Leaving his suitcase and backpack in the living room, he sat down at the table and helped himself. “Dude, don’t worry. I won’t be here long.”
He speaks! “Oh, I wasn’t worried.”
“Joanne’s just got a bug up her right now.”
“You call your mom Joanne?”
“Now I do.” He shrugged. “And I call my dad Matt. Those are their names.”
“Sure. Right.”
He finished chewing, wiped at his lips and narrowed his eyes. “Are you Matt’s girlfriend?”
“No!”
Dear Lord, had she just shouted at the poor kid? No need to protest so strongly. She took a deep breath and spoke softly. “Your dad and I... Matt and I are just good friends. He works for my brother.”
He seemed to accept that, nodding and going back to the pizza.
What luck that they were having pizza tonight and not, for instance, Indian food, one of her favorites, too. Pizza and teenagers were made for each other, were they not? Then again, what did she know about teenagers anymore? She’d been one once, about a decade ago. That was the sum of her experience.
Finally, a car door slammed outside. Matt walked inside the house, mouthed sorry to Sarah and turned to Hunter, who was now enjoying his third slice. “Seriously?”
He stopped eating long enough to glance up at Matt. “It was a joke.”
“Not a funny one.”
“Joanne is crazy. It was funny. You should have seen it.” He smirked a little.
Matt shoved a hand through his hair. She now recognized this as his completely frustrated and pissed-off look. She’d been on the other end of that expression a couple of times herself. Now she only wished she understood what either Matt or Hunter was talking about. On the other hand, this was clearly a family situation and she didn’t have a place in it.
“I’ll leave you two alone.” Sarah moved down the hall and toward her bedroom so they could have some privacy.
She just hadn’t expected that Matt would follow her in there.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MATT STILL COULDN’T believe it. Joanne had shown up, unannounced, and dropped Hunter off for an entire week. Sure, Hunter had made an idiotic decision, but bonehead move or not, this wasn’t the way to handle it. Matt wished he’d answered his phone earlier when she’d called and maybe he could have calmed her down. But by the time she’d pulled up in front of Sarah’s house, she’d reached a point of no return. There had been no talking her out of her decision.
Now Matt followed Sarah into her bedroom, where he’d spent all afternoon fixing the electrical. He shut the door. “Sorry about this.”
“What happened?”
“Hunter decided it would be a good idea to retweet a photo of Joanne’s boyfriend. A photo that one of his friends had Photoshopped.”
“What kind of Photoshopping did they do?”
Matt winced, wishing like hell he didn’t have to answer that question. “He’s on a minor-league team and I guess it was a photo of him with someone from the San Francisco rival team. Words coming from Chuck, implying that he believes his current team are losers. Joanne said his contract is up for renewal, too. Lousy timing and the thing went viral.”
Sarah’s hand flew up to her mouth and a little squeak came out.
Yeah. This was bad. And a great way to introduce her to Hunter. “Joanne’s going to fly down to Los Angeles where they’re playing to help him do damage control with his teammates.”
“It’s that bad?”
“No idea. She seems to think so.”
“Still, I can’t believe this.” Sarah lowered her voice. “He should be grounded. Have his phone privileges taken away. But dropping him off like this? I kind of feel sorry for him.”
Funny thing was, Matt did, too. He didn’t know where that had come from, but looking at Sarah’s expression now, he had the relief of realizing that it wasn’t just him who thought Joanne had overreacted. Then again, she really seemed to like Chuck and from the little Matt had heard, he was a decent guy.
“She’ll be gone till next Saturday. She’s been pushing for Hunter to spend weekends with me, and I’ve been working toward that, but this...”
Sarah didn’t say a word, just stared at him wide-eyed.
“I’ll go get us a motel room. We’ll be out of your hair in a couple of hours.” Matt opened the door.
He felt Sarah’s hand immediately come up against his back. “Wait. You’re leaving?”
“Well, we can’t stay here.”
“And why not?”
“It’s too much, Sarah. This wasn’t part of our deal.”
“It’s one week. I think I can handle that.”
“And every weekend from here on out this summer. She’s not waiting anymore.”
“Oh.”
Yep. Hello, beautiful. Meet single dad of teenage boy. Not so interested anymore, are you?
“Yeah.” He moved to the door.
“But that’s okay. We have another bedroom, and I just finished painting it. Hunter can stay there. There isn’t a bed right now but maybe he’d be okay with a good sleeping bag for now?”
Matt thought sleeping on the floor was the least that Hunter deserved for pulling this stunt. Sarah appeared to be sincere. Given that she hadn’t always given him the idea that she was particularly warm to strangers, he could see this would be a stretch for her.
“It’s a whole week with a teenager who’s not in a good place.” He met her eyes, wanting to get across just how bad this could get.
“I understand.”
Matt didn’t like this at all. He hated to impose. But the cost of a hotel room also weighed heavy on his mind, and he’d already made plans for a good chunk of his change going to buy materials to finish the remodeling. “It’s not fair to ask you to take both me and Hunter on.”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering.” She pulled on his arm.
“You sure?”
“Of course. Remember what I said. This is your house, too.” Her lips tugged in a half smile.
As if he would forget anytime soon that she’d forced him into accepting fifteen percent of the house. But right now, her quiet assurance and genuine acceptance had switched his disgusted mood in a way he hadn’t expected. His body no longer felt coiled up tight with frustration. Sarah had him relaxed again. Comfortable.
Unfortunately, she also had a way of reminding him he was a flesh-and-blood man first and foremost. Not just a father, but a man with a crazy and intense attraction to his best friend’s sister.
He nodded his agreement and didn’t say another word, because he was afraid if he opened his mouth it would be to kiss her.
* * *
HOLY SHIT, THIS pizza was good. Hunter had this kind of pizza before at his friend Mike’s house. Joanne never ordered from Pizza My Heart. She said it was too unhealthy and Hunter was a “growing boy” so it wouldn’t hurt to develop good eating habits now. His mom was about as fun as a swimming pool filled with concrete.
He’d already almost inhaled the pizza whole when he decided he should slow down. Maybe Matt and his girlfriend might want some.
As usual, Joanne had overreacted. The tweet had traveled fast and one of Chuck’s teammates had seen it. Probably laughed his ass off too, but then the teammate told Chuck about it. When Joanne had practically broken his bedroom door down to ask him if he knew anything about it, Hunter had lied through his teeth. It hadn’t worked. She’d wrestled the phone out of his hands and told him she’d already checked his Twitter account. It had become hard to argue with her after that, not that she’d been listening to him or anything.
He hadn’t made the damn meme, he’d just retweeted it. Was it his fault that the tweet had started to trend before someone pulled it down? It was a little
bit of fun, if only someone would grow a sense of humor. Still, Hunter wished he’d thought about it more. He hadn’t expected she would just take off for an entire week and leave him here with Matt. Hunter didn’t even really know Matt anymore.
Hunter used to see his dad once a year, but the last time he’d seen him before he left the Air Force months ago had been two years ago when he’d been thirteen. A little kid. Things were different then.
Matt walked back into the kitchen without Sarah. Hunter reconsidered taking another pizza slice and put it down. He’d left two slices for Matt and his non-girlfriend. Grown-ups had to watch their cholesterol, anyway.
“Sorry about interrupting your Saturday night.”
“That’s not your fault,” Matt said and took a seat.
“Maybe, but tell your girlfriend I’m sorry anyway.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“For real?” Sarah wasn’t lying to him?
“She’s a good friend and I’m helping her renovate this house. She’s from Colorado and she’ll be going back when she sells the house.”
Matt didn’t seem to be lying. In-te-res-ting.
“I can always stay with a friend. Joanne wouldn’t listen to me, but she wouldn’t have to know about it.”
“No.” Matt ran a hand down his face, like he was kind of PO’d.
Probably at Hunter, when Matt should rightfully be pissed at Joanne. “Joanne only left me here because she’s pissed. It isn’t because she thinks you’re such a great dad.”
Matt seemed to ignore that. “Why are you calling her Joanne all of a sudden?”
“I call you Matt.” He shrugged.
“Your mom said she’ll call you tomorrow. When she’s cooled off.”
“On what phone?” Grown-ups were so stupid.
“On mine.”
“So I’m going to be with you 24/7?”
“We’re talking about a week.”
Might as well be forever, but yeah. “Could I at least text my friends and let them know I’m offline for a while? She wouldn’t even let me do that.”
“Make it quick.” Matt handed over his phone. “Why did you do it?”
Hunter looked up from the group text he was writing to all his friends. Joanne hadn’t even asked him that. Fact was, Hunter didn’t really know. “Why not? It was hella funny.”
“To mess with Chuck’s career?”
“Again, it wasn’t my tweet. It was my friend’s. I thought it was funny.” Hunter realized that he didn’t have any of his friend’s phone numbers memorized. Never had to. He went to Twitter and instead sent a direct message to Trent. Best he could do.
Matt shoved a hand through his hair again. It was kind of long. Hunter wondered if girls liked long hair better than short. He kept his short to look like a badass. Maybe that wasn’t working for Hunter.
“Look, I realize you might not like having Chuck in your mom’s life, but she seems to like Chuck a lot.”
“I don’t care that she has a boyfriend.”
“Even if you feel ignored?”
“I wish.” Hunter pointed to the pizza slices left. “Are you going to eat that?”
“Go ahead,” Matt said, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed.
Hunter didn’t waste any time, picking up another slice. “What about your girl—?”
She came in the kitchen hauling a sleeping bag and a pillow with her. “I found a nice comfy sleeping bag. And you can have one of my pillows, too.”
Hunter stared at her. She’d changed out of the clothes she wore earlier when it looked like she’d been painting. Now she had on a short dress like the kind Joanne wore when she wanted to impress a guy.
Not Matt’s girlfriend my ass.
Matt stood up and took the sleeping bag and pillow from her. “Your room’s in here.”
Hunter wiped his hands on a paper towel, grabbed his bags and followed Matt down the short hallway. “Here?”
The room was brown. First the fence and now this. It seemed like this color would follow him everywhere this summer. Probably straight into his nightmares.
“There’s no bed, so I figured you could sleep on the floor for now. Kind of like camping.” Sarah smiled at him. “I just finished painting in here.”
“It’s brown,” Hunter said.
“Beige.”
Funny, she didn’t look happy about that, either.
Matt was cleaning up the paint trays and brushes against the far wall. “I’ll take the tape down tomorrow.”
“Oh, I’ll do that,” Sarah said and gave Matt a look like he was one of those actors Joanne was always drooling over.
Yeah, sure. Not his girlfriend. Like he would believe that. Again, grown-ups?
Stupid.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SUNDAY MORNING SARAH woke to the soft thrumming sound of her ceiling fan. Matt had finished putting it up yesterday. After thirty minutes of tossing and turning, she’d finally fallen asleep in the cool night air.
And dreamed of her father. He’d been about to board a plane and urged her to come along with him. She’d refused because she’d never much liked flying. Ironic since lately she was surrounded by people who loved to fly—Stone, Emily and Matt. Even her favorite customer, the Judge.
She wondered what the dream really meant. Her father, beckoning her to the plane. Planes meant fun and adventure to her father. But she had resisted. Was she still angry at him, or simply hurt she’d never been able to see him one last time? Either way, she wanted to get past the memories. It was time to move on.
She rolled over. No Shackles staring at her this morning. There were sounds coming from the kitchen. Matt had to be awake. He’d probably already fed Shackles and let him out a dozen times. Hopefully Hunter liked dogs. He hadn’t seemed too fond of Shackles last night, but then again he’d been a little preoccupied after being abandoned.
Because that’s exactly what Hunter’s mother had done, in Sarah’s opinion. What kind of mother chose a man over her son? Maybe a lonely one. Not like she didn’t know a little about lonely. She’d been single and alone for the past five years. But Sarah didn’t care what Hunter had done, he didn’t deserve his mother dropping him off with no warning. And Matt? If possible, Sarah felt even sorrier for him. Both he and Hunter had just learned how to swim and been thrown into the deep end of the pool. She couldn’t let Matt do this alone. Couldn’t send him off to a motel room so they’d both be out of her house. Because she didn’t want that. No, she wanted them both here with her. Why, she wasn’t entirely sure. They had one bathroom. She was supposed to share a bathroom with Matt and a teenage boy for a week.
What had she been thinking? And it wasn’t as though she’d spent much time around kids. But the way Hunter had gone for that pizza last night brought back memories of her old boyfriends back in high school. Teenage boys tended to eat huge quantities. She’d go to the store today and load up on snacks he might like. Maybe then he’d crack a real smile. Surely he could survive without his phone.
What did teenage boys like these days, anyway?
She didn’t know, but she’d find out. Sarah swung her legs out of bed and proceeded to get fully dressed so she could go take a shower. Fortunately she already had the panties-and-bras and running-naked-out-of-the-shower disasters in her rearview mirror. The night before, she’d carried a stack of towels into the bathroom and put them under the cabinet and on every available surface. Just to be on the safe side.
When she walked into the kitchen, Matt had his back to her. He wore jeans and a dark blue loose shirt, but she could still see the muscles in his back bunch up as he worked over the stove. The smell of pancakes, bacon and coffee teased her stomach. Hunter sat at the table bent over a stack of pancakes. When she walked into the room he glanced up for only a se
cond. Odd. Didn’t teenage boys sleep till at least noon?
“Morning,” Sarah said, going for the coffee carafe.
She poured coffee, and out of the corner of her eye caught Hunter slip Shackles a piece of bacon. Of course, Shackles left the room with his bounty.
“Do you also want some of my famous coconut pancakes?” Matt asked.
He hadn’t shaved yet, and those dark bristles on his jawline and chin made something ping low in her belly. Then he grinned and the ping became a pang.
“Sure.” Safe answer. Not Sure, meet me in the shower. Just plain, safe Sure.
She grabbed her coffee mug and took a seat next to Matt’s progeny. “How’d you sleep?”
“Yeah, great. Until six o’clock when Matt woke me up.” Hunter scowled at his father.
“The floor was too hard, anyway.” Matt slid a plate of pancakes in front of Sarah. “Might as well get up. Right, Hunter?”
“We should search this house for an inflatable mattress. I think there might be one somewhere around here. My father was a bit of a pack rat,” Sarah offered by way of explanation. “No telling what we’ll find around here.”
They’d hauled away a lot of junk but she was still finding things that surprised her. Once, she’d found a coffee can of receipts so old the ink had worn off them. Some things were easy to throw away. Others, not so much.
“I’m cool,” Hunter said. “I don’t mind the floor.”
Shackles had returned to beg for more. Hunter picked up another piece of bacon, then looked to Sarah as if asking her permission.
She nodded and made an effort at a smile. Shackles left the room with his food. “He usually doesn’t eat when someone is watching.”
“Weird,” Hunter said and took another mouthful of pancakes.
Not a problem he shared with Shackles, obviously.
“I’ll get you one of those throwaway phones today,” Matt said to Hunter.
“Like the kind the drug dealers have?”
“Like the kind with no internet access.” Matt went back to the stove, the irritation heavy in his tone.
Airman to the Rescue Page 9
