But, with a glance over my shoulder, it wasn’t Reggie’s gaze that I found watching my back, but Eerie’s. And her eyes were almost in panic mode.
The question was, why?
Chapter 6
You have a small dick.
No, you didn’t read that wrong.
-Text from Reggie to Nathan
Reggie
There was a knock on my door, and I opened it with a wide smile, expecting Sierra.
Who I got was Nathan.
He was wearing bright blue swim trunks, a t-shirt that’d seen better days, and flip-flops on his overly white feet.
I blinked at him owlishly.
“What?” I asked.
His brows rose at my tone.
“I’m here to pick you up, then go and pick up Sierra. Sammy was going to do it, but then Hastings had a bout of morning sickness and they were running late. So I was voluntold,” he explained.
I sighed and opened my door up.
“Don’t let my cat out,” I ordered.
“You have a cat?” he asked as he followed me inside, his eyes on the floor as he looked for a cat. “I didn’t see a cat the other day.”
“That’s because I just found it last night,” I answered as I picked up my bag of shit.
“You found a cat last night? Where?” he wondered as he still continued to hunt for said cat.
I walked over to the bookshelf that was in the corner of the room and pointed, causing Nathan’s eyes to follow my finger.
“Oh,” he said as he saw the cat perched at the very top shelf where he’d been for the last six hours. I couldn’t reach him, so he apparently thought he was safe there.
“He’s not the nicest of cats yet,” I admitted. “But he was getting picked on by some dogs that belong to the neighbors, so I thought that I’d rescue him. Only, he’s a bit of an asshole.”
“How do you know it’s not someone else’s cat?” he wondered.
I shrugged. “I don’t know if it is or isn’t. Maybe someone will ask where the cat went. Maybe they won’t. In the meantime, I’m not leaving him outside to get mauled by dogs.”
He sighed. “Animals get out. Just make sure that if someone does come looking for the cat, you don’t keep it just because you don’t trust them to take care of the cat.”
I snickered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Hey,” he grumbled. “I’m just saying that we’ve been through this before.”
We had.
There’d been a poodle that belonged to some neglectful woman down the road from where I’d grown up. The woman would let her poodle out and the dog would be everywhere. One day I’d found the damn thing near the main highway when I’d gotten off the bus.
And tired of her bullshit and not taking care of her dog, I’d taken the dog home with me and kept her for over a week.
The woman was distraught, and it was only when I told her that one of those times the dog wouldn’t be so lucky that she finally realized how irresponsible she was being.
Or, she might’ve realized this only after I told her she was being an asshole pet owner.
Regardless, I hadn’t been very nice about it. Luckily, she’d realized the error in her ways and kept the dog leashed from that point on, and they moved not long after that.
I just hoped that the woman kept the dog safe after I wasn’t around anymore to take care of it.
“I know what you are remembering, but I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.
“Of course not.” He chuckled as he gestured to the door. “You ready?”
I nodded and followed him to the door, making sure to grab my keys that would get me back into my apartment later.
After locking the doors, I reluctantly headed behind Nathan to his vehicle that was parked beside my car.
Just as we were heading to the parking lot, my neighbor that I never saw came out. “Hey, have you happened to have seen a cat? Mine got out last night.”
Nathan reversed direction and came back with my cat.
“Here,” he said.
My neighbor’s eyes held relief. “Wow, thanks.”
I sighed and kept walking.
Dammit. I wanted that cat!
But, I wouldn’t want to take someone’s pet. That would make me a bit of a dick.
Nathan caught up to me when we got to the sidewalk, not saying a word.
I was also surprised that my usual dealer wasn’t there, but a new guy.
“You need to leave,” Nathan barked as he saw him. “I don’t care what that little motherfucker told you, but if you’re still here in five minutes, you’ll be arrested.”
The man looked like he’d swallowed a brick as he nodded and took off around the back of the building.
I watched him go, wishing I could run away, too, and groaned as I climbed into the car.
“You don’t have to act like I’m taking you to your death,” he grumbled.
I didn’t say anything.
I couldn’t.
Because I wasn’t upset that I was with him.
I was freakin’ excited.
More so, I wanted to spend the time with him despite knowing that it was a bad idea on my part.
“How about we call a truce for today,” he suggested. “It’ll be fine.”
Would it, though?
I just wasn’t sure that I could act normally around him when it came to things like this.
***
“This is such a bad fucking idea,” I said as I looked at the tube I was somehow supposed to get into.
“Just jump and wiggle,” Hastings suggested.
I looked at her. “You go first, and I’ll follow.”
“Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there!” She grinned and then jumped, doing exactly what she suggested.
Hastings had Tourette’s. Hastings also didn’t give a fuck that she had Tourette’s. You took her as she came, and I loved that about her.
Even more, I loved that she spouted off catchy jingles from my favorite commercials.
The sad thing was, I didn’t have Tourette’s and I still did that.
“Fuck!” I cried out, dipping my toe into the very cold water.
I knew that I’d get used to it, but goddammit. It was cold!
I tried to position the tube, but every time I tried to turn around and sit in it, the damn thing would move.
Realizing that I did, indeed, need to run and jump like Hastings had just done, I took a deep breath and launched my backside into it.
Everything was fine for all of three seconds. Then the tube rocked sideways too far and I found myself under water.
I came up spluttering as the way-too-cold water surrounded me.
“Whew!” I cried out. “Holy shit that’s cold!”
Everyone around me was laughing, and I rolled my eyes at them in annoyance. “It’s not funny!”
I tried to finesse myself into the tube from beside it, but every time I’d get half my body into the tube, the entire damn thing would flip up on its side, making it damn near impossible to get into.
I just didn’t have the upper body strength.
Just as I was about to give up, the tube was held with a steady hand, and I looked up to find Nathan standing chest deep in the water holding it for me.
I gave him an appreciative nod, then tried for the bazillionth time to get in.
I was halfway up when he tossed me up the rest of the way with his hand on my ass.
I squealed and twisted as I suddenly found myself on the tube, and then gasped when my ass fell into the hole.
My body was absolutely tingling as I turned around and stared at Nathan.
“Um, thanks,” I said huskily, feeling my heart pound in my ears.
“Welcome,” he muttered before going to his own tube that he’d abandoned.
Saint had been holding it for him so it didn’t float down the riv
er while he’d helped me.
Then I watched in annoyed awe as he hefted himself into his own tube with barely any effort. The grace of his big, muscled body moving was enough to make my mouth fall open in shock.
Jesus, the man was pretty.
He didn’t have any tattoos except for the lone one on his chest that I’d dared him to get.
Actually, it wasn’t as much a dare as it was a bet.
I’d bet him one time during our senior year that I could get more homeruns that season than he could.
And guess who’d won? Me!
But only by one, and even then it was only because he hit a shit ton of long balls that were just shy of fair territory to be considered a home run.
Our bet had been if I hit more homeruns than he did—I could’ve gone pro with softball had I wanted to—he had to get a softball tattooed on his chest.
Needless to say, I’d gone with him that day to get it, and he hadn’t gotten another tattoo since.
He looked up then, his gaze catching mine as I stared at him.
I looked away, embarrassed, and slicked my hair back from my face.
“What’s wrong?”
I looked over at Sierra who didn’t have a single problem getting into her tube.
Her hair was still fucking straight and perfectly styled whereas mine was a tangled mess.
I was sure that my mascara was running, too.
Great.
I frowned. “How’s my mascara?”
She grinned. “Perfect because I got you the waterproof kind.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and allowed my head to fall back on the tube.
The water was surprisingly comfortable despite it being October now.
I’d expected it to be so cold that I could barely stand it, but it was a balmy eighty degrees out, and with the sun, I was only slightly chilled. I had a feeling that the more sun that I got, though, the more that I would love the cooler water that my ass was sitting in.
“I never thought I’d like tubing,” Hastings said, her eyes on her man that was throwing a football around with his cousin.
Every time the ball flew over our heads, cold water droplets would drop all over us, making my nipples harden as it met my skin.
I shivered and scooted down further into the water, knowing that if I could just get a little used to it, I wouldn’t be as cold.
“Me neither,” I admitted. “It was a big thing in high school, though. We were supposed to go my senior year, but I had a softball game senior skip day. Which ended up being a good thing, I think, because a lot of those kids got in trouble for underage drinking. I think over a hundred of our classmates got tickets.”
“Including me,” Nathan’s deep, silky smooth voice said as he paddled forward.
He stopped when he got a bottle of beer out of the cooler that was for some reason connected to the women’s tubes.
Once he had it, he moved himself backward and went back to talking to Saint and Dax.
Dax’s wife, Rowen, had stayed home with their newborn baby.
The rest of the pregnant chicks were here, though.
Ashe being the most pregnant of them all.
She wasn’t in a tube with us, though. She was in a figure eight-shaped one that was connected to her husband, Ford’s, who was resting with his head against her big ol’ belly.
I looked away, feeling like I was intruding on them by staring, and found myself closing my eyes as I imagined what life would be like if I had my own man like that.
In the back of my mind, when I’d pictured my life, Nathan was always the one I pictured myself with.
Which, I supposed, was a bit of a stretch seeing as Nathan had never once acted like I was anything more than an annoyance on his part.
“So what was up with Eerie the other day?” Sierra asked as she took a hefty gulp of her virgin margarita.
I grimaced as thoughts of the bane of my existence filled my chilled brain.
“That asshole,” I grumbled darkly. “She had the nerve to go to the charge nurse about me! I hadn’t even done anything! Then the charge nurse asked me to please stay away from her son because ‘Eerie fears for her son’s safety’ when it comes to me.”
Sierra paused with her straw halfway to her lips. “You’re shitting me. And Peyton allowed that?”
Peyton, our charge nurse, was a sweet woman.
“No,” I grumbled. “But she did ask me to ‘stay away’ unless it was an emergency on the baby’s part. Which I agreed to do.”
Sierra sighed and looked at me with pity.
“So what’s the story with Eerie?” Hastings asked. “I know that she’s not a nice person just based on what I just heard. But, you know, as an author, I have to know all kinds of assholes so I can put them into my books.”
I snorted.
“Eerie is that asshole,” I admitted. “When I met Eerie it was at a party my family was having. Wolf, Nathan’s dad, and my mom are really good friends. Meaning that Nathan and I spent a lot of reluctant time together. And one time Nathan brought Eerie to this party, and she automatically decided that she was going to hate me. No ifs, ands, or buts. The moment she walked in the door, she started glaring. And then she moved to our high school, so things got even worse. She hated that the boys’ and girls’ softball teams traveled together, because she was convinced that I was going to steal her man. It got to the point where she didn’t trust me—and yes, you notice I say me, as if I was going to spike his drink and have my way with him while we were traveling for an away game—and decided to become the team’s water girl, so to speak. I got so tired of it that my senior year I almost quit. When the coach realized that it was either Eerie or me, she got rid of Eerie. And Eerie went out of her way to make sure that I knew how much she hated me.”
Hastings snorted. “What happened with Nathan and her?”
I glanced over at Nathan where he was drinking a beer on his own tube.
His cleft chin had a droplet of water in it, and I wanted to lick it off.
“Nathan and her broke up because Eerie is a controlling bitch that couldn’t fuckin’ let bygones be bygones.”
“She hated Reggie.” Nathan swam back up to the cooler, got yet another beer, and pushed away again, reaching up high to snag the ball before it could make it into Sammy’s waiting hands. He launched it back at Louis who had to dive to catch it. Louis came back up laughing and tossed the ball back our way. Only, this time his aim was way off and hit me straight in the face.
Chapter 7
Blow me. I’m hot.
-Coffee Cup
Nathan
“What’s going on?” I asked as Reggie practically dove off of her tube and disappeared into the water.
I looked back at where Sierra was gasping and looking for her friend, then back at the football that was floating nearby.
“Oh, shit!” Louis cried as he bailed out of his tube and swam Reggie’s way.
Reggie finally came back up for air but immediately went back down again.
I slipped out of my tube, handing my beer to Sammy to hold, and went in search of Reggie.
I found her with blood running down her face and her eyes filled with tears.
“I dropped my bag!” she cried out.
Before she could dive back under again I took her by the waist and pulled her into me, wiping the blood off and rinsing it off in the water.
“What bag?”
“The bag that was holding all my shit,” she growled. “My license. My ring. My keys!”
My brows rose. “Your ring?”
She slashed the air in front of her. “Don’t fucking ask me. I knew I should’ve taken the purse out of my bag, but I was terrified to leave it in the car. There were about a thousand signs there saying not to leave valuables in the car, that the cars get broken into.”
That was true.
There’d been a police officer saying that, too.
B
ut her ring?
That hadn’t been cheap, that was for sure.
Before I could ask anything else, she went under the water again while I watched.
She surfaced, her face alight with horror.
“It had my ring in it,” she repeated, her face finally realizing that it was probably gone.
Now I understood.
That ring had cost a whack.
“Shit,” I grumbled, looking down. “I hate to say it, but it’s gone, honey.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t call me honey.”
My brows rose. “I thought we were going to play nice. Act like we don’t hate each other.”
That was the truce we’d called on the way to the river, right? Or had I made that up?
She sighed and looked down at the water one more time, then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath as if to center herself.
“I’m just mad,” she admitted. “I should’ve tested it before I thought it would work in a godforsaken river.”
I agreed, but that was not what she needed to hear right now.
“Are you okay?” Louis asked.
I wiped Reggie’s nose again and nodded. “She’s fine. Just dropped her bag in the water.”
“Oh, shit.” Louis sighed. “I’m sorry, Reggie.”
Reggie shrugged as if it wasn’t that bad. “It’s okay. It was only like ten bucks.”
Liar.
But I knew that she didn’t want him feeling bad. It was an accident.
“What’s going on?”
I turned to Malachi and explained.
“Reggie dropped her waterproof bag. And instead of floating like it was supposed to, it sank,” I explained.
“Oh,” Malachi said. “I have a friend that dredges rivers for the shit that people drop while floating. You wouldn’t imagine all the shit people find. Phones. Wallets. Keys…”
Wedding rings that cost a fortune.
“That’s why I bought a waterproof floating bag,” Reggie sighed. “Shit.”
I looked at her with a wink. “It’ll be okay.”
She gave me a look that clearly said she didn’t think it would.
But I couldn’t very well argue with her there in front of all of these people. Then more of my buddies would know that we were married. And seeing as that’d been her one condition that I follow, I couldn’t very well go announcing it to all of her or my friends, even though technically, I already did.
Offically Over It Page 5