by Amy Andrews
Tucker was happy as a clam. He’d even expanded his cocktail menu.
His big, stupid grin greeted Wade as he sat at the bar. Arlo and Drew were already seated. “Let me guess, you need a Grasshopper, right?”
Wade snorted. He wasn’t that desperate for booze. He doubted anyone had been that desperate since the seventies. “Only if you fancy wearing cool, green sludge all over your pretty face.”
Tucker laughed, unperturbed as he reached for a glass.
“He’s still in a mood,” Arlo said.
Drew nodded. “MSP’ll do that to you.”
Drew thought every adverse male mood could be accredited to massive sperm pressure. If he ever went on Mastermind, it’d be his expert subject.
“Well you’d know,” Wade said.
Arlo and Tucker sniggered, but Drew plowed on. “Laugh all you like, buddy, I’m used to living with it. You, on the other hand, have been away from all those Denver honeys for quite some time…” He made a lewd motion with his hand. “I hope you’re cleaning out those pipes regularly.”
“Not if his current personality is any indication,” Tucker said.
“Maybe he’s forgotten how, with so many women catering to his hot quarterback needs,” Arlo mused.
Wade flipped him the bird. “Fuck all of you.”
The guys’ laughter was swallowed up by a raucous burst of female laughter that had all of them turning in their stools. Wade noticed Winona and Della in a booth with two of the other women who had stayed on a couple of weeks ago.
He didn’t remember their names, but his mother had said one was an electrician and the other some computer wizard. Credence had to rely on those services from nearby towns, so to have these two women had caused much excitement, and they’d both already done small jobs around town.
It didn’t hurt they were single women in their twenties.
“So?” Tucker said, drawing everyone’s attention back to the bar, fixing Wade with a look. “What in hell did you do?”
“Do?”
“Don’t play dumb, man, you know what I’m talking about.”
Jesus. CC again? “I didn’t do anything.” Three sets of eyebrows rose in unison, clearly calling bullshit.
“She was supposed to be here until the end of summer,” Arlo pressed.
“Yeah. She was going to do a Facebook page for the funeral home.”
Tucker nodded. “And the bar.”
Fuck’s sake. What in hell had CC been doing while he’d been at the farm every morning? Putting on her red cape with a huge fucking FB on it and connecting the whole town?
Enough with the Facebook already.
“She left early. Period.”
“Right.” Arlo nodded. “So what did you do?”
Wade put his beer down. “Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?”
Arlo shook his head. “She’s got a nicer ass than you.”
Drew rubbed the stubble on his chin. “She wasn’t the same after she came back from Nebraska.”
Wade suppressed the snort. Neither of them had been the same. “Of course not. Her father had just died.”
“Nope.” Drew’s brows beetled together. “Wasn’t that.”
“And you’re the expert on these things, I suppose?” Wade demanded.
Drew shrugged. “Grief is my field.”
“You’re an undertaker. Not a fucking social worker.”
“I’m a bereavement agent.”
Wade snorted. “Make sure you put that one on your Facebook page, bud.”
Tucker narrowed his eyes. “You slept with her, didn’t you?”
Wade took a mouthful of his beer as he reached for his poker face. This was none of their goddamn business. “No comment.”
Tucker reached behind and pulled out his wallet. He extracted a hundred-dollar bill and handed it to Drew. Arlo also put a hundred down on the bar.
“I said no comment.”
“Which means yes,” Tucker said.
Wade shot him an exasperated look. “It means no fucking comment.”
Tucker shook his head slowly. “You couldn’t keep it in your pants, could you?”
“He fucked up,” Arlo said as if Wade wasn’t sitting right beside him.
“Yup.” Drew nodded his agreement in the three-way conversation that did not involve Wade. “He fucked up.”
Wade opened his mouth to deny it again. But there was such a thing as protesting too much, and his friends already had his measure. “Yeah, okay.” He sighed. “I fucked up. Are you happy now?”
“The question is,” Drew asked, “are you?”
Wade rolled his eyes. What was the point in psychoanalyzing it—he’d slept with CC. Not his smartest move, even though it had felt right and natural and…necessary at the time. It’d happened. It’d been once, and now she was gone.
Move on already.
He lifted his beer to Drew. “More psychobabble from the bereavement agent?” And he set about draining his glass.
“How do you feel about her?” Tucker asked.
Wade wasn’t sure how he felt about CC, but he did know how he felt about this conversation. He’d rather give back his Super Bowl rings. “Jesus.” He glared at Tucker. “Are you serious?”
Tucker didn’t answer. Just stared. So did Arlo and Drew. For three macho dudes, they were doing a good Gilmore Girls right now. But they clearly weren’t going to let up.
Fine. What was she to him? Wade couldn’t pluck out a suitable response from the soup in his brain. A soup of half-formed, ill-defined thoughts and emotions. “She’s my PA, for fuck’s sake. My…girl Friday. My left tackle. Christ, she’s an employee.”
“Really?” Arlo pressed. “Is that all?”
“Yes.” Or at least she had been. Until she wasn’t. Until he danced with her and kissed her and lived with her and comforted her and watched her puke rainbow vomit.
And slid inside her.
“You know how many people meet their soul mates at work?” Drew asked.
Wade’s jaw tightened. Enough with the soul mates crap already. “I don’t believe in that bullshit.”
“Oh come on, man.” Exasperation cloaked Arlo’s voice. “Because of Jasmine? Because one chick screws you over a hundred years ago, you’re just going to stay single all your life? Not even give yourself a shot at what Wyatt has with Jenny? Or your mom and dad have? It’s okay to fall in love again, dude.”
It might have been a long time since Jasmine’s betrayal, and the acuteness of that sting had long since dissipated, but it wasn’t hard for Wade to recall. He’d vowed back then he’d never give a woman the power to hurt him again, and he’d fucking meant it.
“Yeah, man.” Tucker nodded. “That’s just dumb.”
“They’re right,” Drew agreed. “You’re not always going to be this hot, you know.”
The guys laughed, and Arlo high-fived Drew. “I’m not in love with her,” Wade said, breaking into the merriment. If he loved her, surely he’d be the first one to know? “But I do feel bad.” Really fucking bad. “About stepping over a line. About making it untenable for her to keep working for me.”
“Did you say sorry?”
Wade opened his mouth to confirm that he had, then shut it again. He hadn’t. In true Wade fashion, he hadn’t mentioned it at all. Just tried to move on.
His friends looked at him with pity in their eyes. “So what are you going to do about it?” Arlo demanded. “For so royally screwing things up?”
Fuck if he knew. Where did he even start to make amends for what had happened between them? For crossing the one line she’d asked him not to cross.
Sure, she’d crossed it, too, but that didn’t absolve his responsibility.
“You need a grand gesture,” Arlo said.
“A what?”
“Something big. And splashy.”
Tucker nodded. “Chicks dig that shit.”
Wade liked the way they were thinking. It suited a guy with a lot of money and no clue. “Like what?”
“Shit, dude, I don’t know.” Arlo frowned. “Do I look like I know this crap?” He tipped his head in the direction of the table that was still laughing the loudest. “Go ask Winona, she’s the romance queen.”
Wade would rather have his testicles scooped out with a melon baller than ask Winona. He drained his beer. A grand gesture…he could do that.
Fuck yeah, he could.
…
It took Wade approximately three hours to think of the perfect thing. And another week to find, organize, and expedite everything. By the time he was knocking on CC’s hotel room in San Clemente eight days later, papers in hand, he was feeling like the king of the fucking world. It may not be the most sociable hour to be visiting, given it was barely seven in the morning, but he’d just driven from LAX, and he knew CC was an early bird, and he didn’t want to wait any longer.
He had the most perfect grand gesture, and he actually bounced on his feet as he stood at the hotel door. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face.
She didn’t answer, and Wade knocked again. He knew she was here, her car was parked in front of the unit. He’d thought it’d be difficult to find where she was staying, given how she’d deleted the app off her phone within hours of walking out his door. But he’d emailed her last week to ask where she was staying so he could send her a termination contract, and she’d told him.
Keys jingled as he shoved a hand in his pocket and bounced a little more. It seemed like they were making a habit of this—hotel rooms. Although this kitschy little San Clemente number was classier than the highway motel in Nebraska. Better view, too, with the Pacific Ocean sparkling in calm early-morning splendor over his shoulder and seagulls wheeling overhead.
Wade wasn’t prepared for the sight that greeted him when the door finally did open. He’d expected her to be up and about, neat as a pin per usual, the room flooded with light, ready to face a day of online house shopping, a pen and notebook neatly placed by her laptop. Or maybe in a sarong and bikini top having already been for a swim, her hair damp.
Okay…that one could just be wishful thinking…
Instead, he was staring into a black hole, her room so dark he half expected bats to fly out. She blinked at him blearily, squinting into the sunlight. He’d obviously woken her. There was a blanket mark on her face to match the cranky frown, and her hair was in disarray.
He was pretty sure there was a Cheeto clinging to it.
It seemed like they were making a habit of CC being far from her best in hotel rooms, too.
It should have worried the crap out of him, but Christ, it was so good to see her. Just setting eyes on her again was like a calming hand on his shoulder, like soothing fingers on a fevered brow. Like everything was right in his world again, and he hadn’t even been aware that it had been wrong.
But, perversely, there was also a more male reaction. His pulse leapt at the sight of her in that Broncos T-shirt, the same one he’d stripped her out of in Nebraska. The one with his number on the back.
Christ. Why that? Anything but that.
His mouth went dry as sand. He was thirsty as hell, and he knew exactly how he wanted to slake it.
Those soothing fingers turned hard and hot and slid lower. Way lower. Not soothing at all. His heart might be out of action, but his body was definitely pumped.
It was official, he had the hots for his left tackle.
“Wade?” Her frown deepened as she shoved her hand into her hair and tried to finger comb it into place.
“Hey.” It was a banal response, but her breasts were moving interestingly under her shirt and she wasn’t wearing a bra.
“Ugh.” She put her other hand up to block out the sun as she squinted at the papers in his hand. “I have no idea why you’re here. You were supposed to be mailing that. Hell, you could just have emailed it if you only knew how to work the damn scanner.”
Wade stifled a smile. She was in a mood today. Not even that was enough to stem the sudden flow of blood to his crotch. “That’s why I had you.”
Her lips thinned. “What do you want?”
Okay. Dumb thing to say. He gave himself a quick mental kick in the ass and forged ahead. “I have something for you. Something I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me squat, Wade.”
It was cuttingly dismissive. But Wade hadn’t come this far to be put off by CC in a foul mood. She didn’t scare him. If anything, her whole cranky pixie act was turning him on. CC was the only woman outside of Credence who had ever spoken to him like his status in life meant nothing to her.
Her disregard for his social status was disturbingly hot.
“Well, I don’t know about that. I think—”
“Wade.” She sighed. “God, if you must talk at me at least come inside. I feel as if the sun is shining laser beams directly into my eyeballs.”
She left him standing there as she retreated into the dark. And there was his number on her back. Like a brand. Taunting him with a wave of possession that was vicious in its intensity.
Dragging his eyes off her shirt, he followed her into the gloom, glancing around at the general dishevelment of her room. It was not in a state Wade could reconcile with the CC he knew.
There was crap everywhere.
Her bags were on the floor at the end of her unmade bed, open and well-rummaged-through by the looks of them. There were clothes on the floor and draped over all the chairs. Red Bull cans, presumably empty, littered every surface, along with empty beer bottles. Packets of Cheetos, both empty and not quite empty, were strewn over the coffee table and the bed.
The sink in the kitchenette was piled high with dirty dishes. More beer bottles and a few wine bottles and glasses sat on the drainer. What the hell? It was like a frat house during Greek Week. He half expected to see porn on the TV. Even in Nebraska, when she was grieving for her father, everything had been neatly in place, from her toothbrush to the used tissues in the trash can.
Wade glanced at CC, who was standing near a coffee table awash with real estate pamphlets and empty cans. Her laptop was under there somewhere, too, he could just see an edge and the cord trailing away. “Whatcha been up to, CC?”
“Nothin’. Just sleeping in and walking on the beach, watching Netflix. Trying to kick my Red Bull habit.”
He raised an eyebrow as he scanned the room, his eyes dwelling on all her empties. This was kicking her habit?
“I’m weaning off,” she said waspishly. “I’m not crazy enough to go cold turkey. Trust me, you do not want to see that.”
Because she was such a delight right now?
She turned to search through the empties on the coffee table, flashing that number nine again. Grabbing him by the balls again. Wade clenched his hands by his side to stop from reaching for her, from spinning her around.
The backs of her thighs were exposed to his view as she bent over and the hem rose. She picked up cans, shaking each one like a junkie hoping to find a forgotten eight ball. She made a triumphant noise in the back of her throat as liquid finally sploshed in one, and she straightened and raised it to her lips.
The hem of the T-shirt rode up at the front now, flashing the tops of her thighs and pulling against her chest as she tipped her head back and swallowed.
He wasn’t sure how watching CC drink the dregs of who-knew-how-old Red Bull could be classed as erotic, it just fucking was. He wanted to slip his hands under that shirt and lick her neck.
Satisfied the can was empty, she tossed it on the coffee table before glaring at him suspiciously. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Wade didn’t think because I want to kiss you really fucking badly would go
down so well right now. And he hadn’t come for that. To make things worse. He’d come here to apologize.
“You…have a Cheeto in your hair.”
She frowned, feeling for it and plucking it out. She stared at it for a beat or two as if she was trying to remember how it got there. Then she shrugged and shoved it in her mouth.
“What?” she demanded as he continued to ogle her.
In his defense, he couldn’t help it. She was like a frat house wet dream right now.
“You’re…” He dropped his gaze to the front of her T-shirt. “Wearing my number.”
“It’s seven in the morning. They’re my PJs.”
“Yes.” Wade swallowed. “Of course.” Get a grip, dickwad.
It wasn’t like he owned the fucking number. The Broncos may well have retired it, but it wasn’t like he had worldwide exclusive rights for its use.
Her frown faded as she searched his face, and even in the gloom he could feel her eyes on his mouth and his throat and his chest. His breath sawed in and out of his lungs, and the muscles in his neck corded in restraint.
She swallowed. “Wade.”
It came out all low and breathy, slightly louder than a whisper, and it stroked like a feather all the way down the taut ridges of his abdomen.
“I’m sorry.” He shook his head. He should just let this go. Throw the keys to the house he’d bought her down on the coffee table and leave. Before he had more to apologize for! But his temples throbbed and his chest throbbed and his legs throbbed and God help him his dick throbbed.
He couldn’t have moved with all the will in the world.
“It’s just…seeing you in my number…it hits me right here.” He slapped his abdomen. “I’m not one of those guys who needs to brand a woman, but when I see you in that shirt it makes me want to get a big black Sharpie or a tattoo gun and mark it all over your skin.”
Wade swallowed, trying to control the tremor he could hear in his voice.
“I’m trying to concentrate on why I’m here, but it’s distracting as fuck. You’re distracting as fuck.”
CC didn’t say anything, she just stared at him. Wade wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. He really hoped she was thinking of something sane and sensible to bring him back from the edge, or at least be contemplating a change of clothes.