by Amy Knupp
“Stay for dinner,” she said, still perched on the edge of the cushion with her bum leg elevated, intent on getting him to agree. “We’ll get carryout. My treat. To say thanks.” She added that last bit hoping it would sway him.
He exhaled as he straightened, seeming to consider what she’d thrown out there as an order more than a proposal. “Plus you need someone to do the carrying out,” he said, the corners of his mouth tugging upward.
“I know people at Clayborne’s. I could get it delivered.”
He gazed down at her. Whether it was because they were away from work in a private place or because she’d just been hanging on to his neck like a damsel in distress, his uptightness from the past week had disappeared completely. Weekend Cole was back. “I’d planned to get you settled in, make sure you have whatever you need for the night,” he said finally. “I’ll pick up some food. And I’ll stay for dinner.”
Chapter Thirteen
It was becoming a pattern, Cole thought as he walked down the brick sidewalk of Hale Street toward Clayborne’s. Once again, he was choosing not to play it smart where a certain brunette was concerned.
He could’ve said no to dinner, but he’d meant what he said about making sure she had what she needed for the night. Because he couldn’t help being concerned for her, caring about her. He’d been attracted to her for years, but those blurred lines were fucking with his head, making him think it was more than physical.
Bottom line, he was staying for dinner because he wasn’t ready to go to his quiet apartment. Because he wanted to spend a little more time with Sierra.
While he’d borrowed her shower to get the work dirt off, fighting not to think too hard about her standing in that same space naked every day, afterward changing into clean jeans and a long-sleeved thermal shirt from his duffel, Sierra had called in their order. It still took several minutes once he got to Clayborne’s, due, in part, to the Friday after-work crowd that already filled the place. Since there was a band playing later tonight, it would only get worse. He waited by the counter, nodding at Ivy and Violet, who sat at a high-top table halfway across the room.
Thirty minutes later, he climbed the flight of stairs back to Sierra’s apartment. Before he let himself in, he paused outside her door for half a second, thinking how weird it was to let himself in anywhere besides his own place or his mom’s house. He’d not gotten that comfortable with anyone before, and he wasn’t sure he was comfortable with it now. With a shrug, he reminded himself he didn’t want Sierra getting off the couch and hopping across the room to open the door for him.
She looked up when he walked in, and the first thing he noticed was that she’d managed to shower and had a different ice pack on her ankle. Instead of her dusty work clothes, she wore yoga pants and a baggy hooded sweatshirt, nothing but the ice pack on her feet, and her hair was damp and down, falling over her shoulders. She was sitting with her legs stretched out on the sectional, perpendicular to the chaise, her back against the arm of it, facing him and the rest of the room. Her laptop, which he’d brought up before he left, was on her lap, and an almost-empty wineglass sat on a small mosaic table that angled over the cushion of the chaise, a dark, uncorked bottle next to it.
“You showered,” he said.
“You’re brilliant,” she popped right back, sitting up straighter, her eyes lit up like they hadn’t been when he’d left.
“Wet hair gave it away.” He set the food bag down on the end table next to the couch.
“No. I mean, you’re brilliant. This… The Eldridge thing…” She pointed at the laptop screen. “The changes you made… Your writing…” She sputtered like he hadn’t heard her sputter before, then shook her head. “We need to talk. There’s a story. But food…”
Evidently, she’d been reading the email he’d sent her that morning with his suggested changes to the Eldridge Mansion application. He suspected he knew what she was going to ask about, what story she was going to demand. Maybe she’d forget, be sidetracked by dinner.
As he walked into the kitchen area, he asked, “Where are the plates?”
She directed, “To the left of the sink. There might be a couple of beers in the back of the fridge, or you’re welcome to some wine. Or water or soda. Help yourself. I’d get it for you, but—”
“Don’t you dare.” He took another wineglass from the cabinet. He wasn’t a big wine drinker and knew he ran zero risk of overindulging.
He carried the plates, napkins, and the empty glass with him to the living area and sat on the opposite end of the couch from her, a few inches from her feet. As he unpacked the Styrofoam containers and distributed them, poured himself a glass of wine, and settled into the cushions to do some damage on his dinner, Sierra quizzed him on the Clayborne’s crowd and the preparations for the band. He learned she saw a lot of live bands at the bar down the block but that she wasn’t a big fan of the one playing tonight. He confessed it had been a couple of years since he’d been to any kind of concert.
And that, apparently, was the end of the small talk.
“So,” she said after eating her first few pretzel bites dipped in cheese sauce. “Your changes to the Eldridge application, the essays, they’re excellent. Huge improvement. Thank you,” she gushed.
“Welcome,” he said quietly, uncomfortably, turning his attention to his double burger.
“You’re a really good writer. Super talented. The way you took what I had and restructured it to make more sense… It’s amazing how well it flows now. I had the pertinent stuff kind of spewed out so that it all got on the page, but you made each one read almost like a story. That takes skills. And I see what you mean now about marketing. You were subtle but effective.”
His mouth was full, so he didn’t respond except for a single nod.
“You can shove that burger in your mouth all you want, but I still want to know some things,” she said.
When he’d swallowed the bite, he said, lightly, “Are we on the clock or off right now?”
“Gray area.” She took a sip of her wine, emptying the glass, then poured some more. “You’ve got uncanny math skills, you could do project managing effectively in your sleep, and you write like a freaking New York Times best seller. Why are you working construction, Cole?”
“Why are you?” he threw back at her even though he knew her reasons.
“It’s what I love,” she said simply, holding her wineglass up in front of her, seeming to have forgotten her food for now. “It’s in my blood. It’s my grandpa’s legacy. It’s what I burn to do. You know that. I’m not quiet about it.”
No, she wasn’t quiet about it, and her passion for restoring old buildings was part of her charm.
She unwrapped her ham and cheese melt, took a bite, and peered at him, waiting for his answer.
He ate a couple of fries, buying himself some time. Then he said, “Long story. Not very interesting.”
“Nice try. Will you tell me?” she said more quietly, less bossily. “Please?”
Maybe he could’ve kept refusing had she continued to be demanding, but the soft, interested plea… It wouldn’t kill him to rehash the past. Maybe it would even throw up an obstacle or two between them. Maybe once she got to know him better, she’d see him differently and back off. Maybe he didn’t truly want that, but it sure as shit would be wiser.
He crossed one ankle over the other knee, balanced his plate on his lap, set his burger down, his mind tumbling over the past, his life, a lot of bad stuff, a lot of things he wasn’t proud of.
“I chose not to go to college,” he finally said, skipping over years of drama. “My high school counselor claimed I could’ve gotten in anywhere—Ivy League, Berkeley, MIT. I narrowed it down to a handful, filled out the applications, wrote the essays. Never sent a single one in.”
When Sierra remained quiet, he glanced at her. She sat there expectantly, head tilted, eyes narrowed, waiting for more. And because he’d always wanted to give her what she wanted, he tipped his head b
ack, sucked in a deep breath, and decided to tell her. What the hell.
“I learned to read early,” he said hesitantly, “before preschool. And math… My mom says I was doing long division when I was four.”
“Wow. You’re one of those.”
“One of what?” he asked, that age-old pit-in-his-stomach feeling ramping up without his permission.
“Smarty-pants.” Sierra smiled, angled her head cutely, a long lock of damp hair falling over her cheek, distracting him from the pit feeling somewhat. “Brainiacs. Know-it-alls. Child geniuses.”
“I got called all those and more,” he said grimly. He’d never let anyone know, back then, how much those names bothered him. Was self-aware enough to understand that letting on that they bugged him would only make it worse, would encourage the names.
“I didn’t mean it as an insult,” Sierra said quickly. “High IQs are sexy.” The dip of her voice as she said that, the flirty sparkle in her eyes—that was sexy.
“Not when you’re seven,” he said, forcing himself to look away. “When you skip first grade and still get pulled out of class to go to ‘gifted’ sessions, people think you’re a freak.”
“Kids can be mean.”
“They came around pretty fast because they wanted me on their team in baseball during recess.”
“You played baseball?”
“My whole family played baseball. When my dad and uncle started North Brothers Sports in the seventies, it was a specialty baseball store. A single location, much smaller, it had nothing but baseball gear. Both of them played in the minors for a couple years. When that fell through for my dad, he had the idea for the store, and within a year, my uncle was cut from his team and they went for it.”
“So you’ve got baseball genes,” Sierra said, having finally started eating again but looking wrapped up in his story and only half-aware of her food.
“I guess you could say that. We all played little league, played in high school. Mason and Drake played in college. Gabe had interest from colleges but went a different direction.”
“Did you? Have interest from colleges?”
He blew out a breath, that sick feeling doubling back on him. He wanted to scare her off? This was his chance. “From the time I was a freshman in high school, I made varsity. Was one of the starting pitchers.”
“Baseball players are hot,” she said, her brows rising on her forehead. She said it with a lightness, a playfulness in her voice, but Cole was feeling anything but light and playful.
“I got kicked off the team my junior year,” he forced out, and then, maybe to ensure that he erased all the lightness in the room, he added, “That’s what my dad and I fought about the day before he died.”
Chapter Fourteen
Sierra’s features dropped, and she let out a soft sound of sympathy. “I’m so sorry.”
Cole shook his head, scowling. “No need to be sorry. My own fault.”
“Why did you get kicked off?”
He’d stopped eating a while back, after only getting down half his burger, and now, he set the plate on the end table next to him. “I was an asshole.” Still was to this day, matter of fact, but she’d figure that out on her own if she hadn’t already.
“I was messed up in the head,” he continued. “I stood out in a bad way because I was smart. I knew early that the kids who wanted me on their team were using me. They weren’t my friends, not real friends. I didn’t really have any real friends. Didn’t seem to fit in anywhere.” He couldn’t help thinking about his mother’s comment the other day about him not fitting in with his brothers. Even in his close-knit family, he was different. “I started getting into trouble in grade school. Got in a couple fights on the playground, disrupted class because I was bored and hated being thought of as teacher’s pet or the golden boy. In middle school, I argued with teachers, was disrespectful, fought some more.” He shook his head, hating the little prick he was describing.
“Defying stereotypes,” Sierra said insightfully.
He nodded, not letting himself think too hard about how well she understood, like no one else had. “Still got good grades. The teachers hated that. Here was this little shit who liked to argue in class and disrupt things, and he was a straight-A student. Teacher’s dream on the one hand. Worst nightmare on the other.” Not for the first time, he felt bad for all the crappy days he must’ve caused for his teachers over the years.
“In high school, making varsity as a freshman meant I was respected, but it didn’t make me any real friends. Maybe it could’ve, but by that time, I was…” He shook his head again, searching for the right word.
“Jaded?” Sierra tried.
“You could say that. The guys invited me to do stuff, go to parties, hang out, but I knew they only liked me because I was good at baseball.”
“You didn’t even let them get to know you,” she said. “Maybe they would’ve liked you for you.”
Cole shrugged. “Wasn’t going to give them the opportunity. I’d spent a lot of years not fitting in.”
“And what happened to get you kicked off the team? Junior year, right?”
Cole laughed, but there was no humor in it. More of a scoff. “The varsity coach was a good guy. Always trying to get through to me, make me a better person, but I was so pissed off at the world.” He swallowed and looked over at Sierra, found her watching him intently, enthralled, not showing any signs of disgust with him as she should. “I’m not proud of any of this, just so you know.” He hated it, all of it, wished he could go back and do it all over. God, how he wished that.
Sierra nodded, obviously waiting for him to finish the story.
“I argued with Coach one too many times. I showed up for practice late—yet again, because I was a shithead—and he’d had enough. Told me they didn’t need me at practice that day, that I should sit it out and figure out what was important to me. Like an entitled little bastard, I shot the F bomb at him, and that was it. He booted me for the season.”
“Ouch,” Sierra said.
“Now you know why I don’t tell people any of this.”
“We all do stupid stuff when we’re growing up.”
“I did more than my share. There’s no sugarcoating it.”
“You needed something that you weren’t able to find,” she said, and he closed his eyes, a little dumbfounded that anyone could find it in them to be empathetic to his former asshole self.
“I needed a kick in the ass. Which my dad tried to give me that night when I got home. Coach had called him, told him what had happened.”
“Oh, no.”
He nodded dully, his gut churning so hard he wondered if the half burger might come up. “I’m sure you won’t be surprised when I tell you I wasn’t open to that kick in the ass.”
“Angry teenagers usually aren’t.”
“It was ugly,” Cole said, closing his eyes, remembering some of the horrible things he’d said that night. “All he was doing was trying to get me straightened out, to make me see how my attitude was screwing up my future. I’d blown my chances for a baseball scholarship in a three-minute exchange with my coach.”
“Junior year? Just like that?” Sierra asked.
“I might’ve been able to recoup senior year. Coach told my dad he’d take me back if I got my act together.” He shook his head, his jaw rigid, regret so deep he could feel it in his marrow. “I told my dad what he and Coach could do with it—” His voice cracked with emotion and he backed off the story.
“And then the next day…” Sierra set her food and the ice pack aside and awkwardly moved to his end of the couch, putting all her weight on her good leg in the process, her injured foot resting on the floor.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” he said, glad to have something to break up his memories.
“I’m fine.” She sat at his side, only a couple of inches between their legs, shoulders touching. “I can only imagine what hearing about your dad’s accident did to you.”
Grief rolled
through him, heavy and slow, like some kind of insidious mercury spill poisoning him cell by cell. He couldn’t have spoken at that moment if he had to. Sierra apparently understood that. She rested her head on his shoulder, and he closed his eyes, breathed in the feminine scent of her shampoo and soap, putting all his attention on identifying the vaguely familiar aroma. Vanilla, he thought, with hints of something sweet and fruity. Citrus or orange. There was another note of something in there but he couldn’t figure it out, quit trying, just kept inhaling, letting it, letting her level him out.
After some time had passed, a couple of minutes, maybe more, Sierra shifted her arm, laid her hand over his, and wove their fingers together. Their interlocked hands rested on his thigh, and the sight of them together—his large hand covered by her small one, his skin rougher and a darker suntanned hue than hers—afforded him another distraction from the ugly stuff in his head and his heart. Until she spoke again.
“How does working construction fit into all of this?”
He scoffed at himself. “It was expected, mostly unspoken but expected, that we’d all eventually work for the family business. It’d grown into multiple locations plus a corporate office, had expanded into a full spectrum of sports gear and supplies, not just baseball. Mason was already out of college and moving up at corporate. Gabe was about to graduate and join him. I was supposed to follow in their tracks.”
She angled her head to look up at him from the side. “No?” she guessed.
“Back then it was a hell no.” This, the angry part, was a lot easier to talk about than the accident. “When I look back now, I figure I could’ve gone one of two ways when my dad died. I could’ve gotten my act together, changed my ways, gotten back on track, or I could let myself be overcome by the blackest anger. Seventeen-year-old Cole chose anger.”
