Hadley handed me an ice cream, and I opened the wrapper as she sat on the stool beside mine. “How’s school, kid?”
“It’s school.” She shrugged and silence loomed large. “How’s work? You really hurt your hand?” She reaches across the front of me and grabs it. Shakes it, and I don’t wince when the pain shoots up my wrist because no way am I looking weak in front of this kid. I’d never hear the end of it. “Looks like it hurt. Did you cuss?”
I smile. This kid knows stuff. Has insight. Probably believes I’m a swear word away from ending up on Santa’s naughty list. “Yeah.”
“That’s okay. As long as you didn’t say GD. My mom says that the F-word isn’t the big bad swear word. She says it’s GD.” Her mom never liked me. Feeling’s mutual, but I’ll keep that to myself. Hunter has a new woman now and we’re friends because she makes him happy. That’s enough for me.
This kid has a way with saying things that I find amusing. “Well, if anyone…” I’m about to saywould know, but I catch myself because some things kids don’t need to hear from guys they hardly know when they’re figuring things out. “Has a good head on herself for things like cussing and knowing the right ones to use, it’s your mom.”
“Yeah.” She nods like she knows I’m putting a brighter spin on what she is smart enough to also know is true. “Right.” But she continues to eat her ice cream like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
I remember being eleven. I played basketball on the school team. Then came home and shot hoops outside until dark. Then I came in, ate supper, pretended to do my homework. By the time we finished dinner, it was bath and bedtime so I could start all over again.
“You play sports?” I’m not great at sitting in silence.
She nods. “I cheer.”
“I meant a real sport. Like basketball.” I let her fume for a minute, open mouthed and narrow eyed. “Don’t get twisty. I know it’s a sport. I have had the benefit of many a cheerleader leg…”
From the doorway, Hunter stops me with, “Walker!”
I look up. I probably had a whole different way to go with that story. “Anyway, I know cheering is a sport.”
Hunter laughs. “Careful, Walker. My girl isn’t just a cheerleader, she’s a bad ass.” He slings an arm around her neck and kisses the top of her blonde head. “And I think she can take you.”
I laugh like it’s hilarious until I see her glare. “I said cheerleaders are athletes.”
She shakes her head, and my mind flashes on my mother when I’ve disappointed her. This kid is a prodigy. She’s going to make some man learn to grovel some day. “Sorry, Hadley.”
As she slides off her barstool and stomps away, Hunter laughs. “You’re right, Walker. Youneeda wingman. You just got dusted by an eleven year old.”
I shoot him a half-ass glare because he’s right. I’m much smoother with half-drunk women who exhibit semi-flexible standards.
“Molly says I should have a boys’ night because I’m…” He blows out a breath. “I need to get out. She says it’ll help with my sexual…” He shakes his head. “She’s says I should go.” When I grin, he narrows his eyes. “What are you smiling about?”
He knows damned well what I’m smiling about, and I’d better be getting brownie points for not laughing out loud.
He shakes his head. “She said she needsthe break.”
I chuckle. “Sure. Sure.” I nod like I’m in full agreement with whatever his excuse. “It’s your story. You tell it that way you want to.”
“Asshole.” He laughs and we walk out the kitchen door into the garage.
It’s a nice night, warmer than last year at this time, so we’re riding bikes to the Pit Stop. His Harley is an antique we reworked into a rideable machine that when he was single made panties drop at the first roar of the engine. In his player days, Hunter only needed the bike and all his white teeth to get women into bed. He didn’t fall hard until he found Molly–a woman unimpressed with the bike or the smile. She likes his “substance.”
We pull into the lot beside the building and shut off the bikes. A drink with a friend, even if I’m not allowed to troll the merchandise on display inside the bar, is better than no drink at all. And so it begins.
CHAPTERTHREE
BELLE
Okay. I’ve watched my friends eat about a thousand pounds in combined total weight of ground beef smothered in Gordon sauce, and they’ve had a few more beers, appletinis and margaritas than anyone should’ve ever consumed, and it’s after one-thirty. Hopefully, we can head out soon and I can put Maisie into her bed and go home.
But she’s whipping the crowd into a frenzy with her slowed down karaoke rendition of Bad Medicine complete with hip thrusting, boob shaking, and pole grinding because of course pole position at the Pit Stop isn’t quite the Nascar version.
I wait until she starts a naughty striptease before I try to pull her off stage. But for being the weight of an actual feather, she’s freakishly strong and digs in her heels–five-hundred dollar Louboutins she splurged on with her first paycheck out of college and has kept in a glass display case until now– and hands me the mic.
We have an audience when she speaks into the mic. “I dare you.”
