This bobblehead doll must be a good omen.
A few minutes later, Maverick opens the driver’s side door and pokes his head in.
“I saw your doll.” I smile at him. “Is he your favorite player?”
He grimaces. “My friend gave that to me. It’s what’s called an unwelcome gift.”
I hide my smile. My driver definitely doesn’t like to be told what to do, and apparently that includes his truck decor.
“Well, I think your friend has good taste,” I say.
Maverick glances over at the Brady doll and then back to me. “You like football?” he says in a tone that nearly sounds curious.
“Not particularly. But I…” I realize how ridiculous my bobblehead theory will sound to a stranger, so I bite my lip. “Never mind.”
A beat of silence while Maverick assesses me. His eyes soften a touch, and he jerks his head toward the convenience store. “You want a coffee?”
I reach into my purse. “Yes, please.”
He puts out a hand to stop me from riffling through my bag.
“I’ve got this. Be right back.”
“But…”
He’s already gone.
Like I said…Bossy.
AF.
I’m finding Maverick’s bossiness to be awfully hot for some reason.
Whenever Craig tried to boss me around, which was far too often, it made me want to run as fast and as far away as possible.
But right now, comfortably seated in Maverick Court’s truck, I don’t have any desire to go anywhere else.
Chapter Nine
Maverick
The woman from outside the courthouse is now sitting in my truck.
Hannah Walsh is apparently my stowaway. And she’s a runaway bride.
I try not to think about how I couldn’t take my eyes off of her the first time I saw her—and again just now.
Because the truth is…she’s screwing up my road trip plans.
I know how much pressure I’m going to be under as a rookie baller, and once training starts, there won’t be a lot of time to relax and do nothing.
This trip is supposed to be my time to do whatever I want, the first period in my life that I can remember having this kind of freedom.
But the rain is bad. I’m not reckless enough to try to drive Hannah back to L.A. tonight. And I can’t go forward. It will take me twice as long to get anywhere in this weather, which is showing no sign of letting up anytime soon.
I’m not the world’s nicest guy, but I’d never leave a woman stranded on the side of the highway with nothing but a soaking wet wedding dress on her back. A white wedding gown that doesn’t do much to conceal her smoking hot body.
If I hadn’t found her so damn attractive, maybe I’d be able to stay rational and keep my dick out of this.
I run my hand down my face in frustration as I pay for our coffees.
And what’s with her interest in the damn bobblehead from Chance? If she doesn’t like football, then why would she approve of me having a Brady accessory? Maybe she likes him from one of his commercials or something.
Anyway. That’s way too much fucking time I just spent analyzing something that’s not important. What is important is figuring out what I’m going to do with her.
As I jog back to the truck, I contemplate what to say.
I’m cold and soaked from the rain, and I’m still thrown off by the fact that Hannah is the woman from the courthouse.
And as I hop into the truck and hand Hannah her coffee, what comes out is, “I can’t take you all the way to Chicago with me.”
Her lips part in understandable surprise. “What? I’m not going to Chicago.” She shakes her head emphatically. “I’ve never left L.A. I didn’t purposefully leave L.A. tonight. I just wanted to get away from the courthouse.”
I let out a slow breath and put my coffee in the console cup holder. “I didn’t quite mean it like that. What I meant to say is—I’m on my way to Chicago. I’m moving there.”
“Oh.” The word comes out in a rush of air like she’s deflated.
“Right. So I can’t take you back to L.A. tonight due to the rain. And tomorrow, I was planning on getting an early start. Headed east,” I add to further make my point.
“Right. Of course.” Her head is down now, and she’s staring at her fingernails like they hold the answer to her problems.
Feeling like shit but too far in now to back out, I keep going. “I think we should check into the motel down the street for the night. You can shower and warm up while I go grab us some food for dinner, and then we can figure out how to get you back home.”
She lifts her head, her eyes now wild with panic. “I don’t have a home anymore.”
I clench my jaw, at the end of my patience. “Well, then we’ll figure out an alternative.” I turn away from her and start the truck up. “But first, we’re going to check into the motel.”
“Two rooms,” she says in that husky tone that apparently gets me instantly half-hard.
“Of course.”
“We only have one room left.” The peppy clerk at the desk sounds unapologetic at this news.
“Two beds?” I say hopefully to her.
“One king. That’s all we got, and the next motel with a vacancy tonight isn’t for fifty miles. Take it or leave it.”
I turn to look outside at where Hannah’s sitting inside my truck, which is live-parked under the pass-through. I figured she wouldn’t want anyone seeing her in her state, so I told her I’d take care of securing the rooms.
Which is now one room. And one bed. And I’ve been in a state of arousal since I found my stowaway.
I’m fucked.
I look back at the clerk. “We’ll take it.”
“Right this way.” I usher Hannah around the truck and underneath the awning that runs the length of the one-story motel. “Here we are.”
I’m sliding my key card into the door when Hannah asks me, “Is this my room?”
“Yep.” I get the door open and wait until she’s inside with her purse and I’ve shut the door behind us before I add, “And mine.”
She whips around to stare up at me. “What?”
I drop my bag and hold up my hands. “There was only one room left.” I gesture to the bare-bones space before us with a sink outside the bathroom, a TV on the wooden dresser, and, most importantly, a single king-sized bed in the middle of the room. “This is it.”
Hannah gasps. “But I hardly know you! And you’re so…” She gestures wildly in my general direction. “You know.”
I cross my arms over my chest and face her head-on. “I’m so…what? You can tell me.”
“Oh, come on.” She rolls her eyes. “Don’t make me say it.”
“Say what?” I ask her innocently. “I’m so…what?”
“So hot, okay?” Her whole face turns red. “You know you’re ridiculously hot. What are you, like a professional actor or model?”
I chuckle. “Hardly.”
It’s a reasonable assumption given that we’re coming from L.A., but I’m enjoying teasing her too much to let her off the hook.
“If you’re not an actor or a model…then what do you do for a living?”
Here it comes. “I play football.”
She stares at me. “Cool,” she says after a moment.
I wait for the fangirling, but none comes. Part of me is relieved, and the jackass part of me is disappointed.
I’m used to women getting off on what I do. Getting dates in college was as simple as walking off the field after games—the girls would swarm us. But Hannah truly doesn’t seem to give a shit. Her gaze is darting around the room as if she can maybe magically conjure up a second bed.
“I’ll take the chair,” I say, pointing at the small armchair in the corner of the room.
She’s already shaking her head. “I can’t ask you to do that. We’ll draw a line down the center of the bed and each stick to our side.”
I fight a smile. “A
line?”
“Yes. Haven’t you ever done that before?”
“No.”
She gives me a look. “Of course, you haven’t. I doubt you have many female friends.”
She’d be right on that, but I don’t say anything. And she’s off onto the next subject anyway.
“So, what do you want to eat for dinner?” she asks me. “I’m starved.”
“There’s a restaurant across the parking lot,” I say. “I’ll get takeout for us. You stay here and shower.”
She puts her hand on her hip. “Are you always this bossy?”
“Yep.”
“Good to know.”
Her tone is amused and—something else I can’t place. I almost would have said grateful.
I reach into my bag and pull out a college football t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants.
“These will be too big,” I say as I hand them to her. “But they’ll keep you warm.”
She looks at the logo. “University.” She raises her eyes to meet mine. “You play for your college?”
“Not anymore. I was just drafted, so I’m moving cross country to join my new team.”
“Congratulations. You must be excited.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” As excited as I am about my future, saying the words not anymore still feels like a bit of a gut punch. My college coach recruited me and gave a kid who came from nothing a shot. In many ways, leaving my college football team is like leaving home for the first time.
I turn for the door. “See you in a few. We’re on the first floor, and I don’t know the area. Best to bolt the door when I leave. I’ll knock when I come back.”
Chapter Ten
Hannah
Like I said—Bossy.
Bolt the door? It locks upon closing anyway. Nevertheless, I appreciate Maverick’s protective side, and I do what he asks before heading for the bathroom.
I stare into the mirror at myself.
Good Lord, I look like crap. My lipstick has miraculously held up—the one thing I have to thank my maid of honor for is this lipstick that she swore would last all night long no matter what—but the rest of me is a mess.
My hair that I had painstakingly pinned up in a beautiful braided bun is now sticking up around my head like a lion’s mane, and my eyes just look…hollow. Empty. Red-rimmed from all that crying.
I lost everything today, and no amount of denial is going to stop me from that realization.
I begin the process of removing the pins from my hair. And as I work, I think.
Where do I go from here?
Chicago. That’s where Maverick is moving.
So as of tomorrow morning, I officially have no ride anymore. Not that I thought he and I would continue this journey together. I just hoped he’d be heading back to Los Angeles, not two thousand miles in the opposite direction.
But as I finish taking out the last pin and shake my hair free, then I finally take off my wedding dress and hang it up on the back of the bathroom door, I come to a conclusion.
I don’t want to go back to L.A. either.
Now that Craig and I are over, there’s nothing left for me there.
I worked for him at the university, so my job is as good as gone. I wouldn’t keep my position as his assistant if he got down on his knees and begged.
His friends were my friends, and I don’t have to check my lack of texts to know where they’ll stand on the matter.
My parents are dead, and I’m an only child.
And the one person I thought was my friend in L.A.? Well, she ended that trust when she fucked my fiancé.
I step into the shower and enjoy the spray of the hot water on my chilled body.
I take my time cleaning off, and when I’m finished, I turn off the water and step out. After drying off and slipping into Maverick’s sweatpants and t-shirt, both of which hang off of me like I’m far tinier than I am, I head for the bed. I sprawl across it and scroll through the contacts on my phone.
My first call is to Craig.
He picks up immediately.
“Hannah-bear? Where are you?”
“I don’t think you get to ask me that question anymore.”
“What?” He blows out a breath of annoyance. “Look, I get that you’re upset and hurt. How can I make it up to you? I told you that she and I…”
“Only fucked one time. Earlier today. Right before you and I were supposed to get married.”
A beat of silence before, “It didn’t mean anything, Hannah-bear. I swear. I just panicked.”
“It meant something to me,” I say, realizing how true that is. “It means I can’t trust you, Craig. Not anymore.”
“But you have nothing without me,” he says. “No job, no townhouse, no career at the university…you’ve got no future.”
His threats hit me hard, but not hard enough for me to change my mind.
“Maybe so, but I can’t marry you. I’m breaking it off officially. And permanently.”
“You’ll live to regret this,” he growls into the phone. “What about the research grant I applied for? That grant is only for married couples.”
I know. “I feel bad about that,” I say, and I mean it. “But you should have thought about your future more before you went and slept with my maid of honor.”
“Hannah, don’t be rash. Come home and let’s talk.”
“I’m done talking, Craig. I won’t change my mind.”
“You have to! I need you, baby.”
“You mean you need that grant.”
“That’s true. It’s my best chance at tenure. But I also miss you. Come on, baby.”
I hang up. My hands are shaking.
Craig’s position as a psychology professor at the university is beyond safe, and no doubt he’ll achieve tenure without the grant that would have taken us to Alaska for six months. But he wants that grant badly—he knows the research he’d get to do with kids there will set him apart from his peers. And my ex is nothing if not competitive. But he’s also lazy. He doesn’t want to work for it. I was his assistant at the university for a reason. I did everything he didn’t want to do, which was a lot.
I was the one who found the grant. But as Craig was in the middle of filling out the application, the committee changed the rules to only married professors could apply. Shortly after that, he proposed.
And yes, I realized the ulterior reasons behind his proposal. But, I thought I loved him. We’d talked about getting married for months, so I thought it was speeding up the inevitable.
But apparently, a caged lion is more dangerous than one who roams free.
I’ve never suspected Craig of cheating on me.
Either I wasn’t paying close enough attention, or he didn’t feel the cage around his heart until after he popped the question and was about to walk down the aisle.
I shudder at the image of Craig bending Mindy over the bathroom sink. I can feel the tears starting again, and I let them come. Six years down the drain.
But now that we’re through, I truly can’t imagine returning to Los Angeles.
I stare down at my phone, mindlessly flipping through my contacts.
I have an idea.
When Kia picks up with a, “Girl, I thought you’d be on the way to your honeymoon by now!”
I barely get out a, “Yeah, about that…” before she’s talking again.
“Congrats on your marriage, hon. I’m sorry I couldn’t get off work to come to your big day. You know I love you, though, right? We may be out of college, but we’re roomies for life! Hey, speaking of, remember that night I got home so late it was nearly dawn? I was drunk off my ass, and I accidentally climbed into bed with you instead of my own bed—crazy times, huh? I wonder if…”
“Kia!” I cut her off. “There was no wedding.”
Silence. Apparently, I’ve finally found a way to shut up my college bestie.
Kia Warren and I were paired as roommates our freshman year at UCLA, and we hit it off. She’s a Chicago girl, and
she moved home as soon as she graduated.
“Tell me everything,” she says finally. “Don’t leave out a piece of detail, you hear me?”
Maverick’s banging on the door by the time I finish my story to Kia.
“I have to go,” I tell her. “But I was thinking…”
“Ooooh, yes! Come stay with me!” She’s practically screaming. “I’ve got a couch with your name on it, girl!”
Bang! Followed by, “Hannah, let me in!”
“I’ll text you later,” I promise her as I end the call and go to the door.
Maverick doesn’t even look at me when he steps through the door as soon as I open it. He’s soaked through, but he managed to conceal the plastic bag of food underneath his coat, and he places it on the bed.
“Gonna jump in the shower,” he says over his shoulder as he riffles through his bag and pulls out some clothes. “Don’t wait to eat.”
I don’t plan to wait.
But by the time I’ve finished setting up the bed with two paper plates the restaurant provided for us, plus unwrapping the plastic to pull out two sets of plastic utensils and carefully putting a napkin next to each of our plates, I hear the shower turn off. I quickly unscrew the two water bottles and place one on each nightstand on either side of the bed, and then I pull out the containers of burgers and fries from the bag.
I’ve just put a burger onto each plate and shaken out half the cup of fries for each of us when the bathroom door opens.
Maverick steps into the room wearing sweats just like mine and a long-sleeved athletic shirt. His body is so hard and defined it should seriously be photographed and used as an example of perfection in the dictionary.
I feel a coiling low in my belly, something I never once felt with Craig.
“Hey,” he says from underneath the towel he’s running over his head.
“Hi,” I call out. “Food’s all ready. Thanks for picking it up.”
“No problem.” He sheds the towel, tossing it onto the sink.
And then, he raises his head and looks at me.
He swallows. Hard.
So hard that I see his Adam’s apple move in his throat.
Bossy Baller: A Hero Club Novel Page 3