All I hear is Bryson spitting out the shit he probably feeds her every time I come up in their conversations. I should be relieved because I know she can’t handle the article living in the files on Blake’s phone. She can’t handle me or us existing on Earth together where I’m not her legend because I’m just a dude who fucked up no matter what she thinks or who she hated.
“Take a break.” I thumb her bottom lip and drop my hand.
“I just clocked in.”
“Who here?”
Her eyebrow shoots up as soon as Brandy pushes from the back storage room.
“I had a feeling you’d be by soon,” she says, grinning at me with her blonde curls poking in every direction. “You still owe me for Splashtown weekend, remember? Let’s make it happen before the first game.”
When she notices the wild look on my face, her eyes dart between me and Phat, but Phat already has her head back between the pages of that magazine.
“Cool… can you cover for Lourdes for a minute?”
The air whips beside me as Phat flings her head up.
Brandy’s face falls along with my stomach, but she doesn’t understand how hunger works. Only Phat does.
“Uh, okay? I guess.” She tilts her head. “Did something happen?”
I frown. “Yeah... I need to talk to my—”
“I won’t be long, girl.” Phat chuckles, crumpling the suckers in her hand.
She turns around, picks up Marshall’s backpack, drops it, and then picks it up again like she doesn’t know if she should stay or go.
Brandy’s eyes narrow when she comes from behind the counter, yanking my arm. We stumble out onto the yard and she lets go as soon as the first group of people pass us.
That nasty sinking feeling from practice comes back and I don’t need 1942 to do irresponsible shit. I just need her in whatever way I can get her.
“Come to my truck.” I walk off. “I wanna talk to you.”
She follows behind me, blowing out a breath. We don’t talk on the way to Lot E. Our arms brush against each other and now and then I hear her take a deep breath I want to swallow because I don’t know how to explain that Blake Harvey has us living on deadlines and under his control and I don’t know how to stop it.
When she sees my truck sitting in the back row, she glides toward the passenger door, flinging it open when I hit the key fob to unlock it. Even seeing her familiarity with my vehicle makes my dick hard and has me soaring to the driver’s side door.
As soon as I climb behind the wheel, she messes with shit—opening the vents, dropping the suckers in my cup holder, and swiping the visor down to play with her hair in the mirror.
“Okay, you interrupted my shift and now we’re all alone on Planet Ace,” she sings, brushing at her edges. “Who did you something?”
Everybody—Blake, Bryson, Pops, Brandy, the world.Everybody who just wouldn’t let us be.
The cold air from the vents blow against my hot face while I stare at her in all of her post-virginal glow. She flings the visor back up and turns to me.
“What you mad about?” she asks, sounding like Mom.
Mad?
Me and that word hadn’t mixed since Mom was still drinking wine on her balcony with her feet kicked up and here was version two of my little lady telling me that somehow she knew all about it.
I push out of the truck because everybody has mefuckedup. They have me so bent that I can’t feel the sting when my skin gets caught between the back passenger door handle and the car. I yank it and get in.
When I close the door behind me, Phat whips her head around with her eyebrows pinched together.
“What you doin—”
Her legs scrape against the middle console and her teeth chatter against each other when I pull her into the backseat with me.
