“Wait—you have a Syradog?” Oliver breathed down her neck.
She shivered, remembering all too well how those lips felt against her skin and elsewhere. Yeah, she was a glutton for punishment when it came to him and she wanted to be over it.
“Back up and give me some space.” She focused on the screen, intent on making the most of her power-ups and the monster’s special moves.
“Damn, if that wasn’t my team I’d be impressed.” Oliver stood next to her and started tapping at his phone, no doubt in a vain attempt to help buff up their score.
“Oh, but because I’m on the winning team, you can’t possibly be impressed with my skills.” Or, her poor, sad, pathetic attempts to do something with her life these last few weeks.
“Oh, I’m impressed, I just can’t let you win.”
“As if you can stop me. Step back, take a number, I’ll kick your ass next.”
“Big talk for a little girl.”
“Little? Really? Please.”
She hadn’t been little since she was ten. Like the rest of the women in her family, she’d been blessed with early maturity and curves. Sometimes too many of them.
Sam pushed thoughts of Oliver out of her mind and focused on the next battle round. The Xnorlas was an unusual monster.
Hm.
What to use?
“Hey, Sam?” Oliver nudged her with his elbow.
“Stop,” she snapped.
Damn him. Why couldn’t he go do his own thing and leave her alone?
“Oops, sorry,” he said.
“Yeah, I bet you are.”
“That Fastbro is sick.”
“Watch me kick its ass.”
The Xnorlas went down, but took her Nolteoj down to nearly being completely knocked out. The Fastbro was the one that worried her. The duh option was to use her Bacon-Plant, but she needed him for the final battle.
It was time for a split-second decision.
Sam tapped in her Renusaur.
“Holy shit—thirty-five hundred?” Oliver was watching over her shoulder.
“Back it up.” She nudged him in the ribs with her elbow and furiously tapped at her screen.
“What level are you?”
Shit. The Fastbro had her Renusaur on the ropes.
Not good.
She waited unit the Renusaur had a full power charge and blasted the Fastbro to dust.
Victory was nigh.
Sam rolled her head and tapped in her Bacon-Plant. That Naporeov was going down.
“Holy shit…holy shit!” Oliver shouldn’t be so excited about her soundly trouncing his team, but he seemed ecstatic about her progress.
After the round with the Fastbro, the Renusaur never stood a chance. Her Bacon-Plant was too powerful and really, grass beat water in this game every time. It was all about having a well-rounded Monster Squad to choose from.
Just like that, the blue team’s hold over the White House dojo crumbled.
Her teammates were on hand to claim it for the red team and quickly filled the slots with their most powerful monsters.
Sam took a deep breath and smiled. Yes, she was a thirty-year-old woman who had probably just mopped the floor with a fourteen year old. It still felt good. Except Oliver was there to once again witness her in all her nerd-dom. Next to him, she’d always be that geeky girl, no matter how she dressed up. She was still Smarty-Pants Sam.
2.
Oliver grinned at Sam. She wasn’t the Grant girl he would expect to play Monster- Go, but it didn’t surprise him, either. She was the best of all her family in one, delightful package.
“What are you looking at?” Sam gave him the side eye and pocketed her phone.
“You look beautiful tonight.” And she did. Her hair was glossier than usual up in a sophisticated bun-thing that that left her long neck on display. He was willing to bet she’d put on some sort of lotion that made her dark-brown skin gleam. Or it could be sweat. Damn, but it was hot out here.
“Yeah, okay.” She rolled her eyes and turned toward the balcony doors.
“Wait.” He reached out and grasped her wrist.
They both looked at his hand.
When was the last time he’d touched her?
He couldn’t remember.
Whenever her father insisted he come over for their family dinners, Sam avoided him or made some excuse not to be there. The last time he’d touched her… must have been when her aunt had passed away. Shit. Sam had permitted a side-hug. There’d been an hour there, alone on a cemetery bench, when they’d talked. Really talked. Ever since then his actions, how he’d broken her heart, had begun weighing on him worse.
“Oliver?”
“Yeah?” He slid his fingers down to twine with hers, but it was only him holding on.
“Let go of me, now.”
“Can we talk?” He squeezed her hand briefly, then let go. “Please?”
“What could you possibly have to say to me?” She rolled her eyes and planted a hand on her hip, so much like Rashae in the moment.
He had to pause and appreciate just how much Sam had blossomed. Ten years ago…she’d been shy. Uncertain. Oh, every now and then he’d glimpsed this woman, but she hadn’t grown into herself. Yet. But she had now. And she was magnificent.
“Are we ever going to be okay?” he asked.
“We are okay.”
“No, we’re not.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do.” He stared at her, daring her to pretend their history didn’t exist.
“That’s the past, Oliver.”
“And the past dictates our future?”
“Not if you let it.” She crossed her arms under her breasts.
“Sam, we haven’t been okay since college.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“And yet, when I see you, it could have been yesterday.”
Sam visibly flinched and took a step away from him.
This wasn’t what he’d meant to say. It just came out. Where Sam was concerned, things were never what they were supposed to be.
She should have been his high school friend’s little sister. Period. But he’d never wanted to be friends with Sam. Not once he really got to know her.
Rashae had asked him to look out for Sam in college, and what had he done? He’d taken her out a few times, fucked her, and then broken up with her. Sure, he’d had his reasons, but they didn’t matter. Not when he looked at her now and saw the chasm between them.
He wanted to bridge it. Even if all it meant was that they could be friendly again. He’d settle for that, because he didn’t deserve more.
“Sam…”
“No.” She held up her hand. “You do not get to bring that up here.”
“Then when?”
“How about never?” She whispered the words and took a step closer. He reckoned he had about sixty seconds before she decked him. Sam was more like Rashae than expected.
A few people strolled out onto the balcony with them.
Shit.
He shifted, putting himself between her and the other people.
Oliver and Sam couldn’t appear to be having anything more than a conversation. People in these circles loved to gossip and Sam was a hot topic already.
“Sam, I never wanted to hurt you.”
“Really? That’s rich.”
“My father—”
“Did not want you dating me. I know. I heard.” She stepped around him. Or tried to.
“No. No that’s not what happened.” He moved with her, boxing her in against the stone railing.
“Oliver…”
If looks could kill, he’d have been dead ten different ways already, but he had to tell her this much of the truth.
“You’re right. My dad is a dick, but he’s not me. His mistress…his latest flavor was blackmailing him. Using me. I didn’t want you to get involved.”
“Blackmailing him? Really?” Sam’s gaze narrowed.
“I know about escorts and the whole thing. Save me the explanation.” Sam held up her hand.
“She was a woman he met at a restaurant. Turns out she was the sister of the wife of a big-time drug trafficker from South America. She wanted dad to help them get drugs into the country on his diplomatic flights back and forth. They were bad people, Sam. Really bad.”
“And why not tell me then?”
“I was young, stupid, and in love.”
“Yeah. Right. In love.” Again she rolled her eyes.
“You don’t think I loved you?” Had never stopped caring for her. Maybe even loved her still.
“I think we were young. It was college and we spent a lot of time together. Hormones and alcohol were a bad mix, and we made mistakes.”
“You think we were a mistake?”
“Of course. I’m that oopsie you’ve never told anyone about, right?”
“That’s—no.”
“Oliver, what is it you want? Do you want for me to say it’s okay? We can be friends? Or what? Because I’m really not interested in continuing this conversation. We can be polite to each other. We can even ask how each other is doing. But we will never be friends. And we will never be okay.”
“Nothing. I guess…never mind.”
Oliver stepped back and Sam didn’t waste a second walking away from him. And how could he blame her? It wasn’t like he’d ever tried to fix things. Because when they were at odds, she was safe from him. From his father’s enemies. And now…there was too much history.
He leaned against the stone railing and sighed. In a perfect world, Sam forgave him. They talked. They hung out. And yeah, eventually he made a move and finally—finally—they’d have a real chance at being together. He wasn’t living in his father’s shadow any longer. He was a nationalized citizen, on his own. The one thing he didn’t have was Sam. And all the MonsterBalls in the world couldn’t capture her.
What the hell kind of lies was Oliver trying to spoon feed her?
Samantha kept her head up, back straight. What was it Rashae said? Envision a butterfly and be a butterfly?
Her middle sister was utterly at ease anywhere and everywhere. She had a confidence Sam desperately wished she could buy off a shelf. When she was doing her job, in front of people or cameras, it was one thing. Here, right now, she had zero composure.
There.
She crossed the room to where her mother and father were standing with their heads together in a rare private moment. Her father caught sight of her and glanced up first.
Wait—what was she going to say to them? What could she say to them?
“Is it true Oliver’s father was blackmailed while he was ambassador, by his mistress, when we were in college?” Sam kept her voice pitched low. She wasn’t stupid, or at least not completely.
This was not the place to have this conversation, but she needed to know. Right now.
Her father glanced away, no doubt scanning the room to see who was nearby, who might overhear, who could have told her. This was highly inappropriate. She shouldn’t ask, much less know, about this, but…Oliver. Her father briefly exchanged looks with her mother practically over her head. Like she was a toddler.
“Sam, I need to powder my nose. Join me?” Helen Grant looped her arm through Sam’s and as smoothly as any woman could, guided her out of the ballroom, down the hall.
They passed the restrooms and kept going.
“Who told you about Oliver’s father?” her mother asked when they were nearly on the other side of the building.
“Oliver did.”
“Why would he do a thing like that?” Helen paused in front of a beautiful stained glass window and pretended to examine it. Though maybe she was. One of her hobbies was collecting and repairing the windows to preserve them.
“Because…” Shit. What answer could Sam give? “Because we were in college and we had a class together that semester it happened, I guess. We were partners on a project and…he traded with someone. It wasn’t really a big deal. I guess he thought it hurt my feelings, and he should apologize for it. Ten years later.”
“That’s Oliver.” Helen shook her head and smiled.
Sam hated the way her stomach rolled with jealousy.
She knew her parents loved her. They had big hearts. But why did they have to take in and love the man who’d broken hers?
“Between us?” Helen glanced at her, one brow arched.
Sam nodded.
“Mr. Falcón had many vices. Women were one of them, and they got him into a lot of trouble before and after his stint as ambassador. On more than one occasion, Oliver has had to bear the brunt of his father’s…poor judgment.”
Sam nodded, reading between the lines.
Mr. Falcón had stepped in shit, and someone else cleaned it up. Someone who probably didn’t want people to remember the events or what had transpired later. Oliver had at least three half-siblings in the DC area alone. He’d mentioned before that his father had paid the women to go away. He didn’t have any contact with his half-siblings either.
“So Oliver…?”
“Is a young man who has been through things that would have broken a weaker man. It’s why your father trusts him so much.”
“Oh.”
“Does that answer your question?”
“Yes. And no. Mostly yes.”
Oliver had hurt her in order to protect her in some weird way she didn’t fully understand. At the time, her father had been a second-term Senator. She didn’t know what danger Mr. Falcón’s mistress could have posed to her, or what it would have mattered if Sam and Oliver had been dating. The pieces were too jumbled. Nothing fit. The answers and questions didn’t line up.
Was it because Oliver might have been ashamed of her? Now, was she a rung on the ladder to her father’s good graces? It was a plausible reason, and were it someone other than Oliver, it might stick. But Oliver…wasn’t like that. He might not be her favorite person, but she could freely admit that he wasn’t a bad guy. Not that she’d say that to his face, but it was the truth.
“Good.” Sam’s mother turned, sweeping her along with an arm around Sam’s waist. “There’s a few people I’d like for you to meet.”
Inwardly, Sam groaned.
People I’d like for you to meet were always young, single men. Her parents believed she had her career firmly in hand despite this hiccup, and the only assistance she needed now was in getting married and in populating the earth. Because that was the only thing she hadn’t accomplished in life already.
Sam packed in her concerns, shook hands, smiled, and pretended to listen to every charming young man her mother introduced her to. They were, to a one, intelligent, educated, well-liked.
But none of them were Oliver.
How could he put her back into the mindset of being eighteen and lovesick for a guy she’d known most of her life?
The party stretched on into the evening. The hour was late by the time she was able to slip away, back out onto the balcony in an effort to clear her head.
It was cooler without the sun beating down trying to roast her, but not the relief she wanted.
Sam half-heartedly checked the dojo standings. She was still firmly on top of the rankings. Judging by the dojo’s current score, someone from her team was in range and working on bolstering their chances of keeping the dojo.
“Oh, sorry, didn’t know you were out here.”
Sam’s breath caught in her throat at the sound of his voice.
She turned, catching his silhouette out of the corner of her eye.
“It’s a free country,” she said.
Oliver hesitated.
Did she want him to leave? Or did she want him to stay?
Sam didn’t know.
For her health, for her sanity, she needed to be as far from him as possible. Spendi
ng any time around him would remind her of the reasons why she liked Oliver. And yet…her heart had never given up the torch.
Oliver walked toward her, no hurry in his step, hands in his pockets, and leaned a hip against the railing.
“You have an impressive command.”
“Checking up on me now?” she asked.
“It’s just friendly competition.”
She rolled her eyes. “Competition is never friendly with you.”
Oliver was a jock’s jock. He lived for competition. It didn’t matter if it was sports or a dare, he had to win.
Which was how it’d all started.
She’d wanted to fit in so badly in college, but she’d been painfully shy. Something Rashae knew, so, of course, she’d asked Oliver to keep an eye on her. And when she’d been challenged to hook an upper classmen as part of her sorority pledge week…she’d just about died. Until Oliver saved her, stole her virginity, and broke her heart.
No, that was unfair.
Yes, he’d kissed her, but she’d kissed him back. She might have been young and inexperienced, but even then she’d known what chemistry was. That special zing of attraction. They’d had it. But sparks weren’t enough.
“Sorry.” Oliver tapped his knuckles against the stone railing. “I’ll—”
“What did she have on you that was so bad it would hurt me?”
Oliver stared at her, a strange look crossing his face. She couldn’t place it. It wasn’t friendly or kind…it was almost scary.
“Pictures,” he said.
Pictures…
Sam swallowed.
Pictures.
Oh, God.
Her knees went a little weak.
“You’re right. I probably should have told you then, I just…” Oliver sighed.
The pieces clicked together.
The daughter of a conservative Senator photographed in a compromising position wasn’t earth shattering. But the rest of the world didn’t have her father. And if her father had seen them…it would break his heart, even as he told her he forgave her.
And Oliver. He hadn’t just saved her, he’d saved her father.
Sam’s resolve to be angry, to hate Oliver, to keep her distance, all the reasons why she couldn’t stand him, that wall she’d erected between them over the years, came crumbling down.
The Jock and the Geek (Gone Geek Book 3) Page 2
