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He laughs hard and starts shaking his head. “No, it’s alright. I think I would rather be named after your detective than the other.”
“Spade,” both of us look over at Kat who I have all but ignored since falling on Spade. Bad friend. Bad, bad friend. I give her my full attention now. “Is there any way you can take Pearl to the restaurant in your car? We came with Bea and Bear, and I don’t think there is going to be enough room.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. I don’t mind at all.”
This guy is so sweet, doing things for his friends like it’s no big deal to take a stranger into your car and take her somewhere. I give him a smile and start towards the steps leading down only to trip again. This time I just fall into him instead of putting my boob in his hand as a way to say ‘Hi, how are you’.
“Sorry. Sorry.”
It’s all I can really say. He helps me down the stairs and I would like to be able to blame it on me being in heels but I’m not wearing them today, or that hell, maybe I had a little too good a time at the game and drank too much. No, not that either. I’ve never drank before.
I’m just klutzy and being around superhot guys only makes that klutziness worse somehow. So you put me in front of a man as handsome and personable as Spade and I’m a raving menace with balance issues who can’t shut her mouth.
The poor man even keeps his hand on the small of my back when he escorts me across the parking lot after I say bye to Bea and Kat. He thinks I’m going to take a header into the pavement and he’ll have to be the one to clean me up.
“Hey…is that the new girl?”
We both turn to meet the man who yelled and find one of Spade’s teammates grinning wide.
“You got you a pretty little girlfriend, Spade?” I open my mouth to tell the guy he is dead wrong, but he just keeps going, “Why don’t you leave him, sweetheart, and come spend some time with a real man?”
“Why don’t you get bent, Rogers? If you played and fucked half as good as you mouthed, we wouldn’t have to pick up your slack.”
“Yeah, whatever pretty boy. Stick to your numbers and leave the pretty girls to us real men.”
Spade flips him off and bustles me across the parking lot quickly. “Fucking assholes. Sorry about that, Pearl. I…”
“No, I should be the one who’s sorry. That man thinks you’re with me and I’m a trainwreck.”
“You’re the prettiest trainwreck any of us have ever seen, bab…Pearl.”
I miss a step and trip over my own feet. I would have gone down if not for Spade holding me up. Was he about to call me…baby? No. I’m not the kind of girl a man gives cute little pet names to or talks to that way. It’s sweet that he is trying to make me feel better by saying such sweet, nice things but I realize it’s just because he’s a sweet, nice man. Not because he…would ever see me as…someone who is sexy or desirable.
Actually, it makes it better for me because I don’t have any worry that this man is thinking of me in a sexual way. I don’t have to worry about what I look like or what I say. I need to pull myself together and realize this hot, sexy guy could never see me in the same way I see him…if he wasn’t my brother’s friend, that is.
I shouldn’t be thinking of Spade as anything other than Roman’s friend. The thought of my brother pulls me up short. He had to leave right after the game but told me I should be in good hands with Bea and Kat, who are adorable, perfect, and too sweet.
I need to get my head out of my own ass and figure out what the hell I’m going to do with my life now that my parents have decided to firebomb it. And of course, I need to find out how to keep the little secret mom told me to myself. The last thing I want is to hurt Roman the way finding out would hurt him. And would he even want me around if he knew…his father isn’t my father?
Will he still think of me as his sister after he finds out what mom did? God knows, the man I thought was my father doesn’t. One of the reasons he stopped paying for my college was because he found out I wasn’t his. Mom made him promise not to tell Roman and I think they made some sort of agreement where Dad wouldn’t have to pay alimony or something if he promised not to tell.
And now…I’m lost. I don’t belong anywhere; I have to keep secrets to keep the people I love in my life and I live in constant fear that Roman will turn his back on me if he finds out. This is the gift my mother gave me at the end of my first year of college. I’m a dumpster fire with balance issues. Yeah, I don’t think there is any real danger of me having to fend Roman’s friend off of me. No danger of me having to struggle with the right or wrong of a steamy affair with my brother’s friend. No, I have to figure out who I am and where the hell I fit in now that my whole life has been nothing but a lie.
Chapter Four
Spade
I sense the change in her and see the sad look that comes across her face. And I don’t like it at all. In fact, I hate it. More so because I’m not sure what dragon I have to fight for her, what demon I have to exorcise, to make her smile again.
Was it because I almost called her baby? Was I coming on too strong? Does she know that her being a little… off-center does it for me? I didn’t really see myself getting turned on by a woman tripping but there it is…my dick getting hard anytime that sweet little thing falls against me. Of course, that could have something to do with the fact that every time she falls, her body - and all those curves - brush against me and cause a fire to ignite where we touch.
I start to make small talk with her, asking her about what classes she is taking, what her favorite was, and what she likes to eat. Food is especially important to me. Food is a simple way to say you love someone. There are plenty of people I wouldn’t feed… hell, there are people I wouldn’t eat in front of, but my friends can have my last slice of pizza, the last chip in my bag, the last french fry. Now that’s love.
We meet up with the Girls, Whit, and Bear out in the parking lot of the restaurant so we can all go in together and some of the tension I was feeling eases a little. Maybe it’s a sense of not having to be so on-guard with everyone concerning Pearl, especially the men.
And then Kent Rogers opens his damn mouth. Again.
“Hey, hot stuff, why don’t you come on over here and find out what a real man is like.”
