Okay, I have no clue how she pulled off that one.
“You’re amazing,” the kid says in awe then looks up at her dad, and Harper’s eyes follow suit. The dad is tall and sturdy, and I have a suspicion that if he’s single, which the lack of a ring says he might be, he’s scoring regularly. No, I don’t find him attractive, because I don’t find dudes attractive. You can just tell someone is good-looking when he’s a ringer for Chris Hemsworth. Harper stands, and wobbles. She reaches out her hand, steadying herself at our table.
“Haaa . . . huuu . . . hooo . . .”
What the—?
I sit up straighter, my curiosity piqued, as Harper attempts to speak a new language.
Oh wait, she’s just failing at saying hi.
“Hi, Anna,” the guy says, then lowers his voice and whispers like her real name is their special secret, “Harper.”
And it sure sounds as if he enjoys saying her name. Shit. The Hemsworth ringer likes her.
Harper opens her mouth again. Something that sounds like Hiiiyyyyyaaaaa, Simon comes out of those pretty lips.
“How are you? This place is great, isn’t it?” he asks.
I think, but I can’t be certain, that she says yes. Or it could be yesh, given her sudden fit of I-can’t-remember-a-fucking-word-of-the-English-language.
“Hayden is so excited for her party in three weeks. She’s counting down, and she’s still talking about the tricks you did at Carly’s fifth birthday last month.”
Harper turns her attention back to Hayden. “You had a good time, didn’t you? Did you like it when I guessed your secret card? Or maybe when I was able to levitate?” she asks, and her speech has completely returned to normal when she talks to the child.
“I loved the secret card! Yes! I want that at my party!”
“You will get all the good stuff.”
Simon glances in my direction then clears his throat. He gives me a quick guy wave, and Harper blushes and says, “Oh, this is my friend, Mister Orgasm.”
Silence. It just descends on the whole joint, like someone shattered a glass and we all have to stare at the wreckage on the floor.
It is a certified train wreck watching Harper talk to this guy. It’s horrifying and awesome at the same time.
She brings her hand to her mouth then pinches the bridge of her nose as her face turns red. Simon laughs at her faux pas, and Hayden just giggles at the scene, maybe because she finds it funny to see Harper turn the shade of a fire engine. I’m ready to grab a bucket of popcorn and keep watching this show, because it is fascinating that Harper has no clue how to interact with a guy who likes her.
“I mean Nick,” she squeaks out. “This is Nick. I saved him from Vicious.”
Simon arches a brow. “Vicious?”
I stand up. “Scary dude who heads up an underground fight club. Or maybe it’s a biker gang these days. Either way, he was terrifying,” I say with a shudder, then extend a hand. “Nick Hammer. Nice to meet you.”
“Simon,” he says. “And this is my daughter, Hayden.”
I say hello to his kid.
Harper hooks her thumb in my direction as she looks at Simon. Speech seems to have returned to nearly normal levels. “He’s my brother’s best friend. Which means he’s totally off-limits.”
Ahh . . .
The plot thickens. Harper really likes this guy, since she’s letting him know she’s available.
“Good to know,” Simon says with a smile. “I’ll give you a call and maybe we can get together and prep for the party. Talk about the tricks and whatnot.”
After an awkward goodbye, Simon takes his daughter to the only free table, on the opposite side of the shop. I stare at Harper pointedly. I can’t resist. I have to poke at this. Besides, it’ll help me get my mind off the thought of her naked. “You like him, don’t you?”
She sighs dejectedly. “Is it that obvious?” she whispers.
“No,” I say gently. “I mean, relatively speaking. It’s not like you were holding up a sign that said ‘I like you so much.’”
She lowers her head. “Ugh. I am such a—”
But she doesn’t finish the sentence, because the parade of mortification launches an encore as Harper drops her forehead into her palm, which causes her elbow to slide on the table, which sends her hot chocolate on a fast track for . . .
Me.
And yup.
Three seconds later, my favorite faded gray T-shirt with Hobbes on it is covered in lukewarm milk and the dregs of whipped cream.
“Shoot me now,” she groans as she rests her cheek on the table and mimes pulling a trigger.
“Good thing it’s laundry day,” I say, and I’m thinking there has got to be a storyline somewhere in this where Mister Orgasm saves the day.
She lifts her face. “Are you really sure you want me to go anywhere with you?”
I give an exaggerated nod and a tug at my hot-chocolate-stained T-shirt. “You pretty much just sealed the deal on being my sidekick, Princess Awkward.”
4
Harper swings her right arm behind her, arcs it in front, then launches the nine-pound, flaming-pink neon ball. In a glorious straight line, the ball speeds down the lane, which illuminates with flashing silver lights, and I hold my breath until it smacks three pins.
I hate to do this, but I silently send a prayer that the damage ends there.
Only it doesn’t. Two more pins wobble and then surrender.
I cross my fingers that the others don’t give in.
No such luck. Three more topple then one of those pins clobbers the final pair.
And they all fall down.
Harper thrusts her arms high and punches the air with a fist. Her second strike of the night, along with a spare. Shit, shit, shit. My team is dangerously close to beating Gino’s. I sneak a look at him. His arms are crossed, his lips form a ruler-thin line, and his eyes are nearly slits. Perched on the orange plastic chair by the scoring screen, he glares at me briefly, as if it’s all my fault for letting her nab a strike. Serena appears, and he smiles brightly as she drops a hand to his shoulder and whispers something to him. Probably reminding him to say cheese for the company photographer, since they’re going to post these pics on the Comedy Nation Instagram feed.
I turn my focus back to Harper. Her blue eyes are lit up and sparkling, and she’s on some kind of high. She heads toward me at the ball return. It should not surprise me that she can bowl like a champion. I bet she kicks ass at pool, too. Probably nails the bullseye in darts every time. Hell, she can likely change a tire without any help.
Now, there’s a helluva hot image.
Ah, fuck.
Bad idea to speculate on her auto-repair skills, because as she struts toward me, I’m mentally drawing a picture of Harper as a hot redheaded mechanic wearing Daisy Dukes and a wife-beater tank stretched over her chest, sexy streaks of grease on her legs. I don’t know why, but women are required to wear Daisy Dukes in any chick-auto-mechanic fantasies. It’s part of the guy rule book, and you cannot deviate from it. Not that I’d want to. It exists for a reason—it’s hot as sin.
“Did you see that?” she asks, beaming as she throws her arms around me to celebrate, and I swat away my out-of-nowhere fantasy so that it’s not completely obvious that I’m getting a hard-on for her right now. But really, she’d look so fucking good working on my engine.
The ironic thing is I don’t even have a car.
“You didn’t tell me you bowled a three hundred,” I whisper out of the side of my mouth as I reciprocate, wrapping her in my arms, too. Because . . . well, she started it, and she feels fantastic all snug against me like this.
“Nah, I’m not that good,” she says as we separate, snuffing that short-lived moment.
I give her a side-eye stare as she peers into the machine that chugs and cranks up bowling balls from the lanes. “That was your second strike of the night,” I remind her. “You’re a ringer. You kept that little fact to yourself.”
; She shrugs playfully. “A girl’s gotta have some secrets.”
And, hell, do I want to know hers.
“That may be true,” I say, then lower my voice even more, though it would be hard for anyone to hear a word above the Go-Go’s tune that’s blasting on the bowling alley’s sound system. “But if you keep killing it, I might as well be a dead man in negotiations.”
She claps her hand over her mouth. “Oh, shoot,” she whispers through her fingers. “Are we that close to winning? I’ve been so busy being your Velcro I nearly forgot.”
She raises her eyes the slightest bit to a tiny brunette parked next to Gino. Her name is Franci. She works in promotions, and she’s wearing a crotch-length skirt, as she usually does. When I first arrived tonight, she sauntered over to me, then quickly turned the other way when she spotted Harper by my side. Now, she’s making the moves on Gino, which is perfect, since he’ll think he beat me in that regard, too. But little does he know I’m having the last laugh. A few months ago, Franci tried to find me on Tinder. Turns out she found my brother Wyatt instead, since I’m not on Tinder. Wyatt’s a carpenter turned big-time contractor, with a business that’s growing like crazy, and apparently she was quite pleased with his tools. Or so he told me. I told him that was TMI, but TMI pretty much describes my brother.
As the machine spits up the ball, I grab it for Harper, bring it to my chest, and wrap my hands around it. I drop my voice. “I hate to ask, but I need you to throw the next frame.”
Her shoulders sag. “Really?”
“He’s going to go crazy if we crush him. He wants his team to win and raise the most money for charity. He wants his picture to be the one they send to all the trade mags.”
She sighs heavily. “Throw it like the 1919 World Series?”
I nod. “Do it just like the White Sox did.”
She frowns. “This pains me.”
“I know. But drinks for life . . . and cake for life, too, ’kay?”
She nods resolutely and reaches for the ball in my arms. For the briefest of moments, her fingers graze the fabric of my shirt, a casual button-down that’s untucked and rolled up at the cuffs. Maybe I’m imagining things, but it feels like her fingers linger on my pecs longer than they need to.
I do what any sane man would do—clutch the ball tighter so she’ll have to move in closer. She does, and yes, her fingertips are definitely touching me.
Good thing I can hold this ball for a very long time. All night long, if I’m lucky.
“Nick,” she whispers in a plea, and it sounds so damn good, the way her voice goes feathery when she says my name. Instantly I hear that inflection, and all that follows it, in my imagination—more, harder, please, now, yes, yes, yes. “May I have the ball, please? It’s the only way I can fuck up the next turn.”
I blink and hand it over to her.
I lean against the ball machine and watch as she heads to her spot, brings the ball to her chest, and pistons her arm behind her. She takes a few fast steps before releasing it. I tense because she looks just as polished as she did when she nailed that strike.
But the girl is good. Her arm swings the slightest bit wider, and the pink orb rolls straight for a second, then veers, and soon acquaints itself with the gutter.
I utter a silent yes, even though it’s a damn shame to ask her to blow the game. I have no doubt she’d rack up even more points, and look spectacular doing so. She is a sight to behold tonight, in her dark blue skinny jeans, a purple-and-green argyle sweater, and white-and-red bowling shoes. Her hair is pinned up in a twist, all those silky red strands piled high on her head. Her neck is long and elegant, and I’ve got this feeling her skin tastes spectacular there, and everywhere. I wonder if she’d enjoy soft, lingering kisses along her neck, across the column of her throat, up to her ear. Whether she’d moan, and sigh, and lean into me, her body asking for more.
I decide she’d love it because I’d kiss her so damn well, she’d melt into me. She’d want so much more, and I’d give it to her, making her feel good in every fucking way, driving her wild. I’d lick a path between her tits, down her belly to the button on those jeans. One fast flick, and they’d be undone. I’d have them off her in less than two seconds, my nimble fingers tugging her panties down . . .
She turns and snaps in an aw shucks gesture, and I shut down the very vivid, very arousing, very promising fantasy faster than you can clear the history on your Internet browser. She wanders back to me, looking appropriately forlorn. Gino smiles, a slick grin that continues as his team goes on to win, thanks to Harper blowing the final few frames. The photographer he hired snaps a shot of Gino, with his curly hair, dark eyes, and broad frame as he ambles toward me.
“Nice game, Nick,” he says, all slick and faux-friendly. “Better luck next time.” He punches my shoulder in an old buddy, old pal move. “But hey, at least you’re good at writing the shows.”
“Let’s just hope I write better than I bowl,” I say, serving it right up to him the way he likes it, with a side dish of suck-up.
He laughs loudly, like a gorilla. Then Gino notices Harper a few feet away, checking her phone in her purse. “Ah, redheads,” he says, as if he’s sucking a piece of meat off the bone. “They’re fiery and feisty.”
Involuntarily, I clench my fists. But before I can say, “Shut up, you ape,” Harper spins around and flashes us both her gorgeous smile. It’s pure magic. It’s what woos the kids and wins the hearts of the parents who book her months out for the parties. It’s wide, charismatic, and totally stunning.
“Well, hello there. You played a very good game,” Gino says, extending his hand. She shakes it, and I make a mental note to remind her to wash her hands thoroughly when we leave. Maybe even use hand sanitizer a few times. Fuck, the way he grips her hand, we’re going to need a full decontamination chamber here.
“Thank you so much. But honestly, you’re just so fantastic,” she says to him, an adoring look in her eyes. “Quite a tenacious competitor.”
I could kiss her for this.
“Oh, you flatter me,” he says, waving a hand.
“I assure you, it’s not flattery when someone rocks the lanes like you do,” she says, then gives a sexy little jut of her shoulder.
And that’s the money shot, folks. Gino is eating out of the palm of her hand. He turns to me and hooks his thumb at Harper. “I like her, Hammer. She’s a keeper.”
“She definitely is,” I second.
When we leave, she grabs my arm and squeezes my bicep.
My arms are strong. That’s not me being conceited. They really are, courtesy of my devotion to exercise and perhaps my addiction to the benefits it reaps. Her hand curls over my left arm, and yup, the hours at the gym are worth it right now. “Was I obsequious enough?”
“Like you have a master’s degree in it.”
She wiggles her eyebrows as we pass the vending machine on the way to the shoe counter. She gives another squeeze. “By the way, nice arms.”
Then she lets go, and I’m tempted to stop at the machine, buy a crackerjack box, and hunt for a decoder ring at the bottom. Something to decipher what the hell she means with these half-flirting, half-not remarks. Was “nice arms” a compliment, or just a general observation? Did it mean she wanted to run her fingernails along them as I braced myself above her, or that she thought I could be useful for, say, lifting a heavy coffee table in her apartment?
She practically skips ahead of me to the counter. “Don’t forget, you owe me a game now, too, Nick Hammer. I want a rematch with you.”
“You’re on,” I say, because at least rematch means more, and that’s what I want most.
She bends to unlace her shoes, and when she stands, she slaps them on the counter. “Oh hey,” she says, and her face lights up.
“Harper Holiday!” The guy behind the counter clearly knows her. He’s got dark hair, straight teeth, and brown eyes that he can’t take off Harper. Christ, is there any man in Manhattan who doesn’t want her?
“Senior year,” he supplies with a smile, as he takes the shoes.
“This is my friend, Nick,” she says and squeezes my arm again. “He went to Carlton Prep, too. But he was a senior when we were freshman.”
“Hey, man. I remember you. You were always drawing comics, hunched over a notebook,” he says with a grin as he hands me my Chucks.
“That’s me,” I say, and I hope he leaves it at that. Not that I hated high school. Not by any stretch, ’cause I’m just not a hater. And honestly, being the quiet guy was not the worst fate. I had plenty of friends. But I was completely a cipher when it came to girls.
“Your shit was good,” he adds, and I straighten my shoulders and tell him thanks. This guy isn’t so bad after all.
“I had no idea you worked here,” Harper says.
He holds out his hands and gestures around. “All the time. This is my place. My little patch of land.”
“No kidding! You run Neon Lanes?” she asks, sounding thoroughly impressed as she slips on the pair of short boots he’s handed her, and I finish lacing my shoes.
“Own and operate.” He taps the counter. “I do a little bit of everything. Be sure to say hi next time you’re here. And hey, are you on Facebook?”
“I am.”
“Look me up. Friend me. Let’s catch up,” he says.
As we walk away, I stare at her. “You do realize he likes you?”
“What?” she asks, like I’ve just told her monkeys live on Jupiter.
“Yes. He likes you.”
“You’re crazy,” she says, shaking her head.
“You’re a trip, Harper. You have no clue sometimes. It’s fucking adorable,” I tell her, and then, because we came as friends and we’re leaving as friends, but in case any of these other assholes who want her might be watching, I drape an arm around her.
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