by Ney, Sara
8
Hollis
This entire dinner has been so fun. His sharing, his goofy stories, his sense of humor, even when it’s self-deprecating.
He pokes fun at himself easily.
He loves reading.
I mean—he mentioned as much at the barbeque over the weekend, but to hear him talk about it with such passion seriously gets me turned on.
I’m folding like a greeting card and hate myself for it.
“You said lonely—what did you mean by that?”
I’m lonely too, but I would never admit it to anyone other than Madison, or any of my other friends. Buzz does not seem to have that problem, except when he’s called out on it.
“Are you talking about the fact that you’re single?”
He lifts one of his broad shoulders in reply, which answers the question for me: Buzz Wallace is lonely. Does that mean he hates being single or is just lonely because of it? Is he looking? Does he want a serious relationship, or only to fuck around?
“When was your last serious relationship?”
Another shrug. “I’ve never had one.”
Red flag, red flag! “Why?”
I know, I know—it’s so rude to ask. In fact, I read a magazine article online once that put it in the top five things not to ask on a first date, and here I am, blurting it out. Correction: this is not a date, so it doesn’t count as being rude.
“Are you serious?” He sets down the fork he’s been plowing through the refried beans with. “What self-respecting, nice, honest, wholesome girl would want to date me?” He holds a hand up to halt any reply I’m about to give him. “Trust me, I’ve tried. I took a kindergarten teacher out once—she couldn’t deal with the fans.”
I glance around; people are watching us, but no one has come over to ask for autographs or photos, which has been really nice.
“So she dumped me after three dates, even though I thought things were great. And let’s not forget the fact that it took me years to make it to the pros—I wasn’t drafted out of college like most of the guys on the team. I redshirted in college, busted my balls in the farm teams. Practiced nonstop—and when I say nonstop, I mean I don’t even know how many hours a week. I was piss-ass broke, had no contract and no money, and almost had to move back home and live with my parents.” He shudders.
My mouth almost falls open at this admission, but I clamp it shut.
He’s on a roll now, verbal diarrhea spewing out of him like some confessional at church. “And now? I can’t seem to get away from gold diggers—they’re at every club, hanging out at the stadium, every bar we try to escape to just for a relaxing drink. Fake tits and Botox and injected lips and why can’t I just find someone decent to like me for who I am?”
I stare.
No, I’m actually gaping at him. Wide-eyed, slack-jawed disbelief. What is he saying? That he wants someone normal? Not a trophy wife with giant boobs and extensions? Not that there is anything wrong with that—those women are beautiful. It just sounds more to me like he wants wholesome and…sweet.
“Hollis?”
“Mm?” I mutter, barely able to compose a sentence.
“I have something to ask you.”
I manage a joke. “No I will not marry you. We’ve been over how I don’t want to be Hollis Wallace.”
“Ha ha, funny.” He stirs the straw around his glass of ice water. “After the games this week, I was going to head down to see my parents, and I told my mom I was seeing someone because I thought it would make her happy, and now she wants to meet my girlfriend.”
“Is your mom okay?” I clutch my chest. That poor woman must be suffering!
“What do you mean?”
“Is this her…dying wish? To see you married off before she takes her last breath?” Oh gosh, what if it is? How can I say no?
Buzz’s handsome face contorts, puzzled. “No—my mom is fine, she just harps on us a lot to settle down. What would make you think she was dying?”
“You asked in a very dramatic manner.”
“Um, actually, no I didn’t.”
Fine. Maybe not so dramatic, but it did catch me off guard. “Are you asking me to lie to your mother’s face?”
He nods, unabashedly. “And my dad’s face.”
“Your mother will live if you are single for another weekend.”
“But I already told her about you.”
This gives me pause. “About me, specifically?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you do that?!” Is he insane? Clearly he is, since he creeps on unsuspecting women in libraries and blackmails others to have tacos with them. The shell in my mouth tastes like sandpaper, and I’d spit it out if it wasn’t considered impolite.
I want to strangle him!
“I just want my mom to be happy.”
“But she’s not dying! She will live. It is not a big deal! My parents want me to settle down, but do you see me pretending to have a boyfriend? No.”
“I beg to differ.” His brows shoot up. “That is exactly what you’re doing.”
“Oh my god! No—this is your fault! You’re the one who wanted to pretend to help me. It’s not like I hunted you down!” This man is exasperating.
“Semantics. The point is, you’re doing it.” He puts the napkin—the one that says I like your boobs—back on his lap. “As we speak.”
“You’re twisting the situation around so it suits you and we both know it.”
Buzz pulls out his cell phone, taps on it a few times, scrolls—then holds it out in my direction. “This is my mom. Do you want to disappoint this face?”
Dear lord, his mother is adorable.
Sandwiched in between Buzz and a man who looks almost identical—his brother—she’s beaming and tiny compared to the two of them.
“Is it just you and your brother?”
“No, we have a sister, True. She’s one year younger.”
He’s still holding the phone practically in my face; there is no denying his mother looks delightful and not like someone you’d want to disappoint.
Still.
“This is not my problem.”
“It would be an even trade.”
Is he serious?
“No.” I haven’t lost my appetite, so I keep eating.
“Please?”
That has me looking back up at him.
Shit. Do not beg me, Buzz Wallace. This won’t end well for me.
I swallow the lump of meat in my throat and shake my head firmly. No.
“Please, Hollis. Please, I’m willing to do anything.” He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.
“Gross. Don’t ever do that.”
The smile gets wiped off his face. “Sorry.”
The thing about athletes is—the ones with the winning, can-do attitudes? They never give up. So I said no, but Buzz isn’t ready to accept it, and I have a feeling it only has a tiny bit to do with his mother and a whole lot to do with the fact that he likes me.
There, I said it—Buzz Wallace likes me.
I can see it in the way he looks at me and the way he’s trying to spend time with me, though it’s mostly extortion and blackmail and manipulation.
Not the bad kind, but…
He’s trying too hard.
Be real, Hollis—you wouldn’t give him the time of day if he wasn’t chasing after you like a lovesick puppy.
I study him across the table, the tacos on his plate nearly gone, basket of chips nearly empty, water totally empty, stomach definitely full. He’s watching me in earnest, barely blinking.
“Fine. I’ll do it.”
Buzz throws down his napkin, shoves his chair back away from the table, and pumps his fist in the air. “Yeah buddy!”
Jesus H.
This man is so over the top.
But come on—what’s the worst thing that could happen if I do this?
9
Trace
“Mom, this is Hollis.”
I repeat this in the mirror a few times,
practicing the introduction as I pull a bright blue polo over my head. I don’t typically dress up to see my folks, but since I’m taking a date, I class myself up a bit and throw on a nice shirt.
Shorts.
Deck shoes instead of sneakers.
“Mom, meet your future daughter-in-law.”
If I said that, Hollis would kill me with her bare hands, probably in front of my parents.
I grab the candle I bought my mom and head to grab Hollis. She doesn’t know the drive is a bit of a hike, but it’s scenic so I doubt she’ll mind.
She doesn’t because this time when I pick her up, she’s got her laptop along.
The entire ride, she contents herself with whatever book she’s editing, computer glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, fingers tapping away or lightly running over the computer screen in a straight line, as if she’s tracing the sentence in front of her and committing it to memory. Hollis also bites her bottom lip a lot when she’s concentrating; if I’ve glanced over at her once to mentally imprint the image of her in those tortoiseshell glasses, I’ve glanced at her three dozen times.
She’s just that pretty.
She’s busy until, nearly two hours later, we pull into my parents’ driveway, the blacktop lined with trees my dad planted the year Tripp and I bought the place, flanked by a meticulously manicured lawn.
Roger Wallace likes his grass green, trimmed, and pristine.
Hollis removes her glasses. “This place is so cute.”
Cute?
“We didn’t grow up here. They moved in a few years ago when Tripp and I both went pro. It’s closer to Chicago than they were before by three hours.”
She turns to me. “So they can come watch you play, but still out in the country where it’s private?”
I nod. “Exactly. They wanted to be closer so they could see us, but don’t like the city.”
“That makes sense—the city isn’t for everyone.”
It’s really not for me, either, but for now, there’s nothing I can do about it.
“Tripp, True and I are here a lot. Lots of family dinners. Family first.” I shrug it off, though inside, my heart leapt out of my chest at the tender expression on her cute face. A little.
I said it leapt a little—everyone relax!
Her eyes soften. “I love that.”
Whoa.
What is that look? Is she…making doe eyes at me, or is she feverish?
Before either of us can say another word or even unbuckle our seat belts, my mother comes busting out of the front door, kitchen hand towel thrown over her shoulder, smile on her face.
When I told her I was bringing the girl home I’d been talking about for Sunday dinner, she thought I was joking. Tripp was sitting next to me, rolling his beady, mistrusting eyes, snorting and grunting the whole time—which only fueled my mother’s disbelief.
“You wouldn’t joke about something like that, would you, Trace?” she asked me three different times.
“Mom—have I ever lied to you?”
“Only a few hundred times.”
Good point. “Well I’m not lying this time—and please don’t go overboard on food or anything. Hollis won’t want you to make a fuss.”
“Hollis,” she’d said breathlessly. “I just love that name. So unusual.”
Unique, like the girl herself, who’s now sitting in my car, staring at the house.
“Oh my god your mother is adorable,” Hollis is saying. “Jesus, I hate lying and I hate you right now. Look how excited she is, you asshole.” She pushes her car door open and steps out. “Mrs. Wallace, hiiiiii!”
Women. I’ll never understand them.
How can she be hissing obscenities at me one second then going at my mother like they’re long-lost sisters?
I climb out at a leisurely pace, giving them time to greet each other without my interference, and then amble over, hands in my pockets.
“Mom, this is—”
“Hollis, come inside. Trace Robert, can you get the grill going out back? Your father is dragging his feet.”
Then she ushers my date into the house, leaving me standing there, the entire speech I prepared a complete waste of time.
“Mom, this is Hollis,” I mumble to myself, locking the car with the remote and heading into the garage. “No, no, go on in. I’ll just start the grill. No, I insist,” I pout, deserted and alone.
No one comes to help me.
Not my dad. Not Hollis.
I look up at the sky as I walk through the grass, to the side yard, up onto the wooden deck Dad, Tripp, and I built last summer. Hit the igniter on the gas grill. Stand there while it warms up, scraping the char off the grates.
“This is what I love doing, being outside by myself while my date is inside being hoarded by my mother,” I grumble some more.
“Are you talking to yourself, dill hole?”
Shit.
My fucking brother.
Just what I do not need right now.
How did he even get here, anyway? “Who invited you, asswipe?” I accuse, turning to face him.
“It’s Sunday, asshat.”
Asshat? Real original. I just called him asswipe—that’s like stealing. Or copying.
“So what if it’s Sunday. Did Mom tell you I brought someone or is this a coincidence?”
“Yup, she sure did. Told True, too.”
“You drove all this way, by yourself, just so you could be here to spy on me.” He hates driving alone and hates having to pay for the gas it takes to get here.
“Yup.” He pops the P then pops a can of beer, sipping the foam off the top with an annoying slurp.
“Stop doing that.”
“No can do.” He slurps again.
I ignore him, walking toward the patio door, and give it a yank.
It’s locked.
I press my face to the glass, eyes roaming the inside of the house where the kitchen is.
“They’re in the front room. Mom is showing Hollis your baby books.”
Fuck. That means he’s already been in the house.
My brother gives his eyes a big roll. “This is why we don’t bring people home, idiot. She’s going to get attached and when this Hollis chick wises up and dumps you, it’s going to break Mom’s heart.”
He’s right, Mom would get attached if Hollis and I were actually an item.
“Hollis isn’t going to dump me.” Because we’re not even dating. I guilted her into coming along, but no one knows this but her and me, and no one is going to find out.
Obviously I don’t say that out loud.
“She’s not your type,” he informs me, taking another swig from the beer can.
“What the fuck, Tripp—yes she is.”
“No she’s not. Your type is ‘thirsty’ and ‘clingy’, and this girl is neither of those things. I bet she even has an actual job. Where did you say you found her?”
“Work.”
“She works for the Steam? Don’t shit where you eat, bro.”
“No, she was at the stadium last week for a meeting and I bumped into her.”
“What was she doing at the stadium? Is she a reporter?”
“No, she’s in publishing. Books.”
“That doesn’t explain what she was doing there.” He won’t let it go.
“Having lunch.”
“With who?”
Why is he like this?
“God, why are you asking so many damn questions? What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?”
“I’m looking out for you! You don’t know this girl. For all you know, she’s a gold—”
“Hollis is not a gold digger.” I laugh and laugh, as if he’s just said the funniest thing.
“How the hell do you know? You’ve known her all of, what, five days? Seven? For all you know, she’s—”
“Her dad is my boss.”
That shuts him up for all of three seconds. He opens his mouth, takes a deep breath, and begins bitching at me all over again.
“Hollis is Thomas Westbrooke’s daughter? Dude, are you insane? I just told you not to shit where you eat! Dating your boss’s daughter is like shitting on your entire meal, plus your salary and your car and all the coats you own.”
“How about you let me worry about it?” I begin the walk back to the front of the house. “Better yet, how about you worry about yourself?” He’s such a goddamn commitment-phobe. The dude doesn’t even do casual sex with strangers.
“How about you take my advice and lis—”
Our dad rounds the corner, a scowl on his face, stopping us both in our tracks.
Hot on my heels and still lecturing, Tripp smashes into my back.
“You two at it again?” our old man asks. “Jesus Christ, you’re loud enough that the neighbors can probably hear you in the next county over. Tripp, leave your goddamn brother alone.”
Goddamn brother? What the hell, Dad? That’s just rude.
“And Trace, go save your girlfriend from your mother. She’s about to guilt-trip the girl into taking a wreathmaking class at the rec center with Fran and Linda.”
Guilt-tripping—a Wallace family tradition.
“Fine.” I stomp off like an adolescent, my dad and my brother making me feel like I’m twelve, breathing down my neck and telling me what to do.
I find Hollis in the front living room, and as soon as I walk in—
“Shoes off young man!” Mom scolds, narrowing her eyes at my feet and beaming over at Hollis simultaneously.
What kind of monster has my mother become?
“Did you start the grill like I asked you to?”
Oh my god. “Yes, Mom.”
“I’m going to need you and your brother to start setting the table.”
Speaking of which… “Why did you invite him, anyway? He’s already picking fights with me.” Do I sound like I’m pouting? Sure. Do I care? No.
Our mother is having none of my nonsense. “Stop arguing and go set the table.”
“Thanks, babe.” Hollis winks at me, the word babe catching me off guard. Makes both my mother and I grin like fools.
The smile my mother is beaming at us could launch a thousand ships and I.
Am.
In.
Hell.
