Worth the Risk(9)

“Oh.”

“Is the other part true?”

“Which part is that?” I ask as I turn back to his Star Wars lunch box and reevaluate what I’ve put in there so far for the trashcan ratio—what he will actually eat and what he will throw away so I will think he ate it.

“The pretty part.”

I clear my throat. I can’t deny those high-school angles she had have developed into grown-woman curves. “She’s pretty.” Gorgeous.

“So, should we ask her out on a date?”

“We?” I laugh and turn around, grab him, and flip him upside down. Anything to clear the thoughts I can already see him forming in his head. No way, no how will Sidney Thorton and I become an item.

She’s too much like his mother.

The thought stumbles into my mind and sticks there knowing I’d never take the risk of him being hurt again. “No. I’m not asking her out. I don’t even know why she was here since she doesn’t live in Sunnyville anymore.”

“I told you why she was here, and she is living here,” he says as I set him on his feet, only for him to flop onto his back in the middle of the kitchen floor so he can look up at me. “You are going to win a contest. You were—”

“Son of a bitch.” I smack the counter as realization dawns on me. Within seconds, I have my cell to my ear and am calling my brother.

“Some of us work for a living. Maybe you should try it,” he answers.

“Grady,” I sneer. It makes both perfect sense and no sense all at the same time.

“That’s my name, pushing your buttons is my game.”

“You didn’t happen to enter me in any contests, did you?” I think back to a few months ago, to him and my older brother Grant snickering. Their comments about how they were going to get me pussy for miles.

He snorts as he fights back a laugh. “Now, why would we do that?”

We. Not I.

Goddammit.

“He’s a finalist!” Luke yells and then shrieks as I swat playfully at him.

“A finalist, huh?” Grady sounds so damn proud of himself, and I’m not amused in the least.

“What did you do, Grady?”

More laughter. Then he clears his throat. “There was this hot dad contest.”

“Christ.”

“We thought you fit the bill—”

“This isn’t funny, Grady—”

“Hot dads are in demand to service hot moms, and we figured, what better way to find you a hot mom?”

“I get plenty of service, thank you,” I say as Luke eyes me from his spot on the floor, ears tuned in to try to make sense of this contest that Sidney got him all fired up about.

“No, you don’t. You get to cherry pick your pies when you’re hungry. Quiet pieces of pie so as not to upset Luke and let him hope your just-for-the-time-being is going to be his mom . . . but you never really have someone to share shit with. So . . . fucking sue us if you want, but Grant and I entered you into the contest.”

“I don’t need a contest to get—er, serviced.” I glance at Luke and then turn my back to him as if he won’t be able to hear me.

“No one said you did. But it sure as hell isn’t going to hurt.” He chuckles, and there’s chatter from the scanner he leaves on in the background. “Plus, there are prizes.”

“I don’t need any prizes.”

“Money. A trip. Other shit.”

“I don’t need any money. Or a trip. Or other shit.” Luke groans behind me.

“Ha. We all need money; it makes the world go ’round, brother.” I can hear his smile through the line. “Besides, you could use the distraction while you’re grounded.”

“I’m going to hang up now.”

“No, you aren’t because you’re a finalist and you know your ego secretly loves that you’ve still got it in the looks department.”

I roll my eyes and shake my head. “You’re an ass.”

“And you’re a hot dad, or so the voters think.”

“I’m really hanging up now.”

He says something else, but I’m already ending the call before I can hear it all.

Well . . . shit.

Bracing my hands against the kitchen counter, I look out the window to the hills beyond. To the greens and the browns nestled around this city I was born and raised in and really have no desire to leave.

There’s no way I’m doing this.

Not a chance in hell.

“Dad, what does ‘getting serviced’ mean?”

Christ. And the beat goes on.

“It means when you go to the car place and you get your oil changed.”

“You mean that dipstick thing?”

“Yes, and right now, that dipstick is Uncle Grady.”





“The wall isn’t going anywhere, you know, in case you’re trying to move it telekinetically.”

I look over to Rissa through our communal office space near the back of the building and level her with a glare. Her dark hair is pulled back in a perfect chignon, her flawless skin is the prettiest shade of caramel, and those eyes of hers are sharp and unforgiving.

“You never know until you try, right?”