“Aw, did you already order for me?” a familiar, honeyed voice crooned from behind me.
Jared Pink.
I’d know that voice anywhere. I’d spent the better part of the summer dreaming about that voice, that mouth.
And all the things it could do to me.
My thighs clenched when his fingers lightly scraped the small of my back. I silently cursed myself for responding tothisman—of all people—the way that I did. It was so much easier to fight him than my body’s response to him.
I tilted my head back, meeting the pair of sparkling baby blues that had been burning a hole in the back of my head. He wetted his lips with his tongue and smiled.
Damn that boyish, toothy grin.
The man—if you could even call him that at the age of twenty-four, ten years my junior—was a walking advertisement for trouble.
With a capital T and that rhymes with C and that stands for . . . Crest Whitestrips?
“Want to introduce me to your friend, angel?”
Pink
Roasters 87–54
Damn, she’s fucking gorgeous when she’s pissed.
To be fair, I think anybody would be pressed to find a time when Nessa Gibbs didn’t look knock-your-socks off gorgeous. The entitled jerk-off across from me that was currently hitting on her was proof positive.
I couldn’t blame him for hitting on her, but Icouldand would blame him for harassing her after she’d told him she wasn’t interested. “No” was a full fucking sentence.
Apparently, he’d missed that day in second grade.
Tonight’s game had kicked my ass—in more ways than one—starting with the five runs I’d given up in the third inning and ending with the line drive to my right glute. The guys still managed to squeeze out a win in the end—no thanks to my sorry, soon-to-be purple ass. Playoffs were still a few weeks away, and even though we had already secured a spot, every game counted. Twelve more wins—well, eleven after tonight—would determinewhether the Roasters earned the first or second seed in our division.
Not bad for the team’s first season in the league.
Rather than celebrating with the guys, I had opted for every pro-baller’s favorite pastime: takeout, TV, and a bag of frozen peas.
It gave new meaning to the phrase “Netflix and chill.”
Nero had been nice enough to accept the to-go order I’d called in an hour ago, long after Thorn Tavern’s kitchen closed. There weren’t a lot of takeout options past nine p.m. in Rose City—just one of the many things I missed about living in Portland—but even then, none compared to Thorn Tavern’s famous “Totchos,” the perfectly cheesy and bacon-loaded hybrid of tots and nachos.
Fuck ice baths. I’d swim in a tub of Totchos any day.
I had had every intention of just picking up my order and heading back to the townhouse I shared with the Roasters’ social media director—and my newly minted best friend—Dani, when I spotted Nessa reading at the bar.
Reading was sexy.
I’d always had a thing for nerds, especially book nerds. With freckles. Who wore cropped tops that exposed their tattooed midriff.
That was my fucking kryptonite.
Maybe I should have let her be or, at the very least, stayed hidden by the door while she gave this tool the tongue-lashing he so deserved. She could do it, too. I’d been on the receiving end of her vitriol for several months now.
Instead, I wedged myself in between her and the bar, lifted the untouched glass of wine beside her, and pressed it to my lips. Her eyes tracked my every movement. Those pools of grayish green narrowed with equal parts surprise, annoyance, and, dare I say, a hint of intrigue?
That last one was probably wishful thinking on my part. As much as I loathed to admit it, I had tried—and failed—to charm the (literal) pants off Nessa Gibbs earlier this year. Though, I still couldn’t figure out why because just about everybody, aside from the shitbag sperm donor who called himself my father, would say, I was “freaking adorable.”
Their words, not mine.
