by Box Set
He does the dribbling thing I’ve seen him and the others do—bouncing the ball, the sliotar, on the end of their stick. “Look. I know you’re still upset about what happened earlier this week, but there’s one thing I should have told you, though I doubt it matters now.”
I brace myself for what might be coming. Who knows with this guy, right?
“It was Tad.”
I stop and stare. Because…what? “I’m not following.”
He looks off toward the parking lot, and his jaw flexes. “Who poured Diet Coke on your project.”
He’s right. It seems like a silly thing to bring up now. High school was so long ago. Even so, a part of me feels a little vindicated that my assessment of him at the café wasn’t so far off. “But you took the blame. Why?”
“I had my reasons.”
“Care to share them?”
We resume walking, and now he’s simply balancing the ball on his stick. Finally, he says, “It was the right thing to do.” And the way he says that, with finality, I know I’m not getting any more out of him. Not today.
Why’s he telling me this now, though? But then it hits me—he’s softening me up. “You guys are stonewalling me. I can tell.”
He glances over, but he doesn’t seem alarmed. “Are we?”
“There’s no way all of you are this fit.”
He strokes a hand down his T-shirt covered abs. “Are you sure?” He lifts a brow.
I snigger despite myself, even though the rest of me has jumped to attention. “It’s not going to work. All you’re doing is making me suspicious. Especially since some of you keep ‘forgetting’ your medical releases. Now I know you’re hiding something. I will find out.”
He stops short and bats the ball into his hand and grips it. “Who?” His ridiculously handsome face is now set in a scowl.
“Conor, Eamonn, and Patrick.”
“I’ll talk to them. But it’ll all turn out fine—there’s nothing to find out, Pepper.” He says this with complete sincerity, and I wonder if I judged the whole situation wrong. But even if I weren’t trying to make my position at the practice permanent, I believe in being thorough, so I won’t stop now.
“So you said your friend Tricia is a lawyer? The guys and I are looking for a good lawyer to go over the sponsorship contract.”
“Sure, but you might know her. She went to Sarasota High too.” I fill him in and pass along her contact info. “She’s a prosecutor, but she can probably recommend an appropriate contract lawyer.”
His faded, tomato red, topless SUV is parked next to me again, and I try not to read anything into it. It’s an unusual type of car, and I was intrigued enough to Google it—it’s a mouthful of a name—an International Harvester Scout. He stashes his gear in the open back, and I click the unlock button on my fob. But like some ninja, he’s at my door and opening it for me. He leans onto the window frame from the outer side, and I slip into the gap, grateful to have the car door as a shield between me and this…this very inconvenient attraction still simmering between us, despite my continued annoyance with the man.
I don’t know what to do with that attraction, so I choose to ignore it.
Seems safer that way.
But the devil scoots around so that he’s got one hand on the window frame, one hand on the roof, caging me in. I look up into his eyes and catch them flicking down my body and back up. A low hum of heat builds in my belly.
“Pepper.” He steps closer.
“Luke.”
Jesus Christ, we sound like we’re back in high school. Or at least my mocking lilt did. His wasn’t mocking—it was sensual, licking at me with promise, and I had to defuse it like some bomb.
“Have dinner with me tonight.”
He says it like a command, but I ignore his compelling tone. I open my mouth to say, “Hell no,” but I pause. “Okay.”
He looks surprised—almost like someone holding a prize they hadn’t expected to get so easily.
But I figure this might be exactly what I need—inoculate myself to him. Familiarity breeds contempt, right? Because I feel as if I’ve finally understood my parents. After all, I am their biological offspring, so we must share some traits.
I’d resented Phil calling me cold because I’d fooled myself for so long that my no-nonsense, driven attitude was not coldness. I was not them. But maybe that’s really who I am—or what I need to be to be successful. Maybe that was how my parents learned to survive in their high-powered attorney worlds. After all, they couldn’t have always been that way—they’d named me “Pepper” of all things.
I almost choke on a sob as I finally—and fully—realize that my need to avoid the messy shoals of emotion, to not only maintain my integrity but also to be successful, will cast me as cold in everyone else’s eyes. So be it.
He holds my gaze, and his hand stretches to my temple. He strokes the skin there, as if he’s brushing away a bit of dirt or an errant hair. My face flushes. “That’s a beauty mark.”
His eyes glint with humor, but his lips don’t budge. “I know.” He bends down and brushes his lips there, and now a different kind of heat coils through my stomach. “I’ll pick you up at seven,” he whispers in my ear, and my stupid body shudders.
He turns away, and my knees buckle a smidge, but I make my spine into a rod of steel and watch him get in his car and leave.
Idiot.
He doesn’t even know where I live.
Chapter Eight
Luke
I tool down Highway 41 toward my apartment and glance at my watch. I know we’re all fit to play, but Pepper’s suspicions are starting to rub off.
And I don’t like surprises. The margin for error seems to be widening.
I engage my Bluetooth handset. When the call connects to Aiden, I just say, “Call a meeting for six with Conor. War Room.”
It’s five o’clock now, which gives me just enough time to squeeze in some CrossFit and walk down to the Butt.
It’s time to do an assessment of my own.
Exactly an hour later, I’m ducking through the beads into the War Room. The three of us sit down, and Conor nods to me to hand off control of the meeting.
I fold my hands. “Look. I’ll make this quick because I know we all have full schedules.” I fill them in and wrap up with, “Bottom line. We need to know if Dr. Rodgers can find anything. Conor, is there a reason you and the other Irish guys haven’t signed your releases?”
Conor shakes his head. “The fire station’s been keeping me busy. I’ll get it to her ASAP. I don’t know about the other two, but we need to ride their asses. We need this sponsorship.”
“We also can’t lose a player one month out from nationals,” Aiden says.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” I say, but Aiden just flips me off.
It had been hard enough to scrape up the requisite fifteen needed to form a team—fifteen who are into playing such an obscure sport as hurling, have the money to outfit themselves, and would make the necessary time commitment. On top of that, we required a professional attitude—no sense in wasting our time training if we weren’t going to be competitive. No way could we find a skilled replacement in time and forge the hard-won trust we’ve gained.
Next year will be even harder. We’re losing one because he’s expecting a new baby, another is moving across the country for a job as soon as the season’s over, and another is leaving for grad school. This doesn’t even count the loss of one of our best players—an Irishman whose Visa is expiring.
No, it has to be this year.
We’d even gone as far as paying the travel, room, and board for the GAA trainer from Ireland to put the final finesse on the team. He’s arriving two weeks before the playoffs.
The playoffs mean everything to this team, and because they’re my team, it’s important to me as well. When I left the SEALs, it was like being amputated—and I don’t mean like having a limb cut off. No. It’s like I was the limb being severed from the whole—the tight-k
nit group we’d become.
People have the wrong idea of what it means to be a SEAL. We’re not lone wolves operating behind enemy lines like some Jason Bourne character. Our units are not called “teams” for shits and giggles. I only left because I’d grown complacent about my skills—which signaled to me that I was in danger of being a liability to my team members.
But leaving it? I felt like a highly skilled limb without purpose. Sure, I’m under-utilizing my expensive skill set doing the bodyguard work and playing as a defensive back in an Irish sport, but fuck it feels…good…to channel my energy into something safe and innocuous like hurling. Where the stakes are getting to playoffs instead of saving the Western way of life.
I pull out my Samsung and type out a text message to Eamonn and Patrick.
sign your damn release forms
Pepper
It’s 6:55 p.m., and against my better judgment, I’m ready for my date with Luke, in case he magically learns where I live. I straighten some decorative boxes on the side table by the leather couch on the off-chance he not only shows up but comes inside.
Wow, I’m being ridiculous. Like he’d notice. Like it even matters.
But I’m stupidly glad that everything is unpacked and all my wall decorations are hung. I can’t rest easy in a new place until I’m surrounded by my stuff again. It’s a ritual each time I move. In the corner by the door are stacked the boxes I finally unearthed to bring to my new office—my first office. All gifts from my parents, family, and mentors for making it through my medical training. I know it sounds weird, but getting those set up in my office will finally make it all real.
My phone dings, and I dive for it. I’m filled with part dread, part hope that it’s Luke telling me he’s canceling. Until I remember he also doesn’t have my number.
It’s Tricia, whom I’ve told about my possible date:
Susan says to, and I quote, Let Go
I frown. What the hell does that mean?
Let go of the old incident from high school, especially since it wasn’t him? I hadn’t really been holding onto it.
Let go of his deception earlier this week? That is another matter.
Let go and have fun?
Every passing day since our encounter, my anger has fizzled away more and more. For one thing, I should have recognized him, though even now I still can’t really see it. Like, not even a little.
Also, I’d been the one to initiate—caught up in the maelstrom of our obvious attraction. Maybe he’d been caught up in it too, just as he’d said.
My door buzzer rings, and I jump. The clock on my oven reads 7:00. Goose bumps dance across my skin and converge in my stomach to swirl around.
Luke.
It has to be.
I stand on tiptoe and look through the peephole with that same sense of dread and hope I felt when my phone chirped.
Throwing the door wide, I take him in from head to toe. And then back up. The man is poured into a fitted, striped dress shirt tucked into black jeans with no belt. And there’s no hiding every dip and curve of his biceps, his pecs. The cotton must be super-strength.
I swallow. “How did you know where I live?”
He smirks. “Sweetheart, I’m a former Navy SEAL.”
What the—what? A SEAL? I don’t know a lot about the military, but I do know that’s elite forces stuff. I’m in awe. And a little intimidated. But since he’s all casual—as if he doesn’t want to make a big deal about it—I don’t call attention to this huge nugget he just dropped about himself.
“You called Tricia, didn’t you?”
He leans his shoulder against the door jamb, smirk still in place, not at all perturbed I’d caught on to his not-so-stealthy method. “Yes.”
I duck my head to hide a smile and grab my purse from the end table by the door. I’m pretty firm in my head that this is just going to be dinner between two people who happen to know each other from twelve years ago. We’ll chat about school and catch up on what we’ve been doing since then, which…shit. If he was a SEAL, he probably can’t talk about that. I run through all the emotional turmoil he recently caused, like it’s a bullet list for all the reasons we can’t be anything more than friends. Why it’s important to get inoculated against him.
“Where we headed?”
“You’ll see.” He takes my hand and tucks it under his arm. Like we’re in some Jane Austen flick. Who does that? I stumble, and he tightens his forearm against his side.
I don’t think this date’s going to go how I planned.
Luke
I cross my arms. “Face it, you’re doomed.”
Pepper sticks her pink tongue out at me, and it’s all I can do not to pull her into my arms and suck it right into my mouth. Feel its heat, taste its sweetness, and sense it light me up inside. But fuck it—I’m determined to show I can be a gentleman. Most of the time.
“Watch and learn, sailor.” Warmth bursts in my chest that she’d gotten that appellation right with no correction on my part required. Earlier, she’d asked me which branch the SEALs served with. I’d braced myself for an onslaught of follow-up questions. Why I’d slipped and told her I was a SEAL, I have no clue. It’s not like we go around dropping that into conversations at random.
Thankfully, that was all she asked. Now, she wiggles her fine ass encased in white jeans, squints down the Astroturf, and putts her little blue ball along the curved path. The ball banks off a bump, rolls under the miniature bridge, disappears for a minute, then reappears down below to languidly roll across the lower green and plop into the hole.
“Ha!” She lifts her club and does a victory dance.
“Well executed. Now you just need to do it again for the last three.” The only way she can beat me at this point.
We’re at Smuggler’s Cove, a pirate-themed mini golf place on the tacky stretch of Highway 41. We’d gone to the new Mexican grill on Orange, and one of us brought up this place as a spot where we used to go as teens. Now we’re here, and I’m having way more fun than I’d ever imagined hitting a red ball around a cheesy-ass putt-putt course.
Pepper might have something to do with that. Mainly because she’s so serious about it. It’s cute.
It makes it hard to remember my mission tonight—to lessen her animosity toward me in case it negatively impacts the team. With the personal side benefit of being with someone who lights up all my nerve endings. Which also makes it hard to remember that I completely screwed up any chance I might’ve had with her.
So far we’ve tapped balls through the inside of a ship and other assorted hazards, including several caves which had stalactites that looked like drooping penises, according to Pepper. I manfully refrained from further commentary. All around us are palm trees wrapped in rope lights, the occasional banyan tree, pirate chests, and waterfalls.
We end up tying, and I’m totally fine with that, though maybe it would’ve been a good way to kill my inconvenient attraction if I’d witnessed her being a sore loser.
We turn our gear back in. “Do you want to feed the gators?” I ask. There’s a water feature near the giant pirate ship filled with baby alligators.
She bites her lip. “I never did have the guts as a kid. Let’s do it.”
I swear to fucking God, there’s not a movement or quirk she does that doesn’t act like armor-piercing missiles into the indifferent shell I’ve always had between me and the rest of the world.
I pay the fee for the privilege, and we walk over with our poles and dried-up pellets of gator food in a plastic baggie. She dangles a pole over, and the baby gators jump, one having better aim and reach.
“So Conor says you’re getting a trainer in a week or so?”
“Actually, he’s arriving a week from Saturday at Tampa airport. I’ll be picking him up and getting him settled in the executive suite we’re renting for him. He’ll need a few days to get over jet lag.”
I stretch out my pole, and some babies break off from the group vying for her spoils and snat
ch at mine.
“How did you convince him to come?”
I shrug. “Paid his way and put him up for free.”
Her head jerks around, and she meets my gaze, eyes wide. “That must be expensive.”
Here’s my chance to impress on her the importance of the sponsorship. I pick my words carefully. “It is. But that’s how important this is for us. The bulk of us have been training together for several years, honing our skills, forging a bond. We never had enough to make a full team until this year. This guy has coached numerous winning teams in Ireland and can give us an edge here.”
Gator food all eaten, we wander back inside and decide on ice cream.
“Are you planning on having the sponsorship reimburse you?”
I nod. “And for the jerseys we ordered.” I took a calculated risk there too by having Langfield’s logo printed on them.
The pimply teen takes our orders, and soon we’re sitting at the picnic tables. It strikes me that this might have been what we would have done if I’d been able to follow through on asking her out back in high school. There’s some kind of lesson here probably, but I don’t know what.
She unwraps her ice cream sandwich. “Okay. I have to ask you something that’s been bothering me a long time. You don’t seem like the kind of guy who goes for the fancy coffee places.”
“I’m not.”
“So why were you at the Mocha Cabana?”
I look away and memorize the features of the couple now feeding the gators. “It’s a test for me. A ritual.” How to explain? “I go there because it’s considered ‘normal’ by civilians, and it’s my way of proving to myself that I’m normal too.” God, that sounds lame. “The world’s kinda neutral to me”—except for you—“and while I can see that it’s colorful and tacky and loud, it’s like it’s still outside me, you know?”
Christ, that was even more pathetic.
“So you’re hoping someday it will penetrate?”
