. But that’s the kind of sandwich Charlie would get, so it’s no surprise that Regan does the same. They have so many similarities, yet so many differences. That’s why I feel so comfortable around Regan.

  “It’s been ages since my dad has had the time to come here with me.” Regan grazes her hand against mine. “When I first moved to Philly, we’d come here all the time if he could peel himself away. But now, I see him once a week, sometimes, once a month, if I’m lucky, and we work in the same building.”

  Her voice trails off along with the conversation. I don’t have parents or remember what it was like to have them. That part of my life is such a faint memory at this point. All I can recall are empty bottles of alcohol, overfilled ashtrays stuffed with cigarettes and cigars, red-and-blue flashing lights, and the first foster home that followed all of the drama. Everything else I have blocked from memory.

  Once we get our food, Regan rolls her eyes at the small seating area, annoyed. “Where are we going to eat?”

  I peek at the lack of seating and sigh. “Did you drive here?”

  “No, I wish. If I had, we could eat in my car.”

  Shrugging my suit jacket off my shoulders, I lay it on my forearm, grab our sandwiches from the counter after I pay, and steer Regan toward the sidewalk.

  “I have an idea,” I announce, even though I’m not so sure it’s such a great one. But we have no other options.

  Dropping my jacket to the ground, right at the edge of the curb, I flatten it out to give Regan enough room to sit down. “There, all better. I know this isn’t The Palm or whatever you’re probably used to, but this will have to do for now.”

  She laughs. “The Palm? Jameson, you have me figured all wrong if you think I’m that kind of girl.”

  “Well, I have to assume that your dad is not taking you to Denny’s for lunch, and The Palm was the first swanky restaurant that had come to mind.”

  “That’s not even that fancy,” she says, plopping down on the ground.

  “Oh, excuse me, rich girl,” I say, mocking her.

  She laughs, not the least bit phased by my joke.

  I take a seat next to her and hand over the sausage and peppers sandwich. We open the paper and place the food in our laps, balancing it on our thighs. This wasn’t the date I had in mind when I’d asked Regan to meet me here. In fact, I’m a little embarrassed that this turned out to be such a fail. But she doesn’t seem to mind that we’re sitting on the curb, the exhaust fumes billowing around our heads as cars pass.

  Eating half the cheesesteak in a few bites, I have grease sliding out from the corner of my mouth. I attempt to wipe it with a napkin before Regan notices. Too bad she’s already looking over at me, as I clean my face.

  “You missed a spot.” Regan leans over, and with her napkin, she wipes the rest from the corner of my mouth.

  I tense a little from her touch, avoiding her gaze for a few seconds.

  “Just as handsome as before.” She doesn’t say another word, and neither do I.

  She bites into her sandwich, groaning in delight with each bite. The sounds she makes cause me to chuckle under my breath. But she doesn’t seem to notice, too consumed with how good her food tastes. For close to five minutes, we sit and enjoy each other’s company. This is nice. It’s not often you get the chance to do something so laid back with a woman, and on a date nonetheless.

  After I finish the cheesesteak, I crumble the paper in my hand and look to Regan, who has just taken her last bite. I hold out my palm for her to give me her trash, and she does without a word. I push myself up from the ground, find a garbage can, and then sit back to down next to her.

  “Sorry, this sucked so much. I’m sure when you’d asked me for three dates this was not what you had in mind.”

  “This was perfect, Dimples,” she says, joking. “Any time I get to spend with you is better than none at all. I will take what I can get. Between your schedule and mine, we will probably have many dates similar to this one. It’s unfortunate, I know, but some things are out of our control.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re not pissed, Foxy.” I wink as I say the nickname I decided to give her the other night. “I don’t know many girls who would settle for eating on the ground outside a takeout restaurant.”

  “I’m not like most girls. You should know that by now. I grew up mostly around men. I hardly ever had any friends that were girls. This is not the first time I sat on the ground to eat a meal, and it certainly won’t be the last, especially when it comes to you.”

  “I guess anything I plan for our next date will be better than this one.”

  “Way to set the bar,” she says, nudging me in the side with her elbow. “We can only go up from here.”

  “That shouldn’t be too hard to do. I have a few things in mind for breakfast and dinner, if you don’t mind waiting until the end of the week. I wish I could do it sooner, but my schedule is killer.”

  “If all goes well with the Flyers tonight, they should be home in a few days for game six. How about we plan our next date around it?”

  “Charlie will be there, as well as Rico and thousands of other people, cheering in the stands. That might take the romance out of the equation for our dinner date.”

  Regan peeks up at me, with a closed mouth smile. “There’s nothing romantic about eating greasy sandwiches wrapped in paper on a street corner, but this was one of the best dates I’ve ever had.”

  “Now, I just feel sorry for you,” I say, with laughter in my voice. “Because while this is also one of the best dates I’ve ever been on, it’s not the nicest, by any means.”

  “Is that sad or what?” She deadpans. “I need to pick better guys, huh?”

  “You chose the right guy. I have to come up with something better. I hate that my job and Charlie take up so much of my day. And you have similar issues getting away from the office. We will make it work. I promise. I don’t care if I have to test my game in your office while we eat Chinese takeout.”

  That earns me a smile that reaches up to her wide, blue eyes. “This week is going to be hell for me if the Flyers force a game six.”

  “I can only image. The entire city will go insane. You won’t be able to go anywhere without a crowd of lunatics.”

  She leans forward, using her elbows to prop herself up on her knees and cups the side of her face with her hands. “My dad was already having a stoke about it earlier. Everything has to be perfect for their homecoming. He stressed that about a thousand times. Poor Murph was running around the building when I left like a chicken with his head cut off. My dad is driving him crazy along with everyone else on the staff.”

  “Win or lose, we will have another date this week. That much I can guarantee.”

  “We can recreate our first date,” she says, her tone serious.

  “This is our first date.”

  “Well, I guess it wasn’t our first date, but it was our first encounter.”

  Thinking about the night we had met, I la
ugh once. “You want to have nachos and soda for dinner?”

  “Who cares,” she says, nonchalant. “The dates are not about the quality of the meal or the location. They’re about us getting to know each other. Whether you realize it or not, that’s exactly what we’re doing right now.”

  “I’m glad we’re doing this. I like you more every time I see you. But I need to step up my game for our next date. Nachos will not do.”

  “You could always throw in a pretzel or hot dog,” she says, joking and with a wicked smirk.

  “Now, you’re talking, Foxy.” I wrap my arm around her back, taking in her sweet scent, as I hold her against my side. “I wish we weren’t in public right now.”

  She smiles up at me. “Why is that?”

  “Because I can’t stop thinking about what happens after our third date.”

  She blushes a few shades of pink to red, and I find it so damn adorable. “And here I thought you weren’t like other guys.”

  “Oh, I’m still that guy, but not in the bedroom.”

  “How soon can we plan the next two dates?” She attempts to hold back her laughter and fails. “This conversation is turning me on.”

  Me, too.

  Dipping my head down, I push her hair away from her face, taking her ear in my mouth to suck on it. My breath dots her skin with tiny bumps that I feel against my lips as I kiss my way to her neck. “We can start right now if you want.”

  “You’re a bad boy, Dimples.” She sucks in a deep breath and lets it out. “But people are starting to look at us.

  Peeling myself away from her, I stare into her eyes. “I just wanted to prove a point, and you said you were turned on. I thought I’d give you something to reflect on before you go back to work.”

  “Trust me, I will not forget this date.”

  I stand up and help Regan to her feet, planting a soft kiss on her lips that only lasts for a few seconds.

  “I have to get back to the office.” I give her hand a squeeze. “But we are finishing what we started this week.”

  “Good,” she says with a smile. “I will hold you to it.”

  Chapter 8

  Regan

  Men are idiots. Even the good guys like Jamie have moments where you stop to wonder if you’re missing something. Like the correct time for our breakfast date. Or the address of the restaurant. Well, if you can even call this place a restaurant. I’m not a picky eater, never have been. Jamie has this thing for hole-in-the-wall places with amazing food. So far, I’ve only shared one meal with him. Two if I count stealing nachos from him the night we met.

  Standing out front of the diner-like restaurant, I tap my foot impatiently on the sidewalk. Ten minutes ago, I thought I would be late for our date. Turns out being late when it comes to Jamie means you’re either on time or early.

  Exhaust fumes from the cars waiting at the red light billow around me, causing me to choke. The driver of an old Chevy revs the engine, as he stares across the passenger seat to size up the car next to him. What is it with the guys in Philly? They act as if they have something to prove and nothing to gain. Until I met Jamie, I had given up on the prospect of finding a man in this city.

  They’re either professional athletes, which is a non-starter for me, or a meathead—like the guys at the stoplight. But Jamie is nothing like either of those types. He’s just sporty enough that he speaks my lingo, though I bet I could beat him in a game of one-on-one. While I’m good at sports, he smoked my ass in video games.

  There’s something different about men like Jamie. When he cocks his head to the side in thought, something intelligent always follows, where with some of the guys I have dated, that same gesture would follow a question such as whether we should order our pizza with pepperoni or sausage.

  Jamie is my first deep thinker, which is sad the more I think about it. Really sad. I’m giving him a break on all the missed phone calls, late responses to text messages, and for bailing on the Flyers playoffs home game—because he’s not like the other guys. He wouldn’t cancel on me without cause. Or would he? I don’t know Jamie well enough to understand why he’s twenty minutes late without as much as a text or email.

  Lately, his messages are shorter, more along the lines of something has come up, or can we move our date to another day? We were supposed to meet this week to watch the Flyers game. Coach and Rico were there, cheering on our boys with me. They won at home, a huge victory for the team and the city. And Jamie missed it, all because he had to work.

  If anyone understands being overworked and having zero time for a social life, it’s me. I am the Queen of Distractions, always finding new projects to dive into so I can avoid having a real life. But that’s mostly because I have no life. Work takes precedence. At least that was the case before Jamie had waltzed into my life and made me feel something. For once. For him.

  Now, I’m standing around on a busy street corner, like an asshole, being stood up by an even bigger asshole.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I close my eyes and open them as I let it out, hoping Jamie will be here by the time that happens. Unfortunately, that shit only happens in the movies. Because when I look around me, I see nothing more than the typical morning rush of cars and people, passing by in a frenzy.

  With the Wells Fargo Center only a few minutes away, I finally call it quits and hail a cab. I open the door with an exaggerated sigh, taking one last peek before I slide into the car and shut the door behind me. After I give the driver the details, he hits the gas pedal so hard my back hits the vinyl seat with a thud. Talk about adding insult to injury.

  As if I wasn’t already down about Jamie standing me up, I can ice down my back along with my wounded ego, before I make my rounds to all the executives offices. Right as we reach the gate at Broad Street, my cell phone dings with a message.

  Jamie: I’m stuck in a meeting. I will make it up to you. I promise. Please don’t hate me.

  Taking a few seconds to think about my response, I bite down on my bottom lip and stare at my phone. If I didn’t like Jamie as much as I do, we would be having a much different discussion. No one stands me up. Not even hot nerds that do crazy things between my legs. Just thinking about Jamie and his kisses makes me wet in anticipation.

  Me: Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Meet me for lunch.

  The driver pulls into the large, open lot and swings around toward the side entrance. I pluck a twenty-dollar bill from my wallet and hand it over, thanking him as I exit the car. In that short amount of time, I get another message from Jamie.

  Jamie: Can you come to me? We can order takeout and play video games. It’s a working lunch, though. Are you down with that?

  Excited by the idea of seeing where Jamie works, I type out a quick response, telling him to send me the address, and shove the phone into my pocket, as I step inside the building.

  Jamie’s office reminds me of the one Tom Hanks had in the movie Big from the 80’s. While it’s large and fully furnished, with a perfect view of the city, it’s also full of toys, gadgets, and more electronics than I can even count.

  “Sorry about the mess,” Jamie says, with his hand on my back as he guides me into the room and shuts the door. “I don’t usually have company, and when I do, it’s just one of the guys on my team. Some of them are responsible for all this. I guess I’ll take credit for the other half.”

  Taking inventory of the space, I see at least four laptops, five computer monitors, six hard drives, and that’s just some of what’s on his desk. Covered with boxes of computer equipment, the couch by the window is useless to us. Thank God for the one across from it, or we would be eating on the floor.

  “It smells good in here.” I tip my nose in the air to get a better whiff of the savory herbs floating through the room. “What did you order for us?”

  He shrugs and steers me toward the couch that’s almost free of clutter. “I wasn’t sure what to get you since we’ve only eaten one meal together, so I had my secretary run down to Tony Luke’s
for us to get the same thing we ordered the other day.”

  Jamie lifts the scattered copies of PC Magazine and Wired from the sofa and throws them onto the large coffee table.

  “I’m surprised you have time to read those with how much you work,” I say, taking a seat on the dark leather cushion.

  He plops down next to me and leans forward to hand me my sandwich wrapped in paper, before settling in to peel back the wrapper on his cheesesteak. “I flip through them on occasion when I’m feeling uninspired and need some motivation. Sometimes, seeing new technology or reading the latest success story helps me get my shit together. This job isn’t like most. If I run out of creativity or get stuck on a line of code, I’m the person everyone will look to in order to fix it.”

  “I know what that’s like to some extent,” I say, chewing a bite of the sausage and peppers sandwich.

  A bit of sauce slides out from the corner of my mouth and down my face. Our food is greasy and not the easiest to eat on my lap. Focused on his food, Jamie takes two bites at a time, making sounds as he swallows it down. He acts as though it’s the first meal he’s had in days.

  If he’s worked as much as he says, then it might be possible. Jamie and I are kindred spirits, cut from the same cloth. I have gone whole days where I had forgotten to eat because I was so busy running around the building, worrying my ass off about an event going well.

  Glancing in his direction, I can’t stop staring at the dimple in his cheek. Every time I’m around him, I can’t help myself. I have to stick my finger inside the tiny crevice, which causes Jamie to turn his head. He smiles, or at least attempts to, because he has a mouth full of food.

  Finished in record timing, he crumples up the paper and drops it onto the wooden table in front of us. He removes my finger from his face and takes my hand in his.

  “I missed you this week,” he says, softly. “I’m really sorry about having to cancel on you so much. I swear I’m not normally this unreliable. Once we get this game off to the client, I will have a lot more free time.”