Flirting with the Frenemy (Bro Code #1)(21)

I don’t snort back. For the record.

Not until he closes the door anyway.





Eight





Wyatt



Tucker and I are at the island in the kitchen, chowing on eggs, Mrs. Ryder’s biscuits—god bless that woman for teaching me to cook—and bacon, debating if we’re going to play miniature golf at Scuttle Putt first or go check out Davy Jones’s Locker—Shipwreck’s water park—when the doorbell rings.

We both look at the tablet hung under the cabinet, because everything around this house is wired with security cameras, including the doorbell. Half a biscuit falls out of Tucker’s mouth. “Dad…” he whispers while I take in the muscled guy on the front porch with a bicycle leaning against his hip and a white bakery bag in hand. “That’s Cooper Rock. Cooper Rock came to see us.”

“Yeah, bud, looks like he did.”

While I’m sitting there growling to myself, wondering why a pro baseball player is dropping by at this hour of the morning, Tucker takes off like a shot, dashing to the door and flinging it open. “Cooper Rock! You came to see us! Can I have your autograph? Can we play catch? Can you please win today? I know you can win. You won a game just last week. You can do it again.”

I put in the alarm code while it beeps in warning, then pull Tucker off the guy, who’s grinning in amusement once again. “Gonna do my best, little man. You like donuts?”

“Yeah!”

“Have to save two for Ellie, but here, you can have the rest.”

“Eggs first,” I tell Tucker, rescuing the bag before he can make off with it and eat all seven pounds of donuts inside.

“But, Dad—”

“Go on. You were almost done anyway.”

He looks back at Cooper. “Can you sign my arm?”

“How about a pirate sword?”

“Yeah!”

Cooper points to a sword on Beck’s entryway table. “May I?”

I hand it to him. He pulls a Sharpie out of his back pocket and scribbles his name, then presents it to Tucker, who stares in awe.

“How’s Ellie?” Cooper asks.

I cross my arms and study him carefully, because I don’t care if he plays baseball or if he’s a fucking priest, and I don’t care how nice he was last night, I want to know if he has ulterior motives for asking. “Fine,” I say shortly.

“She’s still sleeping,” Tucker offers.

Cooper clearly tries to swallow a grin, though I don’t know which of us he’s more amused by.

“She should be, the way she was dancing last night.”

“She was dancing?”

“But don’t worry. We helped her get up on the table and made sure she didn’t fall down.”

“You—”

“Man, you should see your face.” He shakes his head. “She sat at the balcony table at Crusty Nut most of the night, then did the mini-golf course with her friends. But good to know she’s in good hands.” He slaps me on the shoulder and turns, straightening his bike as he flashes Tucker a grin. “Thanks for the support, little man. Stay strong, okay?”

My boy nods. “The Fireballs are gonna come back and win the World Series this time for sure! I’ve waited seven years for this.”

“Yeah, I’ve waited twenty. And I gotta run, or I’m gonna be late getting back to the city for practice.”

“Hit a home run!” Tucker yells, but I hear something else too.

Something that distinctly sounded like a woman yelling, “Oh, fuck!”

Somewhere beneath us.

I peek in the donut bag, which sends the heavenly aroma of fried dough and sugar wafting into the foyer, and I spy at least a half-dozen cake donuts smushed in there.

“Eggs,” I remind Tucker, and while he slumps off to the kitchen, I open the door to the basement and head down.

The game room’s open. Ellie’s on a stool, muttering enough fucks to make a pirate blush while she bangs on the controller on Beck’s Frogger arcade game.

The pink in her cheeks and that stubborn set to her jaw make my dick twitch.

Kissing her in December wasn’t a fluke.

Is she obnoxious? Yes. Short-tempered? Sometimes. Determined and smart and driven and fucking unstoppable?

Fuck, my pants are getting tight. Because there’s nothing hotter than a woman taking charge and going after what she wants, and that’s what Ellie Ryder has done every day of her life.

While thumbing her nose at me.

“Work work work, you son of a bitch,” she growls.

“Donut?” I ask.

She throws a wild-eyed look over her shoulder. “Frogger is broken.”

I almost drop the bag, which would be a catastrophe, and not only because they smell delicious, but also because I’d have to clean it up. “What? No, it’s not.”

“DO NOT TRY TO MANSPLAIN ME.”

I growl while I cross past the ping-pong table, pool table, and foosball table to the far wall. “I’m not—what the hell is—dammit, Ellie, this is called denial, because Beck’s gonna—oh, fuck.”

The screen on the arcade console is one big squiggly mess of greens and blues. Ellie hits the buttons, and nothing happens. “I can’t unplug it myself,” she grumbles. “I can’t fucking bend that way.”