Reid nods slowly. “I get you. Yeah.”
I grin. “That’s it? I pour my life story out and you get me.”
He smirks back. “Yeah. I get you.”
Great. Well. My life may be crashing down around me, but at least Reid Riggins gets me. “How could you? You really have no idea what I’m going through.”
“Try me,” he says.
“Okay. For starters, what if you knew the only way to make your family happy was to give up on your dreams?”
He looks up at me, eyes squinted against the sun. The fading sunlight casts his flawless, stubble-covered skin in a golden glow, highlighting his kissable, cocky mouth and powerful jawline. He’s perfect. How could a man so beautiful and sexy be anything but arrogant, obnoxious, and self-centered? How? No matter where he goes, every woman’s eyes will be locked on him, their imaginations running wild with what a night tangled together with him would be like.
His lips pull back into a grin and he looks down. “I think I could relate to that. My grandfather started this shop,” says Reid, tilting his head toward his house. He looks over his shoulder at the shop, almost longingly. I sense the same thoughtfulness in him I saw as he looked over the landscape behind his house and can’t help being reminded there’s more to this man than grease, muscle, and sexuality. It’s something deep that he keeps well hidden, but it’s there, in the small, quiet moments.
“He wanted more for me,” says Reid. “They all wanted me to play football.” He bites his lip, shaking his head. “It was perfect. Reid Riggins. Big, strong, and stupid. Football was my only shot. At least that’s what they all thought. I got offers starting junior year. Full rides. I even had a few coaches come out to recruit me. They offered me all kinds of shit. Cars, apartments. You name it.”
I frown at him. I knew he played football in high school, but I never bothered going to the games. He didn’t even go to my school, and I thought the rumors about how good he was were just inflated because of how much every girl wanted to sleep with him. “Tara never talked about that…”
“Because she didn’t know,” he says, meeting my eyes. “If I had told my family they would’ve pestered me for the rest of my life. I tossed the letters and told the coaches to go fuck themselves. Football was fun, but it wasn’t my dream. I wanted this life. This fucking life I have right here.” Reid stands. “Give me my garage and an honest day’s work. Give me my son. And you’ve given me all I need.”
He starts to walk back to his house and then stops, as if just remembering something. “I mean,” he adds. “A good fuck now and then is fine too.”
I’m left speechless as he strides back to his garage and barks orders to one of his employees who appears to be slacking off. Every time I try to pin Reid down and think I have him figured out, he defies me. He shows me he’s more than I thought, and with every new development, I’m left wanting more. I want to know more. To feel more. To see more of him.
I swallow hard, realizing with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’m falling for Reid, inch by muscled, throbbing inch.
40
Reid
I knock on Tara’s door and wait. I can hear the TV from inside and figure she probably has Roman planted in front of it again. Mother of the year, as fucking usual.
The door swings open and I’m surprised to see Roman.
“Daddy!” he says.
He reaches to hug me and I dodge him, ducking his head under my arm. He spins free and puts his little fists up. I hold up my palms as targets for him and he punches out a series of lefts and rights. Each little impact of his fist is laughably soft, but his face is scrunched with so much concentration that I almost expect the punches to hurt.
“Good one,” I say after he gives me a right hook. I shake my hand like the punch stung. Roman relaxes, grinning like crazy and running to hug me.
I let him this time, kneeling to hug him back. “How was it, Bud?”
“Good,” he says, but his eyes dart to the side.
I frown, looking over his shoulder and still seeing no sign of Tara. “Is mom around?”
“She’s in the bathroom, I think,” he says.
“Why don’t you go get your stuff ready. Just wait here when you’re done, okay?”
“Okay,” says Roman.
I step inside and head toward the bedroom. I open the door and find Tara sprawled on the bed with her forearm resting over her eyes.
I glance behind me and make sure Roman isn’t in earshot. I hear him distantly knocking things around in his room on the other side of the house.
“What the hell are you doing?” I ask.
Tara sucks in a surprised breath and sits up. “What?” she groans, rubbing drool from the corner of her mouth.
I move closer, kneeling to get a better look. Bloodshot eyes. Slumping posture. She looks dizzy.
“Are you drunk?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “I just had a cocktail to take the edge off.”
“To take the edge off?” I ask, shaking my head. “I’m not leaving Roman here with you again. Call that fucking lawyer of yours if you want. If you want to see him, you need to grow up.”
“Grow up?” she shouts. “You want me to talk about growing up? You’re over there playing in your stupid fucking garage and your stupid fucking cars. And you’re fucking that slut who used to call herself my best friend. Get a real job. You’re teaching our son to be lazy and pathetic.”
I can’t help smirk at the hypocrisy. “I have better things to do, Tara. Sleep it off, and you can call me when you’re ready to be a fucking mother,” I say, slamming the door behind me. Roman is waiting by the front door when I step into the living room. “Come on, bud, let’s go home.”
When we get back home, Roman goes inside to help Taylor with an oil change. At his age, helping basically consists of handing Taylor tools when he needs them, but Roman loves every second of it. I’m about to get to work when I look toward Sandra’s house and hear muffled cursing and a loud metallic clatter.
I head over to her house, wondering what I’m doing with every step I take. I guess I don’t have a plan. I don’t know if I’m hoping she really is pregnant. I don’t know if I want to throttle her or want to marry her. All I know is my feet are taking me over there. Again.
I find her in the garage. Her hair is pulled back in a messy bun and her pants are soaked up to the knees. She’s wearing a man’s style button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled back, and she looks fucking adorable in it.
Sandra glances up at me. A wet lock of hair is plastered to her forehead. “Reid,” she says.
“You know you could get seriously hurt trying to fix that yourself,” I say.
She drops the wrench in her hand and puts her face in her hands. I’m surprised when I realize she’s breaking down in tears.
“Hey,” I say carefully, moving to sit beside her and put an arm around her. She feels so good in my arms. So small and fragile, even though I know the mind knocking around in that head of hers is strong as hell and fiercely independent. “You’re okay. You’ll be fine.”
“No,” she says, voice heavy with emotion. “My parents are coming tomorrow. They are going to find out I’ve been lying. They are going to see my life is a mess.”
“Your life isn’t a mess” I say. I stare outside as I hold her, watching the way the trees I’ve grown up looking at sway as the wind whispers through them. “See those trees?” I ask, nodding toward the trees. “Tell me what you see.”
She sniffles. “It’s windy,” she says. “What am I supposed to see?”
“The trees can’t do shit about the wind, Sandra. Wind comes. The trees bend. But those are the same fucking trees that have been there since I was a kid.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “What are you saying?”
I shrug uncomfortably. I’m not used to voicing these kinds of things. They usually just float around in my mind. “I just mean shit happens and it may feel like it’s going to knock you down,
but the trees that are too stiff to bend get uprooted in a storm. The trees that bend make it through.”
She grins up at me. “Okay. Maybe you’re not just a barbarian who hits cars with wrenches. I see your point. But I don’t see how it is going to help me.”
“Because there’s more than one way to fight this. Bend, but don’t break.”
Sandra sighs and leans her head into me. I close my eyes, listening to the sound of the trees and the distant clink of the boys in my garage working on something. Holding her and being here with her feels so fucking right. I feel a sudden surge of certainty. The way I’m feeling about Sandra isn’t because of my grandfather’s will. Maybe it started that way. Now, every time I’m with her my feelings just get stronger. The craving. I can hardly believe she was in front of me all the time I was with Tara and I never saw her for what she is. Perfect.
“Bend, but don’t break…” she says thoughtfully.
There’s a loud crash from the garage. We both jump up together and run the distance from her house to mine. We find Roman wincing in pain and holding his toe. Taylor is white as a ghost. My eyes go immediately to the heavy toolbox on the ground and its spilled contents. I see the dent on its size from where it must have fallen.
I pick up Roman, who is starting to cry hard now. “I’ll go with you,” says Sandra. I place him gently on Sandra’s lap in the back of my track and take off toward Dr. Stephens’ clinic.
Sandra sits in the back of the truck and holds Roman, rocking him softly and running her fingers through his hair as she shushes him. I start the car, feeling like my insides are ice. My little guy. Fuck. I should have been there. Taylor watches us drive away, rubbing the back of his neck guiltily. My first instinct is to be pissed at him for letting something like this happen, but I can’t blame him. I’m the one who walked away from my son in a dangerous place like a garage to go look in on Sandra.
Fuck.
I can practically feel his pain. My foot burns just imagining what it must feel like. Cold tendrils of empathetic pain snake from my foot and all across my skin, giving me goosebumps. “You’re going to be okay, Bud,” I say, glancing in the rearview as I pull close to a hundred miles per hour in my rush to get him to Dr. Stephens.
Sandra meets my eye in the rearview as she looks at the damage. “Nothing permanent,” she mouths.
I feel a slight relief. Thank God. My first thoughts were to the idea of him losing a toe. Toes, even. He wouldn’t be able to play sports like I did. He’s too young to have his options limited. I knew I would never put any kind of limits on what he can do. I spent so long feeling chained up by my family’s desire for me to play college ball that I promised to never do that to my own kids. If he wants to be a fucking computer programmer, well, good. I’ll encourage the shit out of it. I’ll even take a class up at the local college so I can know what the hell he’s talking about.
Point is, I don’t want anything to be off limits for my son. I want the world to be his for the taking. If some stupid ass accident robs him of that, I don’t know what I’m going to do.
They take us in right away at the doctor’s office and get Roman in for x-rays. Sandra has to step out to grab a call while Dr. Stephens goes over the facts with me.
“It’s a broken metatarsal,” says the doctor, pointing to one of the longer bones in the middle of Roman’s foot. “He’ll have to wear a boot ‘til it heals. Kids his age heal fast, so I expect him to be all better in about six weeks. Eight at the longest.”
“Thanks, Doc,” I say, clapping Dr. Stephens a little too hard on the shoulder.
He winces, but smiles at me. “Of course.”
We’re driving home only thirty minutes later. Roman is already looking ten times better. He’s humming and poking at the medical boot on his foot. “Stop messing with it,” I say.
“Sorry, Dad.”
Sandra’s sitting in the passenger seat and I realize for the first time since she stepped out to take a call that she looks pale as a ghost.
“You still thinking about your parents?” I ask.
“Yeah. A little,” she admits.
I frown. “So what’s the deal? You said you were worried about them finding something out?”
She laughs humorlessly. “You could say that. I haven’t been entirely honest with them when they’ve bothered to ask about my life. Seeing where I live and where I work is going to be a shock to them. And I kind of told them I was in a serious relationship to get them to stop trying to set me up with guys.”
“Where do they think you work?”
“I never exactly told them where I work. And… well, they think I’m kind of engaged to a businessman. A wealthy one,” she says, voice growing quieter and more hesitant with every syllable.
I bark a laugh. “You’re kidding.”
“What’s engaged?” asked Roman.
“It’s when two people are planning to get married, Bud,” I say.
“Oh,” says Roman. He’s quiet for a few seconds and then he speaks again. “Are you going to get engaged Miss Sandra, Daddy?”
Sandra and I laugh, but I notice Sandra’s cheeks burning bright red.
“Actually,” I say. “Miss Sandra and I are going to play a game tomorrow. We’re going to pretend to be engaged. And daddy is going to pretend he knows something about business.”
“What?” says Sandra. All the red has drained from her face. “No. That would never work. You couldn’t--”
“Seriously?” I ask. “I can pass as a businessman if I want. It’s settled. Tomorrow morning. Roman and I will be there and we’ll be looking sharp. It’s a date.”
Sandra tries to adopt a neutral expression, but I see the corner of her mouth keep trying to pull up into a smile.
What are you getting yourself into here, Reid?
41
Sandra
When I open the door the next morning I nearly choke on my coffee. Reid Riggins and Roman Riggins are standing on my front porch. Roman is wearing a blue polo and little khaki pants that are adorable. His hair is gelled and combed to the side. Reid is wearing a full suit and he looks like he’s going to a funeral. His hair is combed neatly away from his face, just like Roman’s
I cover my mouth and laugh so hard I have to set my coffee down to put both hands on my knees. “Oh my God. This is too much.”
Reid smirks. “Now, now, dear. Be careful. You’ll give yourself a condition.” He speaks in a careful accent where he enunciates every syllable precisely. The voice he’s using makes me break out in fresh laughter.
“What’s wrong, mommy?” asks Roman.
He looks up to Reid, as if making sure he did something right. Reid winks and nods back at him. I can’t help staring at both of them open mouthed in complete disbelief. I doubt anyone is going to buy that Reid is a businessman in that getup, and Roman is wearing dirty tennis shoes with his nice clothes, but the fact that he is trying this for me is easily the sweetest gesture anyone has ever made for me. I’m not sure Roman would be calling me mommy already, but I can’t bear telling him not to. It’s too cute.
The doorbell rings again. My eyes go wide. “They weren’t supposed to be here for another hour. I turn to Reid, taking stock of his attempt at looking like he belongs in a suit. I reach to his collar and hastily straighten a crease behind his neck, trying not to get distracted at how good his hard, warm skin feels as my fingertips brush against it.
Reid grins. “There are children here, honey.”
He’s still using that goofy voice of his. I bite my lip. “Just talk normal, okay? Act like a normal person. Just don’t talk about cars.”
“Let me handle this, wife-to-be.”
I bite back a laugh, shushing him as I open the door. It’s the first time I’ve seen my parents in person in at least two years, and they look just as I remember. Alfred Williams III, and Collette Williams, dedicated mother of two and master of none. The two of them have never worked an hour between them, but they are worth millions and their fortune
grows every day. They have a small army of people to invest their money and manage it so it keeps growing. As far as they are concerned, their only job is to uphold the family name and find newer and more frivolous ways to spend all their money. Well, being disappointed in me probably registers at least as a part time job for them, too.
“You live here?” asks my mother, Collette.
Reid steps forward, reaching to help my mother and guide her inside. He winks at me as he escorts them inside and toward my living room. I cross my arms and follow with Roman, listening as he ignores my advice and still speaks in that silly accent.
“This is just an investment property,” says Reid. “We’re bypassing some federal regurgitations by using it as a residence. You know,” he says.
Did he just say regurgitations instead of regulations? I want to cover my face and laugh or cry. Maybe both.
My father’s smile grows, but he doesn’t seem to notice Reid’s slip up. My parents are probably as clueless about real business as Reid is. They just pay other people to handle it for them. “Oh, of course. Collette and I know a thing or two about sticking it to the government. The more you can keep their hands off your money, the better.”
“Honey, where is your ring?” asks my mother.
I can’t believe I forgot that detail. My hand instinctively moves behind my back and I stutter, unable to think of a response.
“At the cleaners,” says Reid. “I can’t have my fiance wearing a dirty ring now, can I?” he asks.
Alfred purses his lips in approval. “Certainly not. I appreciate a man who pays attention to detail.”
“Oh, yes of course,” says Reid gravely. “Why, I swear. I could lose myself in the details if I didn’t have my lovely fiancée to keep me grounded.” He punctuates his words with a firm squeeze of my ass.
I turn to him, glaring while simultaneously feeling a rush of heat flood my body. My mother’s eyebrows flick upwards in surprise, but she only smirks. My father didn’t seem to notice.
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