At first, Jo thought betting on the athletes was just innocent fun. But with the large buy in, there was some heavy cash on the line. Luckily, Lucas owed her and covered Jo’s fee. Gambling wasn’t usually Jo’s style, but since money was her priority right now she decided to take the chance. Though almost as soon as Jo received her pick this morning she realized she might be in over her head. She knew nothing about betting or brackets.
The ACE Madness pool was set up like March Madness, hence the name. With six weeks of competition and hundreds of athletes, the odds of picking who would end up standing at the end were nearly impossible. That’s why everyone just paid a fee and was assigned an athlete at random. Some paid to have multiple athletes to increase their chances, but it was still a crapshoot.
The ACE Madness picks were officially assigned this morning, placed inside a sealed envelope handed out with the staff schedule. Jo had glanced at her athlete’s number briefly. She didn’t put much stock in winning. She knew the odds were slim.
Still, it added a bit of excitement to the first week while everyone still had a shot at the prize money. Jo was glad to be a part of things for a change. She felt like she missed out on a lot in the past few years. It was really no one’s fault but her own. After Max, she hadn’t really wanted to let herself feel part of things. It was too hard. Of course, Kendall wasn’t about to let Jo miss out on an ACE tradition.
Kendall was the one who told Jo about ACE Madness, since she was the one running it this year. The girl never ceased to amaze Jo. It was beyond her comprehension that her best friend was only now telling her that she’d been running an illegal cash-betting ring with the ACE staff for the past two years. According to the rest of the lifeguards, Kendall had a real future as a bookie.
Jo smirked to herself. Sometimes Jo wasn’t sure how the hell Kendall managed to get away with half the crazy things she did. She was basically the female version of Lucas and the two had an ongoing competition to see who was the bigger badass, though Jo wished they’d just channel their sexual frustration into dating each other. It would make her life a whole lot easier.
Kendall and Lucas were a year older than Jo, but that didn’t stop them from dragging her into some wild stunts over the years. But Jo sure as hell was glad Kendall claimed her as a friend, because being on that girl’s bad side would be no picnic. If it came down to voting right now, Jo would back Kendall to win the wild child award, hands down. Lucas was good at picking fights, but Kendall was downright devious, and better at winning the long game.
Speaking of winning . . . Piper started barking at Jo’s feet. She stood up, pulling her binoculars to her eyes again. A lone shadow appeared over the ridge. Jo adjusted the lenses bringing the hazy shape into focus.
The number eleven jumped off the toned arm racing toward her. Holy shit! Jo squealed and jumped up and down. That was her number!
She double-checked her ACE Madness bracket just to be sure. Number eleven. Yes! Jo wanted to cheer as she watched number eleven get closer. She knew she needed to act professional, but damn, having a shot at the cash pool was exhilarating. That kind of money could make the rest of her summer plans a lot easier.
“We picked a good one,” Jo said, reaching down to scratch Piper behind the ears.
Piper barked her agreement.
“That’s right. If we win, you’ll be getting a lot of bones, girl!”
Jo pulled the binoculars back up to her face. Number eleven was close enough now that she could get a good look at him. “Let’s look at the face that’s gonna make us some money!” she said, excitedly.
But when the binoculars landed on number eleven’s face, Jo’s exhilaration receded faster than the tide.
Hayden
Hayden was dominating the field—just like always. He was pleased that Fifteen was the only guy in the pack he could even make out behind him when he hit the ridge and the lifeguard tower came into view. It seemed he’d chosen a worthy opponent after all.
His attention went back to his body. His heart was pounding, but he’d grown so attuned to it over the years that he knew from the steady rhythm of its pumping that it wouldn’t be a problem today. It was his breathing that worried Hayden. His lungs were burning. Hayden was in the best shape of his life. He trained with an altitude mask. He slept in a hyperbaric chamber. He practically lived on the treadmill as well as in the pool. But running in the sand and the heat of the Hawaiian sun was something he wasn’t prepared for.
The lifeguard tower seemed like an oasis when it came into view. Hayden focused on it, literally running for his life. He felt like his muscles were ceasing and his lungs were spasming. But he promised his aching body that he only had to make it to the tower.
Push, Hayden. Push through the pain. ‘Nothing lasts forever, except glory,’—his father’s words, not his.
Hayden blinked the sweat from his eyes, grinding his teeth to chase his father’s mantra from his mind. Glory. What a bunch of crap. Glory didn’t last forever. If anything, Hayden’s father taught him that regret was the only thing that stood the test of time.
14
Joy
“No. No, no, no, no, no!”
Jo let the binoculars fall against her chest. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths counting to ten before she picked them up and looked again. The image was the same. She knew it would be—but a girl can dream, right?
She looked again and sure enough, number eleven wore the handsome face of the boy she’d spent half a night kissing and the next day trying to forget. She closed her eyes and his smooth voice came back to her as he extended his hand across the bar at Locos. ‘Hayden Anderson, nice to officially meet you.’
No! Why, God? Why did the guy she kissed have to be the one person she shouldn’t have? And why the hell did Mr. Perfect Magnet Lips have to look even more perfect now? His sleeveless rash guard clung to his muscled chest, the number eleven branding his sweat-drenched shoulders. The boy was fine with a capital F.
F: as in Jo, you F-ed up.
She could easily get fired for this. And worse, she could get her uncle in trouble. Not only had she made out with an ACE athlete, he was her pick in the ACE Madness pool! It couldn’t get any worse.
Jo grabbed her clipboard and stopwatch and jogged down the ramp of her lifeguard tower with Piper on her heels. She tented the clipboard over her head and glared down the beach. Thankfully, there weren’t any other competitors within sight yet. That meant Joy would have a few minutes to convince Hayden to keep his mouth shut.
Dammit! Of all the boys in all the gin joints . . . Jo shook her head. She was so flustered she couldn’t even remember the quote to one of her favorite movies of all time. Regardless of how the famous ‘Casablanca’ line went, the feeling it evoked was crystal clear. She’d just broken a rule. A major one. And nothing good would come of it.
Thank God she and Hayden hadn’t done more than kiss. They easily could have, because again, the boy was fine. She watched him as he got closer and closer, his long legs eating up the sand. God, he was beautiful. Something tightened in Jo’s chest. There was a part of her that still couldn’t believe she’d kissed him.
Jo wasn’t that girl. She was smarter than that. She didn’t sleep around or hook up with tourists. She wasn’t looking for some wild ride, like Kendall and Lucas. Jo wasn’t irresponsible like her mother. She knew the repercussions of a summer fling. Hell, she was a byproduct of one. She didn’t need a reminder of what one night of passion could do. But just watching Hayden running toward her made her want to throw out all of the smart things she knew and be stupid. Like really, really stupid. Because she swore, when she’d kissed him she’d tasted what the rest of her life could be like—sweet, delicious, passionate, exciting. And Jo hadn’t felt any of those sparks in a very long time.
Jo shook her delusions away. She didn’t know what the hell came over her whenever Hayden was around, but she didn’t like it. Get it together, woman. This isn’t Baywatch. This was real life and real people’s
feelings were at stake. Namely Kai’s. Jo owed it to him to act more responsible than this.
Hayden
Hayden was pretty damn sure he’d pushed his body beyond its limits because he was starting to hallucinate. He swore Joy was at the finish line, waiting for him at the lifeguard tower. She stood there in a sexy as hell black one-piece swimsuit that was so tight it should be illegal. The material hugged her curves like a second skin, stretching over all the places Hayden’s hands wanted to be.
I like the way you look in that swimsuit, Joy.
I don’t think I want anyone else looking at you in it.
Hayden nearly stumbled. There he went again with those possessive thoughts.
Shit, this girl really got to him. She was a curveball. Hayden hadn’t been expecting her. He actually wished he hadn’t met her, because now that he had, he couldn’t get her out of his head.
Hayden knew it was beyond foolish to lose focus with so much at stake. He wasn’t usually someone who gambled his freedom on a girl. But there was just something about Joy. Something all consuming that he’d never felt with any other girl. It was like when he looked at her he saw everything he’d ever wanted. He couldn’t explain it. He just knew with absolute certainty that she was everything his life was missing. Everything he’d been put on this earth to have.
Barking interrupted the parade of possessive thoughts marching through Hayden’s mind. That’s when his steps faltered. He noticed a dog by Joy’s feet. And then he noticed something else. A red lanyard hung around Joy’s neck. A red ACE lanyard.
Shit! He wasn’t hallucinating. And unless that lanyard meant she was there as a competitor—which he could guarantee she wasn’t by the fact that she was wearing a lifeguard insignia on her swimsuit—Joy just became forbidden fruit.
Goddamn! Like he didn’t want her bad enough as it was? Now it was like he was being told he couldn’t have her. That was the one motivator that always worked with Hayden. No one got to tell him what he could and couldn’t have. And that wasn’t a product of being a billionaire’s son. That was just Hayden’s own specific character flaw. One that his father hadn’t been able to train out of him.
Hayden’s goal shifted from an Olympic seed to Joy in a matter of seconds. He felt the exact moment it happened. Hayden had always been in tune with his heart, so he knew precisely when it started to beat only for her.
All he saw was Joy.
All he wanted was Joy.
All he needed was Joy.
But strangely, the rest of him felt joyless. He was suddenly filled with a cold, dreadful fear that he was approaching a very important crossroad and for the first time, he didn’t know which path to choose.
15
Joy
Jo blew her whistle and recorded Hayden’s time. She handed him a water bottle and a pack of protein gel, then she dragged him into the shade of the tower. The whole exchange took about a minute but it felt like an eternity under the intensity of Hayden’s stare. His stormy blue eyes followed her and they said everything that his lips did not. He knew this—them—was a problem. But he didn’t care.
“Look,” Jo said, speaking quickly, but firmly. “ACE started this morning. As far as I’m concerned, anything that happened before my uncle made his speech never happened.”
“Your uncle?”
“Jack Wright.”
Hayden’s eyes flared wide. Jo could see they were actually more gray than blue today. Dammit! Focus, Jo. And not on his eyes.
“Jack Wright is your uncle?” Hayden asked.
“Yes.” Jo stuck her hand out finally ready to shake Hayden’s. “Jo Wright, nice to officially meet you. I’m your ACE supervisor.”
Hayden stared at her hand, not taking it. “Why did you say your name was Joy?”
“I didn’t. You did.”
“That’s because that guy in the bar called you Joy.”
“Well, it’s my name. But no one calls me that.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “It’s a girl’s name.”
Again, Hayden’s eyes blazed wide. “Uh, I hope to hell you’re a girl or you’ve got some serious explaining to do, Joy.”
She scowled at him. Was this guy for real? He new damn well from all the places their bodies had touched two nights ago that she was all girl. “Cut the shit, Hayden. This isn’t a game. This is a job and it’s important to me, so I’m giving you thirty seconds to get anything you want to say off your chest.”
Now it was his turn to look pissed. “Oh, so now you wanna talk?”
Jo tapped the clipboard forcefully. “We’re going to be spending the next six weeks together, so I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
Piper’s barking caused Jo to glance down the beach. Another figured blurred into view. Then another. Then a whole group appeared. Jo blew out a frustrated breath. She had about three minutes to set Hayden’s head straight.
“Listen to me. This is how it’s gonna go. The other night never happened. This is the first time we’ve met. You’re not going to speak to me unless I speak to you first. You’re gonna call me Jo, just like the rest of the athletes. And you are never going to mention this conversation or the reason we had to have it, to anyone, got it?”
Hayden stared at her.
She stared right back. Jo was proud of her authoritative tone, especially considering Hayden was twice her size, gorgeous as hell, and the fact that being so close to his perfect lips again was making something inside her ache.
“One little flaw in your plan, Joy,” Hayden said, drawing out her name in a way that made her angry for all the wrong reasons.
“What’s that?”
“A whole bar full of people saw you kiss me two days ago. And they also saw your brother punch me in the mouth. And don’t forget Kendall knows that wasn’t the only kiss.”
Shit! Shit! Shit! Jo’s heart was galloping in her chest, but she wasn’t going to let Hayden see her sweat. “You let me worry about that,” she said with way more confidence than she felt.
“Gladly.” Hayden finally held his hand out.
Jo reached for it and a jolt of electricity raced through her when they touched. They literally shared a spark! She knew it was more likely from the storm-charged air rolling in off the shore than physical chemistry, but it had happened yesterday, too. And it was getting harder to ignore.
The way Hayden was looking at her made Jo think he was aware of the sparks between them, too. Literally and figuratively. She stared into his deep steel blue eyes, once again sucked under by some undetectable spell.
But Hayden ruined it when he opened his mouth. “Don’t worry, Joy. My lips are good at keeping secrets.”
Hayden
Hayden’s pulse still hadn’t returned to normal and he knew it wasn’t from the run. It was because he was still staring at Joy. Jo—although he had no intention of calling her that. Jo was a boy’s name and he didn’t want any confusion about him kissing a boy floating around ACE. Swimming was a testoster-roni sport as it was. A bunch of dudes walking around in speedos . . . yeah, the dude-on-dude jokes were abundant.
It wasn’t that Hayden was bothered by gay jokes. You really can’t be a swimmer if that kind of thing ruffled your feathers. Hayden didn’t have an issue at all with sexuality. Gay, straight, bi, whatever—he lived in New York City, raised by a man who judged bank accounts, not bedroom preferences. But still, Hayden wasn’t about to lob a slow-pitch like ‘I made out with Jo’ into the mix at ACE. Being Archibald Anderson’s son made him enough of a target.
Besides, Hayden’s dreams had been filled with Joy for the past two nights. Not Jo. She would always be Joy to him. But it wasn’t her name that was making his heart beat erratically. It was the way the other nineteen guys in his squad were shamelessly flirting with her.
He couldn’t blame them. Rules or not, Joy was drop dead gorgeous. Her honey blonde locks grazed her bare lower back, gently swaying in the breeze as they walked back to camp. Her hair was darker at the roots, almos
t brown before fading into the golden blonde color he ached to run his fingers through. Her eyes were deep green and sparkled when she laughed, which she did a lot. Especially when any of the guys got her dog to catch the Frisbee she’d brought. Her legs were toned and slender, sun-kissed and long. The high cut of her swimsuit reached well above her hips and made her legs seem like they went on forever—it also made it impossible for Hayden to tear his eyes away.
He noticed he wasn’t the only one staring. The whole squad was ogling her. Most of them were shamefully obvious. And if it hadn’t been for their kiss, Hayden would’ve been flirting right along with them. But because he knew the way her warm skin felt beneath his, how her lips fit perfectly with his own, the taste of her soft pink tongue, the exact pitch of her quiet moans of pleasure . . . because he knew all of those things and more, he couldn’t let himself look at her. Not the way the rest of them did. Because if he did, Hayden was positive he’d give himself away. And the whole world would see what his heart already knew—he was going to do something very stupid.
I’m sorry, Joy, but I can’t help it.
You’re already mine.
You just don’t know it yet.
It was stupid thoughts like that rattling around in his head that made Hayden realize he was doomed. Yes, he was most definitely going to do something very stupid. But it was still debatable if he would live to regret it.
16
Joy
3 years ago . . .
Dear diary,
A boy stole my heart today and he won’t give it back.
Do you want to know a secret? I don’t want it back.
I want Max to keep it.
Do you hear that, Max?
My heart is yours.
The Summer Boyfriend Page 6
