by Amy Sparling
“What’s wrong with Becca?”
I laugh. “Nothing, man. She’s great and Bayleigh loves her. I’m questioning you. You don’t settle down with girls for more than a month and you sure as hell don’t move across the country for one.”
“Tell me about it,” he says. “But this isn’t some crazy spur of the moment thing. I’ve been wanting to do it since our first date.”
“I don’t know what to say.” Beside me, Natalie’s red Camaro slides into a parking spot. I glance over, just because there’s movement and not because it’s Natalie. She’s already looking at me though and she throws me a seductive wink as she leans over into her passenger seat to grab her purse. Ugh.
“Say something,” Park says.
I turn my attention back to the steering wheel. “I think it’s cool. And I’d love having my best friend live here, hell I can probably get you a job.”
“That’s actually what I really wanted to talk about,” Park says.
I lift an eyebrow. “You want a job? You know I’m happy to do it.”
“Not exactly. What would you think about starting a business with me?”
After I give my first two riding lessons of the day, I head back to my office, eager to read the email Park sent me. He had briefly told me on the phone about his idea to buy some cheap land between here and Lawson, Bayleigh and Becca’s hometown, and start our own motocross training facility.
I’m practically skipping to my office, reveling in the blast of cold AC that flows in through the vents after spending the whole morning outside. The thrill of going into business with my best friend, doing something I love no less, has almost made me forget about the drama in the corporate part of my job.
My assistant.
She sits in my office chair when I arrive, her bare feet kicked back on my desk, painting her nails the same bright red color as her lipstick. She’s wearing cutoff jean shorts so fucking short I could see her pubes, if they weren’t waxed off. Her black tank top has the word bitch across the front in sparkling letters.
Yeah, I’ll say.
“Hey there,” she says sweetly, like she’s just a regular girl next door type.
“Get out of my chair,” I bark.
She sits up quickly and caps the lid on her nail polish. “Sorry, Jace. I thought you were with a client until noon.”
“How the fuck did you know that?”
“Whoa,” she says, holding up her hands. “Can I get you some coffee or something? You’re awfully crabby today.”
“Yeah, actually. Get me a coffee.”
Her smile widens. “Sure thing, boss.”
I let out the mother of all sighs when she fucking finally leaves the room. I hate this girl. She’s unprofessional in every aspect of the word. I hang my head out of the door to my office. “Mr. Fisher?” I call toward his open office door.
No reply except for the churning of the mini fridge in his office. He must be out. I slide my phone out of my pocket and send off a text without reading over it. I’m too pissed to take a deep breath and think logically.
This bitch has to go. If a slutty skank is the only option, then I don’t need an assistant.
I power up my computer and focus on the start screen when Natalie walks back in, a cup of coffee in her hand and a plate of cookies in the other. “Coffee and cookies,” she says sweetly, in this voice that’s so damn fake I almost laugh. She’s like a greeting card come to life. “I made them myself.”
I lift an eyebrow, staring at the perfectly round chocolate chip cookies layered neatly on the plate.
“Well,” she says with a laugh, “My mom helped.”
Even though I love chocolate chip cookies, especially the homemade ones Bay makes, I throw a look of distain toward the plate and take the coffee. I wish I could scorn the coffee as well, but I really need it if I’m going to stay sane. “Did we have a power outage?” I ask, shaking my mouse and wishing the damn computer would power up already.
“Nope,” she says, placing a hand on the corner of my desk. She’s somehow managed to get a foot closer to me in the last few seconds.
“Weird. I didn’t turn off my computer this morning. Damn thing must have crashed.”
She turns on her heel, still barefoot, and walks toward my door, shaking her hips like she’s in some kind of girl band music video. “No…I don’t think that’s what happened.”
I look at her questioningly. “What happened to my computer?”
She shrugs. “I think it just had some sensitive material that needed to be protected.”
“Protected?”
She nods toward my computer monitor, which now displays the log in screen. “Password protected,” she says with a coy smile.
I frown, wondering what the hell this girl is on about now. I start to type my password when there’s a knock at my office door. “What the hell is it?” I say, not looking up.
“Damn, is that how you greet a friend of twenty years?” Park steps into my office, holding up his hands like he’s surrendering. “I mean, I expected some cursing, but not like that.”
“Shit, man, I’m sorry.” I stand up and throw my arms around him in a big ass, but still manly, hug. “I’ve had shit day.”
He glances at his watch. “It’s only noon. How much bad shit can happen in a few hours?”
“It’s mostly just one bad thing—that bitch of an assistant.”
Park glances over his shoulder, but Natalie is long gone. “That’s your assistant?” He lets out a long breath of air, shaking his head. “I thought she was some kind of prostitute.”
I laugh and it feels good to laugh after being so high strung and stressed around Natalie just now. “Trust me…I don’t want her working for me. Mr. Fisher was obligated to give her a job and he hasn’t given me a choice.”
Park sits on the corner of my desk, studying his cell phone—no doubt texting Becca while we chat. “And what does Mrs. Adams think about this? I can’t imagine Bay being okay with you having an assistant, much less that one.”
My lips slide to the side of my mouth and I shake my head, turning back to my computer. I lean forward and type in my password, which is written on a sticky note on my monitor. “She doesn’t know, and I’m hoping to get rid of her before Bay finds out.”
“I won’t say a word then,” Park says, looking up from his phone.
“It’s not that I want to lie to her, but she’s going through a lot with the baby now and it’d kill me if she knew about Natalie. She’d take it the wrong way even though there’s not shit going on with this bitch.”
“I hear you,” Park says with a nod. As if this kind of thing happens all the time. And for him—the four time national supercross champion—I’m sure it does.
I press the enter key on the keyboard and nearly throw up. “What the fuck?”
“Holy shit!” Park nearly falls off the corner of my desk.
I kick, rolling my office chair back a few feet, if only to get away from the filthy image that has been set as my computer’s wallpaper. There, behind the handful of icons, taking up the entire nineteen inch monitor, is a photo of Natalie, bending over my office chair and hiking up her skirt, showing off her severe lack of panties. She stares in what I’m guessing is her attempt at being seductive, into the camera, holding up a photo of me, with her tongue grazing across my two dimensional lips.
Park’s hand slides down his face. “You definitely don’t want Bayleigh to see that.”
My jaw clenches. I want to throw the monitor out the fucking window. But that wouldn’t solve the problem. In order to get rid of the offensive image, I’ll have to look at it while I change the background setting. My blood boils as I sit rigid in my chair, right-clicking and choosing the default blue screen image to replace the wallpaper. When it pops into place, removing Natalie’s disgusting crotch from my screen, I realize that this might not be the only picture on here.
“That girl needs help,” Park says, sliding off the desk. “She knows you’re m
arried right?”
“Believe me, I’ve told her.” I throw a hand toward the silver frame on my desk, the photo of Bay and me. “If anything, I think she likes fucking with me even more because I’m married. It’s some sick game for her.”
I click on the pictures folder and scroll through, my heart racing as I hope that I won’t find an array of unwanted photos. Luckily the wallpaper was the only photo I can find.
“So,” I say, leaning back in my chair with a heavy sigh. “Let’s talk about this business idea.”
Chapter 14
Park doesn’t even hear me because he’s staring at his phone, which just vibrated three times in a row. He smiles, his thumb swiping madly across the screen while he replies.
“Dude, you’ve got it bad.”
He doesn’t acknowledge me. I could say anything right now. “Yeah so I’m cheating on Bay with her mother,” I say, sliding my hands behind my head and hefting my feet onto my desk. “I think I’m in love with Bay’s mom, actually.”
“Huh?” Park’s brown eyebrows draw together and he looks as if he’s just awaken from a dream and can’t quite remember all of it. “What the hell did you say?”
“I said stop being obsessed with your phone and tell me about your business idea.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, sorry.” He holds up his hands in surrender and slides his phone into his pocket. “I’m done texting.” The phone vibrates. He doesn’t break eye contact with me.
I roll my eyes. “Just answer it.”
“Thanks,” he says, reaching for the phone. “I’ll just tell her we’re going to lunch and that I can’t talk for a while.”
I step into the hallway and call Bayleigh while I wait for Park and his insane amount of puppy love to settle down. She answers after several rings. “Hello?”
“Hey, babe.”
“How’s work?” She sounds stressed, almost like she doesn’t want to be on the phone.
“It’s all right. Park came by to visit—well, I think he just came by to sit in my office while he texts Becca.”
She laughs. “They’re a little intense, huh?”
“Not any more than we were when we started dating.”
She scoffs into the phone. “We were so not like that.”
I lean against the wall. “Are you saying you weren’t madly in love with me when we first met?”
“Of course I was, but I didn’t act like Becca does. I played it cool.”
Now it’s my turn to scoff. “Yeah, right! You were all about getting a piece of me.”
“Someone is full of themselves…” Bay says with a laugh. Jett starts crying in the background. “I should go,” she says with a sigh.
“I love you,” I say.
“I love you too, babe.”
When I hang up the phone I become aware of a set of eyes boring into me from across the hall. I glance over and find Natalie standing there, twirling hair around her finger. “Can I help you?” I ask with as much sarcasm as possible.
She shrugs. “I should be asking you that.”
“Don’t ask me a thing,” I say, turning back toward my office. “I should call the police for what you left on my computer.”
Natalie’s bleach blonde eyebrow arches. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Besides,” she says, walking closer to me, her flip flops sliding across the thin carpet. “You don’t have to put up such a front, you know.” She grabs my bicep and squeezes it. “I can be very discreet. Your wife won’t know a thing.”
My temper flares beneath my chest. “I wouldn’t fuck you if my life depended on it.”
She rolls her eyes and my office door swings open. Park steps out, phone in hand. “You ready to go?” he asks, sparing the slightest glance toward Natalie.
I nod.
“Oh my god, you’re Nolan Park!” Natalie’s eyes go wide and she bounces on her heels. “I'm a huge fan.”
“Thanks,” he says, turning toward the exit. We take a few steps and I’m in awe over how well he can blow off a fan. A slutty fan at that. This is no longer the Park I know—Becca has made a decent man out of him.
Natalie scurries along after us, rushing ahead and beating us to the door. She pulls it open and beams up at Park. “You’re even more handsome in person, you know.”
He gives her the slightest head nod of acknowledgement and keeps walking. She trails along beside us. “I loved how you managed to come back from second to last place after you wrecked at Ponca,” she says, batting her eyelashes. “I thought for sure you were screwed but somehow you managed to win that race. Very impressive.”
“Look kid,” Park says in what is an awesome display of showing how little he’s paid attention to her. She’s only a year or so younger than we are. “If you want to wait in the autograph line at the next race I’ll be happy to sign something for you but right now I’m trying to have lunch with a friend so I don’t have time for this.”
“Sure thing,” she says with a sweet smile, totally unaffected. “I’ll be here when ya’ll get back! Jace, let me know if you need anything.”
“Holy shit that woman is insane,” Park says as we climb into his brand new truck.
I nod. “This is the hell that I have to live with now. Mr. Fisher better fire her or I’ll have to fire myself.”
“Not if we get our business up and running,” Park says, cranking the engine. “I have about fifty percent of the work already planned out. We could be in business in about three months. That is of course, if you have about fifty grand to pitch in.”
“You know I’m good for it,” I say, reaching for my seat belt. “I’d have to convince Bay but she’ll probably be on board. Shit…” I feel my pocket, then my other one. My heart accelerates when I realize that all of my pockets are empty, minus my wallet. “I left my phone in my office.”
“I’ll wait here while you get it,” Park says, turning on the air conditioner.
I shake my head. “The last thing I want to do is go back in there and deal with that girl. Screw it, I’ll just leave it there. We won’t be gone long.”
Park puts the truck in reverse and chuckles. “I don’t blame you one bit, man.”
We head to a little hole in the wall Chinese food place that has the greatest eggrolls in the world. Park lays out his business idea for me, one scribbled sheet of paper at a time.
“Okay so, there’s thirty acres in Groovewood county, it’s just on the outskirts of Lawson and about thirty minutes from Mixon,” Park says, pointing to a printed out section of Google maps. He also has the printed out listing of the land from the real estate company. “They want a hundred grand for the whole thing, which is a damn steal for thirty acres.”
“Yeah, I’d guess that’s a good price,” I say, not knowing a damn thing about real estate in our area. Or in any area. It’s part of the reason why Bay and I are still hanging out in an apartment that’s a little too small for the three of us instead of buying or building a house. “This might be cool because it’s between Bay’s home town and Mixon. I think she’s a little bummed that we live further away from her family and friends, so this could bridge the gap.”
Park lifts an eyebrow. “Dude, you’d just move back to Lawson if we do this. What’s keeping you in Mixon?”
I think about it for a minute, realizing that he’s right. “Nothing but this job,” I say with a shrug.
“Hell, you and Bay could build a house right next door to the land and live there.”
“You could do that too,” I say, thinking of the possibilities. “You could build a house next to mine and we’d be business partners and neighbors.”
He smirks. “Can’t do that actually.”
The look on his face has me dying to know more. I suddenly feel like Bayleigh does when she’s gossiping about girls they hate with Becca. “What do you mean by that? Don’t want to be my neighbor?”
He chuckles and grabs an eggroll off the plate of appetizers we ordered. “It’s a possibility. But I’ve already made an offer on
this badass Victorian house that’s just down the street. It’s been abandoned a while and it has this perfect studio space upstairs and—”
“Studio? Like for photography or something?”
He shakes his head and looks off to the side, peering out of the restaurant’s windows as if something super exciting is happening in the parking lot. “It wouldn’t be for me, actually.”
My brows furrow as I try to extract meaning from that cryptic comment. Then I remember the painted canvas hanging in our living room that says Live, Love, Family in Becca’s unique artistic style. “Are you making a painting studio for Becca?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I mean, if we work out and stuff.”
“Do you plan on working out and stuff with Becca?”
He dunks his egg roll into sweet and sour sauce. “Let’s just focus back on the business plan.”
“Fine,” I say, giving him a sinister glare. It’s so much fun to watch my former player of a best friend freak out and actually turn into a normal, one-woman guy. I’m proud of him. But I’m not about to get all weird and mushy and tell him that. I take a sip from my Coke and lean forward in the booth. “So we buy the land, and then what? We’ll need a tractor to build a track, which is expensive as hell but I could probably rent Mr. Fisher’s for a while.”
Park nods. “We can clear out the land ourselves. Most of it is already cleared and there’s a few trees we can work around and build the track between them.” He points to an area on his hand sketched map of the land, which is basically a large rectangle that shares a border with one of the county roads. “I figure we can set up camp sites over on this side, and then in the summer time and over Christmas break and stuff, we can do weekly training camps and kids can spend the whole week here, riding and practicing twenty-four seven.”
“That would be badass,” I say with a nod. Our own personal motocross training center—that sounds like the greatest career someone like me could have, second only to actually being a professional racer again. Of course, now that I have a family and a home, the last thing I’d want is to be traveling around the country racing professionally every weekend. That was my life before me and my bad temper had gotten kicked out of the pros and before I’d met Bayleigh. I’ve always wanted a career in motocross, something I can rely on when I’m too old to keep riding. This could be the perfect idea.
