That makes two of us.
“Our boy has a date!” Coop howls. “Who’s the lucky lady?”
Like hell I’m answering that question. With my luck, they’d track Piper down and tell her all kinds of embarrassing stories about me.
Nothing they say can be worse than your pole skills.
True, but I’m not about to risk it.
“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”
Coop smirks. “So you’re saying there was kissing?”
“I’m not saying shit.”
My roommates are all secretly hooking up, so why shouldn’t I get the same privacy?
The front door opens and Parker comes lumbering down the hall with his backpack slung over his shoulder and a small cardboard box in his hands.
“I grabbed the mail.” He hands me the box. “You got another care package from home.”
They come every week like clockwork. I used to tell my mom to save her money, but I’ve given up wasting my breath. No matter what I say, she’s going to send them and I’m going to enjoy them.
It’s our thing.
“What did Mama Vaughn send us this week?” Coop asks, rubbing his hands together.
“She didn’t sendusanything.” I clutch the box to my chest. No way am I opening it now. For all I know, Gran slipped another box of condoms in there. “She sentmecookies.” Which I know from her text a few days ago. “Sorry, boys. I’m taking them with me.”
My mom is a great baker and Piper will love them. Given the situation with her mother, I doubt homemade cookies are a staple in her life.
Parker narrows his eyes. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“This is bullshit.” Coop’s face falls. “I can’t believe you’re sharing your mom’s cookies with a chick you’ve known for like three weeks instead of your boys, who’ve had your back for three years.”
“Didn’t Coach put you on a special diet?” I shoot back. “From where I’m standing, it seems like I’m doing you a favor by removing temptation.”
“Fuck that.” Coop crosses his arms like a giant man-baby. “I can’t live without carbs and sugar. Besides, what Coach doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Princess.”
Coop flips me off—it’s his love language—and I back out of the room, protecting the box of cookies the same way I’d protect the ball during a game.
Ten minutes later, I pull up to Piper’s building to find her waiting out front. Her hair is blowing in the breeze and she’s wearing an alpine green sweater dress that falls to mid-thigh, revealing her shapely legs. I can’t take my eyes off her and nearly clip the curb.
Get it together, asshole.
It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, but in my defense, it’s been a few weeks and my memory doesn’t come close to doing her legs justice.
My balls tighten and I force a calming breath out through my nose before I throw the Jeep in park and climb out to greet her.
“Hey, gorgeous.”
“Hey yourself.”
“You didn’t have to wait outside,” I say, loping around the vehicle. “I would’ve come up to get you.”
