Scored(22)

“You have siblings?” She smiles, her eyes smiling right along with her.

I swallow. “Older brother.” An image of Mikey appears in my brain, not exactly unwelcome. He’s healthy. Showing me the right way to throw the ball. Dad’s cooking on the grill. Mom is doing her thing inside…

“Only one?”

“Only one.” I take a drink, then push away the memories before they turn dark. “Your turn.”

“There are three of us. I’m the middle child, but there’s seven years difference between my oldest sister and me, and my little brother and me. Mom calls us her lucky sevens. Coincidentally, she’s been married seven times as well.” She crosses her fingers on both hands and holds them up. “This last one seems to be sticking.”

“Good for her?”

Paige shrugs. “Either I judge her or love her. I chose love.”

“That’s pretty fucking deep.”

“It can be hard at times, but loving her is easier than staying bitter… like my… Bitterness breeds more bitterness,” she says.

I get the feeling we’re not talking about her bitterness. Hell, I doubt Paige could stay bitter or even mad at someone. She just seems like one of those perpetually happy people. “You close to your sister and brother?”

“Mostly. Finley basically raised us.” Her eyes round a little. “I mean, our mom was there, but she worked a lot and…” Shaking her head a little, she reaches for her drink and takes a sip. “No matter what I say, it won’t come out how I mean it. I love my family. We could be closer, but what we have, it works for us. What about you and your brother?”

“He’s my idol,” I say truthfully. “I hope to be the man he always thought I could be.”

“That’s a really nice compliment and a huge burden, too, I bet. Finley has these firm expectations of me and Bond—that’s my brother.”

“Like what?”

“For me—not to date bonehead athletes or any athletes at all. Ever.” She bites the side of her lip. “No offense.”

That sounds like something her sister would say. “None taken.”

“We also had to get good grades, get a job, go to college or trade school, and not get pregnant or get someone pregnant until we were married.”

“Damn. That’s one strict sister.”

“It’s how she rebelled against our mother.” Paige gets this faraway look in her eyes. “Our mom is this free spirit who loves love, baseball, and marriage, but has no clue how to be financially independent or stable. We never had bedtimes, never had to do homework… or had any rules really.”

“My parents were so strict that I had a curfew in college, and I was expected to go to Mass each week.”

“Did you live at home?”

“Nope.” I grin. “They had plenty of spies to make sure I really was a good boy. For the most part, I was. I waited until after I graduated to become a really bad boy.”

“Buck wild, huh?”

I hold my pointer finger and thumb slightly apart. “Just a little.”

She snorts. “I read about your just a little bad-boy ways.”

“Swear that it’s all behind me now.” I draw an X over my heart. “It’s why I want a good girl like you to help me stay on the straight and narrow.”

“I thought it was to help your friend?”

“Oh yeah… that too.”

She tilts her head to one side. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

“I’m not following.”

“Your lines. Almost everything you say is contrived. Don’t get me wrong, I think you’re a nice guy, Dallas, but lines don’t work on me.”

“Unless they’re poetry.” Or some dude in a pond.

She gazes at me, all serious. “Only if they’re sincere. I don’t think you want to be sincere yet, and that’s okay. But that’s not for me. So… thanks for the great dinner and conversation, but I’m not the one who can help you and your friend.”





CHAPTER 9




Paige


“How did it go?” Layton asks as I shuffle into the kitchen, yawning and stretching. Although I hadn’t gotten home late, Layton was already passed out for the night.

“I told him I wasn’t the girl for him.” I rummage through the cabinet and pull out my guilty-pleasure box of Apple Jacks.

“Yes, you are,” she insists as I sit down at the table. Pushing over an empty bowl and the milk, she shakes her spoon at me. “You are so his type that it’s not even funny.”

“I might be his type, but he’s not my type. All he did was give me a bunch of lines.”

He also told me about his family.

Made me laugh.

Made me feel desired.

At the end of the evening, which I cut short by not ordering dessert, he walked me out to my car to make sure I was safe. I still can’t get rid of the image of him in my rearview mirror, standing in the parking lot, bathed in the glow of the lights as he watched me drive away. He looked… disappointed.

“So what?” Layton chomps down on her cereal and gives me the stink eye. “How many excuses are you going to come up with to avoid finding the right one?”