“Youlikeher,” Boss declared, and Sam snapped another quick look over his shoulder to make sure Hannah hadn’t heard.
“Of course I like her,” he muttered. “She’s my high school girlfriend’s kid sister. I knew her when she had pink rubber bands on her braces and ran around in SpongeBob SquarePants pajama bottoms.”
Boss narrowed his eyes. “She’s not a kid now though, is she?”
“To me, she’ll always be thirteen.”
“Bullshit.” Boss snorted.
“First you judge me for my Hawaiian pizza and now you’re calling me a liar? You know, I’ve punched men in the dick for less.”
“They were lesser men,” Boss said without a hint of concern.
That’s undoubtedly true,Sam thought, although he wouldn’t give Boss the satisfaction of admitting it aloud.
Frank “Boss” Knight was the kind of man that guys like Sam looked up to. Which spoke volumes about just what agoodman Boss truly was. It was an understatement to say that guys like Sam—guys who knew what it truly was to sacrifice and suffer—had exacting standards.
“Even if Ididn’tlook at her and see that thirteen-year-old girl, she’s still too young for me,” he insisted.
“How old is she?” Boss leaned around him so he could study Hannah more closely. “Cockwaffle!” she yelled at the screen.
“Dunno for sure.” Sam shrugged. “Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Somewhere in there.”
“And how old are you?”
“Thirty-four.”
The look that came over Boss’s face did a better job of calling Sam an idiot than words ever could. “You know my wife is more than a dozen years younger than I am, right?”
Sam swallowed. Hehadn’tknown.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He’d known there was an age gap there. But Boss had one of those craggy, Russel Crowe-type faces that made him appear timeless.
“But you didn’t know Becky when she was a kid, right?That’sthe difference.”
“Mmm.” Boss canted his head. “Again, I call bullshit.”
Sam flattened his mouth into a straight line. “I don’t care what you call it, it’s the truth.”
“If that’s the truth, then you’ve either lost your ever-lovin’ mind, or you’re lying to yourself.”
“Ihavelost my mind.” Sam grinned. “A long time ago. Now I just use the package it came in.”
Boss chuckled. “Given your abysmal taste in pizza toppings, I’m prone to believe that.”
Before Sam could come back with something appropriately pithy, Boss turned and clomped down the metal stairs. Thethudof his gigantic footfalls nearly, but not quite, drowned out the sound of Hannah muttering, “dick breath” as she continued to type like a mad woman.
Time to offer some help,Sam decided.
Although he wasn’t sure how much help he could be. He could email and surf the web and handle most of the products in Microsoft Office. But beyond that? Useless.
At least I can lend some moral support,he decided as he headed in her direction.
He was halfway across the room when Boss’s words came back to him.“She’s not a kid now though, is she?”And suddenly the ground didn’t feel entirely firm beneath his biker boots.
Shewasn’ta kid. That was true. She was a beautiful woman with amazing purple hair and arms full of bangle bracelets. And if he’d met her on the street? Sure. He’d have tried to snag her digits.
But he’d met her before she grew boobs. So to look at her now with an eye toward romance?
