by Stacey Lynn
“Spoken like a player,” she said, and she wasn’t talking about football.
“It’s just dinner, Paige, and helping me buy a truck. I bought Betsy for five hundred dollars from a neighbor because it could get me to school, and that’s all the shit I know about cars. Then as a thank you, I take you to dinner. We talk, hopefully I can get you to laugh, and I take you home. That’s all that I’m looking for tonight.”
“Really?” She tilted her head to the side and a chunk of her bangs that had fallen out of her clip dropped over one eye.
I smoothed it back, lingering at her ear before running it down her jaw. “Yeah. You want to give me more, that’s your call, but I’m not playing you, and I wouldn’t. I’m honest. Always.”
“Okay, then. I should hurry to get ready.”
“Dress casual. Not going anywhere fancy while I’m in this.” I wiped my hands down my jeans and dress shirt. I’d thrown it all on after practice, hoping for her yes to dinner, but something told me Paige wouldn’t be impressed with five-star restaurants and suits and ties. Which suited me just fine. I’d always prefer a good burger and beer to foie gras and champagne.
“All right, and thanks again for my dad. That was really cool.”
“Be even cooler when you’re in the box with him, wearing my number thirteen on a jersey and cheering for me.”
Her cheeks burned and I told her I’d see her soon. I walked away before I pulled her in closer and kissed her like I wanted to.
Then I walked up to her dad, took the handles of his wheelchair and pushed him toward the garage.
Loud enough for Paige to hear, I asked, “So Sam, you got any embarrassing photos of your daughter lying around?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
PAIGE
I’d been nervous at home getting ready, debating what to wear and how to do my hair after I rushed through a shower. It wasn’t that I was excited or nervous about going on a date with Beaux Hale, quarterback of the Rough Riders, Super Bowl Champions, necessarily. It was that I had a date at all.
It’d been over six months since I’d been out with anyone, and I hadn’t had sex since Spencer broke up with me. I didn’t have time with the other guys I’d gone out on a date with. They’d claimed I didn’t have enough time to give them and walked away before we could ever make it that far.
Which not only still stung, but made me uninterested in dating anyone. If they couldn’t understand the time my dad required, they weren’t worth mine.
I still doubted Beaux would be any different when I arrived back at the garage.
Then my nerves spiked to DefCon freak out levels. And that was Beaux’s fault.
He looked too damn good sitting in the office with my dad, feet kicked up on the desk, beer in his hand and saying something while my dad threw his head back and laughed.
He looked at ease in our rundown garage’s waiting room slash office. He looked like he was just a guy. Not a sports superstar, not plastered on the covers of magazines or headlining interviews on Sportscenter.
Seeing him appear to be just a normal guy, dressed to excite a woman’s libido in well-worn jeans and a pale blue, striped dress shirt, well that did things to me.
As we climbed into the truck and started talking, I was beginning to think he was showing me exactly who he was—just a simple, laid-back guy from Iowa who threw a ball for a living. And I really liked everything he was showing me.
“Do you know what kind of truck you want?” I asked as we drove down the Interstate headed out toward Durham.
“Ford and black,” Beaux replied. “That’s all I really care about.”
“Why a Ford?”
“Because Chevy’s are shit,” Beaux said simply.
“Nice.” I laughed. It sounded exactly like something my dad would say and I turned to the window and watched the trees go by, the clouds roll in.
It felt like it stormed in Raleigh all the time during the summer. Huge gully-gushes that barreled over embankments and flooded roads.
We were supposed to get rain again tonight, and hopefully, it wouldn’t be a bad one. I hated storms and the unpredictability in them.
He pulled in to the Cornerstone Ford and Jeep dealership halfway between Raleigh and Durham. He barely had time to help me out of the truck, when an excited salesman was strolling toward us.
“Hello there, good evening and welcome to Cornerstone, I’m Kyle Ballsman, how can I help you today?”
“Beaux, nice to meet you,” he said and introduced me. While I shook Kyle’s hand, Beaux scanned the parking lot, stopping on a shining black, Ford F-250 Crew Cab truck. The grill was an upgrade but other than that, we couldn’t see anything about the truck.
“I’ll take that one,” Beaux said and turned back to the salesman. “Cash. How soon can we wrap this up?”
“What?” I exclaimed. He was…how could…why… what? “What are you doing?”
He looked at me and grinned. “Told you. I know what I want.”
The heat in his eyes shocked me, forcing me back a step. My goodness he gave good innuendo. I wanted to lick it up like hot fudge off a spoon. Then my common sense kicked in.
“Would you like to take a look at it?” Kyle asked. His surprise was as evident as mine, but he wasn’t about to lose a sale, either. “You’re welcome to test drive it. It’ll only take me a minute to get the keys.”
Beaux shook his head. “Nope. I’m good.”
“You don’t even know if it has Bluetooth. Leather seats.” I tried to come up with things he’d care about since he said he didn’t know anything about trucks or engines. “How it rides. How many miles it has on it. If it’s new or used. You don’t know anything about it!”
So much for simple and normal! My heart was fluttering so quickly I feared it exploding.
Beaux pointed his thumb at me and looked at Kyle. “Does it have that crap?”
“Yes, sir. That truck is brand new and has been fully upgraded, the engine is—”
“Okay then.” Beaux clapped his hands together and dropped them to his hips. “Let’s get this taken care of.”
He held his hand out for me to go in front of him, but I stood there, knowingly gaping at him. I’d never seen anything like this in my life. He didn’t even know how much it cost.
“Maybe we should talk about this.”
“We will. Over dinner.”
I didn’t know whether to slap him upside the head or think what he was doing was sweet.
Slap him. Definitely. But not in public. I’d wait until he was in his new stupid truck he’d tricked me into going to buy with him even though he didn’t care at all about the darn thing.
Which was sort of sweet in itself. He truly didn’t care what he drove. No pretentiousness in him other than paying for it in cash.
A memory of the cash my mom used to send me for birthdays after she left flickered to my mind but I pushed it away. Now wasn’t the time to think about her.
Beaux shocked me further when we sat down, both of us on the other side of Kyle’s desk while he went to get paperwork.
“His name is Ballsman,” he snickered. “Poor man.”
I laughed, unable to stop myself before it burst out. This guy was something else, definitely not right in the head. We were still smiling at each other, that heat I’d felt earlier swirling between us, enveloping us. It seduced me with the sweet scent of his cologne and the soft look in Beaux’s eyes. It pulled me closer, made me feel something for the man in front of me. Things I had no business feeling, but could no longer remember why.
“Beaux,” I said, my voice thick with something unidentifiable. Lust? Need?
“You do feel it.” He leaned closer. “I’ve felt something every time you’ve been working and I’ve seen you for months. Glad you’re finally getting on the same page as me.”
“What?”
“Don’t come into Ride’Em Rough for the burgers, Paige. They’re crap on a bun.”
Oh my goodness. He’d just implied…He di
d. He said that. I had no response. I’d never waited on him until the other night, always passing it off.
And he kept coming back to see me?
“Why?”
“Because you’re beautiful. You say thank you to everyone. You always smile even when I’ve caught you fighting a yawn. You laugh with the cooks and most of the other servers look to you like you’re they’re big sister. I like it.”
Holy freaking cow.
“Plus,” he smirked. “The wedge sandals and denim shorts you wear make your ass look fan-fucking-tastic.”
I slapped his bicep before I could stop myself. “You’re a jerk.”
“Yeah.” He took my hand and settled it in his and then on his thigh. His warm thigh. Hard and muscled. His hand curled around mine and held me tight to him. “But I think you’re finally beginning to like it.”
Kyle returned with paperwork before I could respond, which was good. Because what in the hell would I have said?
Beaux and Kyle went over the paperwork, while I sat back and watched. Beaux shocked me again when he didn’t even try to get a better deal on the fifty-thousand-plus dollar truck.
We were back on the road an hour later. I soaked in the new car smell and fiddled with the controls on the radio and air vents.
“Why did you want me with you today if you didn’t plan on asking for my advice?”
Without looking at me, one edge of Beaux’s lip lifted and curved. “Because the first time I was in my truck, I wanted to have your fantastic ass sitting next to me.”
“That’s outrageous! You didn’t even try to get a deal on it.”
He flicked on his blinker and glanced at me as he turned a corner. “Why would I do that? I’ve got the cash to pay for it and a few grand is nothing to me. But the extra commission might make that guy’s life a bit easier while he’s providing for his family. Did you see that picture behind the desk? He’s got like six kids.”
I hadn’t even noticed it. The fact Beaux did said volumes about him.
God. That did it. He really was the chivalrous and generous guy he claimed to be, or he was giving me an Emmy-worthy performance. Either way, I was falling for it, hook, line, and sinker.
“That’s really nice of you.”
“I’m a nice guy.”
“Yeah, well, considering our first encounter, forgive me if I’m having a hard time reconciling the two together.”
“Take as long as you need. I got all the time in the world to prove you wrong.” He glanced at me again but this time his gaze swept my body.
I checked to make sure I hadn’t turned on the heated leather seat feature.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BEAUX
When Paige came back to the garage, Sam and I had been kicking it in the main office. Paige’s stamp was all over the place in a subtle but still feminine way. The small waiting room was picked up and tidy, cookies were laid out, coffeepot filled and hot.
The main desk had little splashes of color on it with neon Post-it notes and next to the area where I knew Paige sat was a small vase filled with three fresh flowers. Looked like fake colored daisies but the water in the vase was definitely real.
I’d had a decent time with her old man. He was quick to laugh, the straight shooter I pegged him to be. We talked about my last season with the Rough Riders, and he told me about his college days playing ball for Purdue. All surface level shit, but by the time Paige arrived dressed to kill in a short and frayed denim skirt that barely skimmed the bottom of her ass and a tank top that accentuated her assets up top, I had his approval.
He didn’t say it, but I knew men like him. Good men with good hearts and strong minds. It was a shame his body was failing him.
I’d actually planned on taking longer at the dealership, but once Paige was in my truck, telling me about her jobs at the garage and the restaurant, all I could see were her tanned legs and all I could smell was the scent of her flowery perfume. My dick was so hard I had to keep shifting in my seat and drape an arm in my lap so she didn’t see the bulge. Once we pulled into the Ford dealership, I just wanted the deal done so I could get her to dinner, keep her opening up and then take her home so I could finally kiss her.
Because I wasn’t ending the night without our lips pressed and tongues tangled together and my hands tangled in her hair.
Now we were at IronOar Steakhouse, a casual restaurant where you picked your own cuts of meat when you walked in, grilled your own steak, and took whatever sides you were offered for the night.
It was a kick back with family, good friends, and a beer kind of place. I loved it. The wait staff and owners had recognized me the first time I’d come in with Shannon. When I came back the second time, they’d hung a photo of me with the wait staff so I had them take it down so I could sign it. Since then, I became a regular, stopping by almost once a week. No one gave me any extra attention.
I figured Paige would like that, too, and besides the smirk she gave me when she saw my photo on the wall when we arrived and requested our steaks, everyone had left us alone.
It helped that while it was Friday, we were still there before the main dinner rush.
Now, I was guiding us into deeper conversation.
“Your dad’s a trip,” I said. “He totally kicks ass.”
We were snacking on peanuts, having a beer and eating our salads while we waited for them to deliver our steaks so we could go grill them. She took a drink from her Miller Lite, and her eyes slid to the left.
“Thanks. He’s the best man I know.”
“How’d he end up in a wheelchair?”
She sighed and the depth of her pain filled her face. “He’s had two strokes.” She set down her beer and wiped her hands together like she had to warm them. “The first one hit just over a year ago, the second one a few months later. That’s the one that left him paralyzed. He’s in therapy and slowly getting better, but some days are worse than others.”
“And you quit your job at a television station to come home and help take care of him?”
Her brows rose and she tilted her head. “Are you sure you’re not stalking me? Maybe checking my Facebook?”
“No.” I hadn’t even considered it. “Your dad and Mike are talkative guys.”
“Figures.” She pulled a face and took a moment before continuing. I had the suspicion she was debating how much of her life to give me. What she didn’t know was that I was beginning to want it all from her. Every time she opened up about something, I fell harder. “It wasn’t a choice. He’s all I ever had until Mike came into our lives.”
“How’d that happen?” I leaned forward and rested my forearms on the table. He was young and definitely wasn’t related to them based on what I’d picked up through conversation, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t become their family.
Her nose scrunched into an adorable pout. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“I told you I was going to.” I shrugged shamelessly.
“Yeah, but…” her voice trailed and she lifted her hair off her neck, letting it drop back down like a silk curtain to her shoulders and beyond. “Okay. Mike was a foster kid. A good kid, though, just had some crappy life stuff happen but who doesn’t, you know?”
“I do know.”
For a brief moment, sadness filled her eyes. She knew about my mom and wasn’t hiding it, but she didn’t dwell, thank Christ. “Anyway, he came into my dad’s office one day when he was only fifteen years old, said he needed a job and didn’t know anything about cars, but he’d work hard. Dad spent the first month giving him the shit jobs. He cleaned the bathrooms, emptied oil buckets and swept the floors. Dad said it was to test his mettle. Mike showed up every day after school, stayed until we closed and didn’t complain once. After that, he just sort of stuck.”
“Your dad’s a good man.”
“The best.” She grinned wide and easy. Now I knew how to get her talking…mention her old man. Simple as that.
“What about your mom?”
&
nbsp; The smile fell. “She left when I was four. We’re better off without her.”
The chill in her voice set me on edge. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She took another drink. “I mean, she wanted the guy she met in college, the football star. Dad never wanted to go pro, said he didn’t have the talent to start and didn’t want to bounce around pro teams playing back-up for his career, always moving. He wanted to have a family and settle.”
“And your mom didn’t?”
“Nope. Dad said she tried, but after they’d been in Raleigh for a few years, she turned resentful. Then she had me and really couldn’t deal. He came home from work and her stuff was gone. She’d left me with the sitter without telling anyone where she was going.”
“No shit?” The blasé way she spoke about her mom stunned me almost as much as a woman who would do that to her kids. You heard an awful lot of men taking off, my unknown dad being the perfect example. It always startled me more when it was a woman.
“Do you ever talk to her?”
She gave me a disgusted look. “I haven’t had anything to do with her since I was seven. After she left, she got remarried to some rich guy in Michigan. Then she started sending a bunch of money, all the expensive toys a girl could ever want, but it sucked. All I wanted was a mom, and she didn’t give a shit enough about me to even stay in the same state. I made my dad send it all back and told him to tell her I didn’t want to see or hear from her again.”
Jesus. If there was a worst mom in the world award, I knew who I’d choose as the winner. “I’m sorry,” I said when Paige was still gritting her teeth. “I didn’t mean to bring up a bad memory. That must have been hard.”
“She was selfish enough to think she could buy me with money. And too selfish to see that before she left, even if we didn’t have much, we had everything we needed in a family. I always figured I was better without her.”
Damn. This woman. She blew my mind. Not only with her wisdom and her sexy pouty lips but her heart. She liked her simple life, and I loved that about her.
