Wade
I take my share of teasing over the next two hours. Kelsey excused herself not too long after we arrived, and I’ve been out back with Walt and Dad, just shooting the shit. Exactly like I’d hoped for. Dad wants to hear more about the endorsement deal I landed and if I’m stretching and keeping fit enough in the off-season. If any of the rumors about Baxter stepping into a coaching role are true.
For a guy whose heart broke the day I stopped throwing spirals, my dad is behind me in my hockey career one hundred percent.
Damn, it’s nice to be home.
But it’s almost four and I want to give Harlow a break this afternoon. Heading in, I find her sitting with my mom and Janie, checking out baby pics, all three of them shoulder to shoulder, talking a mile a minute. The sound of her laughter-laced chatter and coos almost makes me hesitant to go. My mom lifts her head and, catching me behind her, holds up the baby book for me.
“See how cute you were!”
“Potty training?” I choke, seeing not just my bare baby ass, but the twig and berries too.
The smile on Harlow’s face is pure delight as I come around the couch. I take her hand and pull her up and into my side. She’s not quite sure what to do with the fit, but after a beat of holding her arms stiffly at her sides, she eases into it, one arm sliding around my back.
Her body angles and her tits sort of nestle right up against my ribs.
It’s not a big deal. It’s just the way we’re standing. Like a couple… even though we aren’t one.
She didn’t grab my junk.
Her tongue isn’t in my ear.
But damn, that soft press of curves feels good, and it takes everything I have not to use my arm to squeeze her in even closer.
This girl is doing me a favor on the condition I’m a nice guy not out to take advantage of her while she’s isolated here in the middle of freaking nowhere.
Okay, it’s not quite that extreme, but I’m not going to be a douche.
So, holding my arm so it’s grazing her shoulders but not pressing in, I clear my throat.
“We’re going to run over to the hotel to check in and drop our bags. What’s the plan for tonight?”
Mom tells us to meet back at six because half the town is coming over.
I haven’t even started the engine before Harlow’s twisted around in her seat, leaning into the space between us, hands clasped in a tight, neat bundle in her lap. “Tell me. That was pretty good, right?”
She’s adorable.
“Oh yeah, very good.” Gravel crunches under the tires as I follow the loop out. “And how the hell did you know about the Ridge?”
She scoffs, sitting back. “Research. If I take on a project, I want to be prepared.”
“I’m getting that about you.” I steal a glance over, admiring the light in her eyes and the glow of her cheeks. “So it wasn’t too bad?”
“Not at all. You were right about your parents. They’re easy to like.”
It shouldn’t matter, but it does. “Glad to hear it.”
Harlow peppers me with questions for the next few miles into town, about me, about my family. Every time I give her an answer, I see her filing the information away. But this thing only works if it goes both ways. And hell, I just want to know more about her.
I hit my signal and pull into the drive heading up to the Picket Inn. “Once we get to our room, it’s your turn on the hot seat.”
I’m expecting some bring it attitude coming back at me, but instead I get a strained, “Our room? There’s just one?”
Shit.
The lot’s mostly empty. Parking in a spot close to the lobby, I rub the back of my neck. “I got us two beds. It’s a suite. But—hell, I’m sorry. I guess I figured two rooms wouldn’t really sell the committed serious couple thing and didn’t think to check with you.” I should have.
She looks out the window, back down to Main Street, and then to the doors in front of us. “Word travels fast around the sports celebrity?”
I laugh because there’s that subtle emphasis again. From the first night in the club, any time she says it, it’s like there are air quotes around it.
“Word travels fast about everything around here. But especially Bill and Grace’s sons. My parents are bigger celebrities in this town than I am. Prom king and queen, varsity football and cheerleading coaches.”
“And you think someone from the hotel might talk if we had separate rooms?”
No might about it. They’d definitely talk. But it doesn’t matter. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, Harlow. I can get another room.” And if, against all odds, they don’t have one, I’ll stay in the truck. I can’t stay back at my house with Kelsey there.
“No.” It’s like she’s trying it on for size. But then she turns to me, more relaxed. “No way are we going to give up the game on day one. You caught me by surprise, but it’s not like we’re sharing a bed. I’m good.”
I come around to help her down. “Promise you’ll let me know if that changes?”
“Promise.”
She hops out of the truck. Our bags are in the backseat, and when I go for the door, my hand brushes hers as she does the same.
“Sorry,” we both mutter, then proceed to do the very same thing again.
She has really soft skin.
Our eyes meet, a beat passes, and then we both laugh, and hell, it just feels good.
I shake my head, this time catching her hand on purpose and guiding it away from the door. “Big, strong jock here. Let the ego have a little something, yeah?”
She rolls her eyes and steps back. “A little something? Ha. I have the feeling your ego is pretty well-fed.”
“You know, you’d think that, right? But funny thing. Not so much since I met you.” I throw the strap of her bag over one shoulder and mine over the other, grabbing her smaller tote in my hand. “Poor guy is starving over here.”
She gives me the huff of laughter I’m going for. Then, “Wade, I’m so impressed with how you handle all three of those bags. I’ve never encountered such a manly show of strength.”
Jesus, I can feel him shriveling. But she’s not done.
“I might faint, I’m so overwhelmed by the testosterone in the air.” Fanning herself, she asks, “If I go down, will you be able to carry me too?”
Yes. And hell, if there was any truth to her being mine, I’d already have her over my shoulder, giving that perfect round ass a spank for the mouth she’s giving me. But she’s not. She’s doing me a favor. And not the kind that involves going down.
Why did she have to say it that way?
Shouldering in through the front door of the hotel, I come face-to-face with Mr. Peterman.
This guy has been giving me the stink eye since I was old enough to walk, and I’ve never figured out why. Or why I care. But here I am, shifting where I stand as he gives me a grizzled scowl from the check-in desk.
“Name?”
“Wade Grady.” Like he doesn’t know. He keeps staring, irritation evident in every breath. “Reservation through next Sunday.”
He turns to a PC that’s right out of the 80s and finger-pecks on the clackity keyboard. Snorts. “A suite.”
Beside me, I swear I catch Harlow’s shoulders give a shake.
Glad she thinks this is funny.
“Yes, sir. Also, we don’t need anyone in to make up the room this week.”
There’s another stare that has me feeling guilty. For what, I don’t even know. But the last thing I need is Marcy or Nadine, if they’re still working housekeeping here, to let it slip that a certain couple isn’t sharing a bed.
He hands us our key cards and, with a short huff, returns to the office.
Once we’re in the elevator, Harlow turns to me, barely suppressed laughter playing at her lips. “What was that?”
I smile. “Right? I’ve been telling my parents he hates me since I was a kid and they’re always like, ‘No way, Wade.’”
There’s a sort of unhealthy shimmy when the car reaches the third floor that has my hand moving to Harlow’s back. But then the doors open and we’re faced with a drab hallway that was probably intended to be sunny but isn’t.
We’re the last door on the left. And when I swipe our key card, I’m relieved to see that as dated as much of the hotel is, the room is clean and smells fresh and would probably feel plenty big if I was standing in it with anyone other than the woman beside me.
I set the bags down, eyes landing on a pull-out sofa I’m betting hasn’t been replaced since I was born.
Damn. Good thing it’s off season.
Harlow
The bedroom doesn’t have a door, but on the upside there is a fully equipped bathroom that does. So I call it a win even if things get a bit weird once we start trying to give each other some privacy in a space that simply isn’t about it.
I hear Wade opening his bag. Then the expulsion of a breath that’s distinctly masculine. The creak and groan of the couch that’s supposed to be his bed.
His muttered curse.
“I take you to the nicest places, huh?” he says from the other room, using a voice that’s probably quieter than when it was just the two of us in his truck.
“Bed’s not bad,” I say, giving it a tentative bounce and then lying back on it.
“Yeah? Watch out if I start putting moves on you.”
I roll my eyes. “Plotting to get off the pull-out already?”
Even from the next room, there’s something about his laugh. And then I’m kind of wondering what an actual move from Wade would look like and how many of the girls in Enderson already know.
I roll to my side, stretched out along the mattress. “So, Kelsey?”
“Yeah, Kelsey.” A beat passes but then he clears his throat. “We used to be pretty good friends.”
I wait. Trying to imagine the past between her and Wade. When he told me about her, he’d been pretty vague, just mentioning she lived at his house. But the way she behaves around him says there must have been something.
There’s another deep, protesting groan from the couch. And then Wade’s standing in the doorway. One solid shoulder propped against the frame. “She’s a good girl. Really.”
“She’s in love with you.”
There’s a flash of pain in his eyes as he rubs the back of his neck. “I want to tell you that’s not it, but hell, I don’t know. Maybe it’s love. If it is, that’s nothing I want to fall into.”
Wade seems like such an open, lighthearted guy. It’s hard to imagine him closing himself off to anything. “When did things end between you?”
He huffs a short laugh. “High school, junior year. About thirty seconds after it started.” And then he’s shaking his head. “It was so stupid. We were at my buddy’s party. I’d just broken up with my girlfriend and I was drunk enough that all I wanted was to find an empty bedroom and clock out until the next day. But then she was there too, coming to check on me. A little drunk herself. Didn’t want to go home, so she crawled in with me.”
Ahh. “You slept together?”
If I were a real girlfriend, I’d probably have liked to know that before walking in blind. Lucky for Wade, I take the fake part of our relationship very seriously.
“Slept together in the literal sense of the word. But… sometime during the night, we must have started fooling around some. Hell, I barely remember how it started. Just the moment when I realized it had and it was Kelsey. She deserved better than some drunk dickhead. So we stopped, thank fuck. But ever since…”
He blows out a long breath and moves to the far corner of the mattress to sit. “It doesn’t matter how many times I tell her it isn’t happening. I’ve tried to be nice. Hell, I’ve tried to be less nice. But every time I see her, it’s still there. The hope and then the hurt. And it guts me, because while I don’t feel about Kelsey the way she feels about me, I care about her a hell of a lot.”
Oh man. Wade is a really good guy.
“How long has she been living at your house? She seems pretty close with your family.”
He laughs but there isn’t any humor to it. “Since before we graduated. Her home life wasn’t ideal. My mom’s the high school cheerleading coach, and she and Kelsey bonded early on. Somehow she found out about the situation at home, and when things got really bad, Mom just moved her into our spare room. I’m glad my family could be there for her when her own wasn’t. But—”
“It makes things tricky when you come home. Does your family know how it is?” But even as I ask, I remember those nervous glances and what Wade told me before the trip. That the whole town was waiting for him to come home and marry a girl from Enderson. I hadn’t realized they’d actually picked her out already. “Never mind. Of course they do.”
“Pretty safe to say that everyone knows how it is. Or at least they know how Kelsey feels. It’s been this Will They, Won’t They game since sophomore year. Everyone waiting for it to happen. Setting us up, pairing us off… scheming ways to get us alone. Totally ignoring the fact that I was not interested.” He gives me one of those shrugs like it’s no big deal, but I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t. “Last time I was home, my dad was ‘working on her car’ and I became her ride to work at the courthouse each day… and her lift into the city an hour away that weekend.”
“Wow. Your own family?”
“That’s nothing. My mom left us at the high school together after practices once. Drove right off without us so we had to walk together. Strangely, no friends available to pick us up either. Social blowing up so bad for the rest of the night with everyone asking what happened, I was ready to turn off my account.” He shakes his head. “But it’s the guilt that gets me, you know? I don’t want to be an asshole, but I don’t want her wasting her life waiting for something that will never happen.”
“Honestly, I can’t even imagine.” My life leans so far in the other direction, I wouldn’t even know where to begin trying to explain it to someone like Wade. “So what happens when you’ve brought dates home in the past? Everyone just backs off?”
Wade laughs. “So we’re clear here before I answer, I’m not some stunted emotional moron. I’ve had girlfriends. In high school and college. But since then, girls haven’t really been the priority, so my relationships have been more”—he pauses and clears his throat—“casual.”
Translation: No room for someone to catch expectations.
He gives me the side-eye. “Regardless, I’ve never brought a girl back with me. I just—hell, maybe I figured they weren’t serious enough for what it would cost Kelsey.”
“But this time?”
“It’s my baby brother’s wedding. Mostly, I just wanted to be able to spend some time with the guy without finding myself accidentally marooned in a field overnight with Kelsey. I don’t want to be having the same conversations with her this trip I do every other.” Making a fist, he presses his knuckles into the bed and then stands. “And hell, maybe I was hoping bringing someone home with me would be enough for her to finally let go.”