by Doreen Alsen
Charming Dave
At the End Zone, Book Three
by
Doreen Alsen
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Charming Dave: At the End Zone, Book Three
COPYRIGHT © 2012 by Doreen Alsen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by Kim Mendoza
The Wild Rose Press
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0706
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Champagne Rose Edition, 2012
Print ISBN 1-60154-994-6
Published in the United States of America
Praise for Doreen Alsen and...
MIKE'S BEST BET (Book One of At the End Zone):
"A Touchdown in every sense of the word...This is a book with heart, humor and soul."
~Romantic Times Book Club (4.5 Stars)
WHAT IAN WANTS (Book Two of At the End Zone):
"This book has a great storyline, believable characters and a love story that takes its time to develop."
~Romantic Times Book Club (4 Stars)
Dedication
To Lillian Kelly, the best mother in the world.
I love you, Lill!
To Gloria Taves Burhoe and Phebe Rogers, English teachers at Provincetown Jr.-Sr. High, who held high standards and gave us the tools to reach those standards.
And, as always, to Eberhard, Emilia, and Louisa for all the love, support, and encouragement.
Chapter One
Ah, paradise! Dave Mason sighed as he pulled into the parking lot of The End Zone. Right now, nothing sounded more perfect than a burger and a beer in the company of friends at his favorite sports bar.
Forget the golden arches. He’d take the flashing red neon goal posts decorating the door of The End Zone any day.
He got out of his car and rolled his shoulders, trying to get rid of some of the stiffness that’d been riding him all day. The air was just starting to turn brisk in the evenings and scented with wood smoke and wet leaves. It made for great football weather.
Speaking of football, he pushed open the door to the bar and slipped in. The dining room was packed with people, their conversations loud and enthusiastic. A sense of unlimited warmth and friendliness permeated the room. The bar was full with groups of customers watching various sports events on the several televisions over the bar. He scanned the crowd, finding the friends he was looking for. His mouth split into a grin, until he saw her.
The Menace. The Waitress from Hell. She said her name was Ainslie, but he knew better. Satan was more like it.
She more often as not got his order right, and when she did manage that basic task, his food had turned cold.
His new favorite sport became avoiding her section.
“Hey, Dave! S‘up?” Sandy, his favorite waitress crossed his path.
“Hopefully a burger and a Sam Adams. I’m starved.”
Sandy laughed. “I’ll let Bobby know. Mike and the gang are over at table twelve.”
Dave tweaked her nose. “Saw ’em. Thanks.”
“No sweat.” Sandy bopped off in the direction of the kitchen.
“Mason! What took you so long?” Dave’s best friend, Mike Kelly, hailed him from across the room.
Dave loped over to the table where Mike sat with his wife, Andi, and Gina Francisco, soon to be Gina Ross. Until about a month ago, Gina had worked at The End Zone. Now she was going to Barrett University to get her degree in literature. She had some notebooks and paperbacks strewn all over the tabletop.
Dave turned the chair around and straddled it from the back. “What a day.” He loosened his tie. “Unbelievable.” Picking up one of Gina’s paperbacks, he flicked it a glance before tossing it back on to the table. “What’s all this for?”
Gina sniffed as she tapped a pen against her notebook. “It’s my homework. I’ve got my first paper due on Friday. I woulda thought that you, being a high school principal and all, would understand and appreciate my dedication to my studies.”
“Oh, I do. I just wonder why you’ve got an entire library on top of this table. There’s going to be no room for the food. Where’s the professor?” Gina’s born-and-bred-in-England-husband-to-be was a professor at Barrett University.
Gina rolled her eyes in the direction of the bar. “Checking out the replay of the Manchester United/Bayern München game.”
“Gesundheit.”
Gina punched Dave in the arm. “Bayern-München is one of the baddest, bad-ass soccer teams on the planet, or so I am told, second to only Manchester United.”
“Soccer bad-ass is an oxymoron.” Mike yawned.
“So speaks the football coach.” Gina snorted. “Anyway, my boy is at the bar, dressed like a fan and cheering Manchester United on.”
Dave studied the bar. Well, whattaya know. “He’s the only one watching. How did he talk Spike into tuning into a soccer game?” The End Zone crowd was a real football crowd, not a whole lot of appreciation for soccer there. “Nice jersey he’s got on. Who’s number 7?”
“Was David Beckham.” She sighed and put her hand over her heart. “Moment of silence, please for David Beckham. Oww!” She glared at Mike as she rubbed her arm. “Do something about him,” Gina complained to Andi. “Ian didn’t talk to Spike, I did. Please.” Gina puffed a breath up that fluttered her red curly hair. “Give him a break. He’s trying to fit in. He got the idea about wearing the team jersey from me. He was so into it, he almost did the whole war-paint thing.”
“What an animal,” Dave said.
Gina put on a purely satisfied smile. “I like that in a man.”
“Ewww.” Mike stuck his fingers in his ears. “Too much information.”
Gina chuckled. “Oh, let me tell you…”
“LA LA LA LA, I’m not listening!” Mike looked at his wife. “Spud, please make her stop.”
Andi laughed. “You’re a big boy. Deal with it.”
“Hm.” Dave frowned. “Mike. Did you catch anything of what happened in the boys’ locker room today?”
“Nope. I got there too late. But something did go down.” Mike scratched his temple. “It’s why I sent ’em all to you. And promised to bench anyone from the team if I found out they were picking on that kid.” Mike shook his head. “Poor kid. Who would saddle a boy with a name like Ruark?” He pronounced it Rooark.
“It moved into chorus. No one was talking, but the atmosphere took a decided hostile tone. And he pronounces it Rork.” Andi chuckled. “His twin sister is named Shanna. I think she got the better part of the deal.”
“They’re characters from a classic romance novel.” Gina was the definitive expert on all things romance. “It’s one of my favorites. I wouldn’t name my kids after ’em though. No wonder the kid’s getting picked on.”
“Ya think?” Dave smiled at Andi. “How did you end up with half the football team in chorus this year, anyway?”
Mike lifted up his hands in the gesture of a totally innocent man. “I guess they’re all music lovers.”
“Right. You could have left some of those nachos for me.” Dave tapped his knuckles on the table, next to the now empty guacamole and refried bean plate in front of Mike. He grabbed a chip, scraped up some beef and cheese, then popped it into
his mouth. Man, talk about heaven. On the flip side, where the hell was his beer? “I’ve got calls in to the parents. I’m meeting with all of them one at a time tomorrow.” He looked around again. “Where’d Sandy go with my beer?”
Gina grinned at him, all shiny, sharky, white teeth. “This isn’t Sandy’s section.”
Dave felt his stomach take a dip south. “Don’t tell me it’s Ainslie’s section.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you.”
Dave groaned. Besides being Beelzebubarina, Ainslie was, by anyone’s reckoning, the absolute worst waitress on the planet. But Bobby had been desperate to replace Gina, and Ainslie had been in the right place at the right time, much to Dave’s chagrin.
Great! He might as well go to those golden arches to get his burger, because with Ainslie as his waitress, he didn’t think he was going to see his food anytime soon.
****
“Hey, Ains,” Sandy called as she bumped the kitchen door open with her hip. “Dave’s here, and he’s at Mike and Andi’s table. I already ordered his Sam Adams.”
“What?” Ainslie Logan blinked a couple of times. She was having enough trouble figuring out which orders under the heat lamps were hers, never mind Dave and his beer.
Sandy sidled up to her and started grabbing plates and layering them up her arms. “He wants a Daveburger and fries.”
“Comin’ right up,” Bobby, the owner of The End Zone said as he dropped a basket of fries into the deep fryer.
For the life of her, Ainslie could not remember seeing a Daveburger on the menu, but she dutifully flipped a page in her dupe book and wrote Daveburger/fries. “Sandy, I need to ask you a favor.”
Sandy stacked one final plate against her biceps. “What can I do you for?”
Ainslie gnawed on her lower lip. She hated asking for favors, but this couldn’t be helped. “I have to go to the high school tomorrow for a meeting, and the only time I can get there is a half an hour after I’m supposed to spell you. Can you stay an extra hour for me?”
“Sure.” Sandy had already turned and was making her way out of the kitchen.
“Thank you!” Ainslie called to Sandy’s retreating back. Getting calls from the school principal’s office was just another in a lurid array of new experiences she would have to get used to. Her children did not get in trouble at school. Ever.
Obviously, that had changed.
She couldn’t think about it. She pulled what she hoped were her orders off the line and gingerly stacked the hot plates on her left arm. This was the part she hated most. Ignoring the uncomfortable sizzle, she headed out the door into the dining room.
The place was packed. The room buzzed with laughter, conversation, and the blare of televisions. Everyone was having a great time.
Except her. The End Zone was never the kind of place that was her cup of tea. She would never have lowered herself to go to a place like this back in her other life.
Back when she was the queen of Charleston, South Carolina society and had more money than God to spend.
Now she bussed empty beer bottles off tables and schlepped chicken wings and burgers, all for a buck two forty.
She blinked back tears. She would not feel sorry for herself. She had too much pride and not enough time for that.
Besides, she had Dave at table 12 to worry about.
The damn man was beyond tall, dark and handsome. He made Bradley Cooper look like a troll.
And he always, always, made her shake in her size 6 1/2 no name sneakers. It annoyed her to no living end.
Because she knew from handsome. Her ex-husband was a prime example of handsome enough to scramble a girl’s brains. Look where marrying Bobby Lee Logan had gotten her—here. Out of South Carolina and to the north shore of Boston. Her pretty house gone, all her pretty clothes gone, her precious babies in public school. No more Junior League meetings, good-bye Daughters of the Confederacy. She spent her days cleaning other people’s pretty houses and her nights waiting on tables. Life was not what it was cracked up to be.
And now she was so distracted by that damn Dave, she forgot where she was taking the food burning up her arms.
She needed to lay the plates down and pull her dupe book out of her apron so that she could get a clue, but to do that she would have to go back to the bar where Spike the bartender was glaring at her over a bottle of Sam Adams.
She so should have finished college and gotten a degree. She’d been her own worst enemy. Former Miss South Carolinas didn’t make money being cute beyond the age of forty.
They didn’t make any money unless they married rich men. And when the rich men went to jail for embezzlement and fraud, the beauty queens were out of time and out of luck.
She swallowed her pride and went back to the bar. “Where does this go?” she asked Spike as she tipped her head at the bottle on the bar’s pick up station.
“It’s Dave’s.” Spike inclined her head toward table 12. “Over there.”
“I know where table 12 is.” Ainslie bristled. Even as she did that, she dropped her plates on the bar and checked her dupe. Ah, sweet information. “I’ll be right back to get his beer,” she said as she stacked the now cool plates back on her arm, “right after I deliver these meals to table 8.”
Spike rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
****
Dave licked his lips. “Where is that woman with my beer?”
Gina flicked him a glance. “She’ll get here. It’s busy tonight, and she’s new.”
“Humppff.” Dave was not amused. “She hates me.” He stole another chip from Mike’s nachos.
“It’s busy tonight. She’ll get here.”
Ian slid behind Gina and started massaging her neck. “Manchester won. I knew you’d all want to know.”
Mike nodded. “Thank God. I’ll sleep better tonight, knowing that.”
Andi slapped Mike on his arm. “Stop it. Just stop it.”
Dave looked around the room. Ainslie dropped off some food at a table nearby. Poor saps. She got the plates down without spilling anything and walked away while the people at the table exchanged meals with each other.
He shook his head and decided to go to the bar and just get his beer and a bowl of pretzels. He needed something to eat before he gnawed his arm off. “Anybody need anything from the bar while I’m up?” Pushing against the back of his chair, he levered himself out of it, turned, and felt something solid hit him smack in his mid-section.
He heard a sharp gasp just before he felt something hot, fragrant, and squishy run down his shirt and into his pants. His arms wrapped themselves around the blockade as it knocked them onto the table where he got a butt load of Bobby’s Macho Nachos.
What he got instead, was two arms full of soft, full, feminine breasts pressed up against his chest. Very nice! He looked down to see the startled brown eyes of Satan’s sister.
Very nice, only not so much. Damn it!
He couldn’t tell who jumped away first, him or Ainslie. She had a stricken look on her face as she clung to a vertical plate that was oozing the remains of a smooshed burger and fries.
Gina jumped to her feet immediately and ran off to the bar. “I’ll get some hot water and a couple of towels.” Long silent seconds passed before Mike started cracking up.
Asshole. Here Dave was with guacamole and refried beans smeared all over the seat his best pants and his best friend was laughing his ass off.
Ian joined Mike. Figures that the only thing the two of them could agree on was Dave’s humiliation.
Ainslie high-tailed it over to the kitchen while Gina returned with that bucket of soapy water and a bunch of towels. She handed him a towel out of the bucket. “Here. You want to get that glop off your pants or it’ll stain.”
No kidding. “Thanks.” He took a breath. He had some sweatpants in his gym bag back in his car. They had a date with the laundry, but they’d do for now. He’d sneak out of the bar, grab his bag, and change his pants. No harm, no foul.
Exc
ept for the fact that everyone in the bar was staring at him. As Stephen Colbert would say, Sweet Jesus Christ on a waffle cone. He started to leave when Bobby came barreling out of the kitchen. He had another Daveburger in his huge hands.
Bobby was the size of the Berlin Wall. Everyone skittered out of his way. “I’m really sorry.” He dropped the plate with Dave’s food on to the table.
“No big deal.”
Bobby practically started wringing his hands like a grandma church lady. “Ainslie is really sorry. And you’ve got Daveburgers on the house for the next month. Of course I’ll pay for the dry cleaning.”
Dave bet Ainslie was really sorry. A damned sorry excuse for a waitress. Bobby was looking at him so hopefully and was such a good guy, Dave just gave it up. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” Bobby grabbed Dave’s hand and shook it. “Whatever you want, you got it.” He disappeared back into the kitchen.
Dave looked at the burger. He’d lost his appetite. He’d just get Sandy or Spike to wrap it up so he could take it home.
“Hey! Where you going?” Mike demanded. “You just got here.”
Dave shook his head. “I’ve got some work to do at home. If you think of anything else about that incident in school today, give me a call.” He pulled his shirttail out of his pants to cover the guacamole decorating his ass and turned tail to get the hell out of there.
So much for paradise.
****
“What are you doing?” Bobby growled at Ainslie as he came back into the kitchen.
“Cleaning out my locker.” Ainslie swallowed back a sob. “I’m fired, right?”
Bobby scowled. “No.”
Ainslie shook her head to clear the noise buzzing in her ears. “Pardon me?”
“I’m not gonna fire you.” He moved back behind the cook line.
“Why not? I just spilled food all over one of your best customers.”
“Gina told me it was Dave’s fault. He got up without looking to see if you were behind him. Besides you’ve got customers.” He put a plate under the heat lamp. “Now, here’s your order. Pick up.” Conversation done, he turned around and dropped a basket of wings into the deep fryer.