The Bad Boy Bargain (Suttonville Sentinels #1)(4)
“Thank goodness. Sherry tells me you’re good with yards. I’m having a benefit tea in my backyard in a month, and we have some serious problems with our grass back there. Well, that’s not true. We have serious problems with everything back there.” She smiled. “I’m Michelle Gladwell, by the way. I think you go to school with my daughter? Faith?”
If he did, he didn’t know her. There were seven hundred students in his senior class. Kyle shrugged. “Yeah, I guess we do.”
“So, would you have time to take a look? At the grass I mean?”
He barely choked back a laugh. What, was she worried he thought she meant Faith? Sorry, lady, your daughter’s virtue is safe with me. “Is tomorrow morning okay? It’s already getting dark, but I have plenty of time to get started this weekend.”
“That’s perfect.”
After letting her know he’d be by around ten to give her an estimate, he cranked up his music and started the mower again. He usually avoided customers with kids who went to Suttonville with him, but it probably didn’t matter. It wasn’t like he’d see much of Faith anyway, and so what if she told people he mowed lawns? You could still be a badass and have a job, right?
Maybe he should’ve taken up auto repair. Dad had insisted he get a job that required manual labor. The piles of homework, the long hours of baseball practice, and the trust fund didn’t matter. His father believed in hard work.
“Son, I don’t care if you don’t have to work for a living…ever,” he’d said when Kyle turned thirteen. “There’s value in seeing how everyone else lives—and everyone else has a job. So figure out what you like to do, and do it.”
The very next day, he’d offered to mow Mrs. Perkins’s lawn. She was eighty, stone deaf, and the richest widow in the neighborhood. It had taken him four hours to learn how to work the mower and edger and finish the job. When he was done, she’d given him five bucks and a pat on the head. He’d stared down at the five-dollar bill like it was a Franklin, and even now pride rose in his chest at the memory. He’d finished the job, on his own, and had proof he could do something right.
He started mowing for her every week after that. Soon he was mowing her friends’ lawns, and branching out into full landscaping work.
Now he owned a pickup truck with one of those magnetic decals on the side: Hard Rock Landscaping. He even had a business cell phone.
If anyone at school figured out just how seriously he took his work, it would ruin his image. Better to let them think it was community service for a misdemeanor, because Kyle Sawyer, the trust-fund gardener, sounded much less cool than Kyle Sawyer, the delinquent.
And he needed to hold on to that image. He wasn’t going back to being that weedy, picked-on eighth grader. Not ever again.
Chapter Four
Faith
The doorbell rang five minutes early. Cameron was never, ever early.
That wasn’t a good sign.
Faith rushed to finish her mascara as Mom called, “Honey! Cameron’s here!”
Her palms grew damp with sweat, and her stomach turned over. The party was going to be great, sure, but how could she go with him knowing she wanted to end it? Could she tell Cameron she was ready to move on? That she was tired of hearing about football, tired of how his hands always drifted toward her ass when he put an arm around her waist?
She knew she’d been lucky; at least she’d felt that way when he asked her out the first time. That he’d noticed her. She wasn’t a cheerleader or blond or ultra popular. And in the beginning, he’d been almost perfect. Almost. But once he’d gotten comfortable, things had changed.
She wiped her sweaty hands on her denim miniskirt, taking one last glance in the mirror. Her dark hair framed a pale face, making her brown eyes stand out, almost black, and she was trembling. God, he’d know as soon as he saw her that something was wrong.
“Faith?” Mom sounded vaguely worried. “You coming, sweetheart?”
“Be right down!” There, her voice sounded normal, right? To steel herself, she stared at her costume for the ballet scene in Oklahoma! Thinking how she had a lot in common with Laurey steadied her nerves. Laurey stole a wagon from Jud when he tried to paw her, knowing all he saw was a girl to conquer. Not someone to love, to cherish.
That’s what Faith wanted—if she was going to give everything to a guy, he better damn well cherish the heck out of her. He should make her breath hitch when he walked into a room. His smile should warm the air. Make her feel like she was the only being in the universe.
He shouldn’t spend entire dates retelling the story about how he caught the winning touchdown against Allen High junior year.
Taking a deep breath, she flung her bedroom door open and marched down the stairs. The first thing Cameron did was take a good, long look at her, up and down. Maybe she should’ve worn an overcoat instead of the miniskirt, leggings, and striped cardigan over a tank top. Not much skin showed, but he found every last bit of it.
A month ago, two, and that appreciative stare would’ve made her laugh. Tonight, though, it made the hairs on the back of her neck rise, and not in a good way.
What would she give for a guy who could do that—make her shiver…and enjoy it?
Instead, she trudged over to Cameron. He looked like someone you’d find on a poster for one of those high school football dramas. A Friday Night Lights golden boy, from his dirty-blond hair to the navy-and-gold Suttonville High letter jacket he never took off—especially not on a March evening with temperatures in the upper sixties. She’d even seen him wear it in September, when it was a hundred and two degrees and the devil had left the barn door open to hell. Who wore a letter jacket year-round in North Texas? You barely needed a coat in January half the time.