AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Just the opposite, actually. I have a kid who might be a good fit here. I’m pretty sure he’s on the spectrum, but it’s mild. He could help when I’m not around.”
She nods, pushing out her lips. “Those kinds of decisions are up to Gloria, but we can talk to him.”
I look down, passing a hand over the back of my neck and wondering why I’m sticking it out for this kid. Why is Edward different from Rachel?
“If you want, come by the restaurant tonight. He’ll be there with his sister Rachel.”
“Oh, is that the new girl working with Miss Gina?” Her voice rises. “I’ve heard she’s really cute.”
“I wouldn’t know.” I step to the center of the horse to check the billet strap.
“But you see her every day at work, don’t you? I heard she’s a yoga instructor.” Her tone turns conspiratorial. “Yoga instructors areveryflexible from what I understand.”
Heat rises around my collar—because I’m annoyed or possibly even angry. “She sticks to her side of the house, and I stay on mine.”
My voice is sharper than I intend, but Sandra isn’t deterred. Her brows rise, and I can feel her grinning even if I can’t see her. “Okay, okay. I’ll see if Gloria wants to make the drive to town. Maybe we’ll see you both at the ole Coot-Shoot.”
I give the horse a pat before leaving the stall. “See you later.”
She mutters something under her breath about overreactions, but I don’t stop.
It’s Thursday, so I go straight from the stables to the small, former weather-alert station Logan bought and is turning into a sports-radio hub. He’s been putting in long hours to get it up to speed, and on Thursdays, the two of us have a show where we discuss the marquee games each week.
Some days we do interviews, and today we’re chatting with Hendrix and Garrett over Zoom. It always ends up with more content than we can use in a ninety-minute program.
Walking into the small, white-painted, cinder-block building, I’m still irritated by my interaction with Sandra. I didn’t bring up the subject of Edward to have a discussion of Rachel’s flexibility. In fact, I’ve done my best not to think about her at all since our conversation on Monday.
It’s been annoyingly difficult.
Sometimes when she looks at me, her neck and chest go all pink. I’m not sure why, because she isn’t afraid at all to stand her ground when we’re forced to interact. It makes me think about things I pretty much put on the back-burner after my accident.
Things like how soft her skin is and how the early-morning sun shining through the open door of the Jeep makes her cheeks look like velvet as we drive to Miss Gina’s. My throat tightens and I think about sliding my nose along her jaw, inhaling her clean scent of honeysuckle, the body wash she leaves in our shared bathroom.
It’s been a battle in my mind since I burst through the door to save her, when I tore my eyes away from her soft, full breasts slick with water.
Exhaling a low growl, I fight these thoughts. She was ill, and I’m a sick bastard for thinking of her perfect breasts. Fuck, but she has really great tits.
As I requested, for the last three days she’s kept to her side of the house—both at Miss Gina’s and at our place—and I’ve kept to mine. Still, I wonder what they’re doing.
Dylan hasn’t noticed a thing, but school’s back in session, which means she’s running back and forth between teaching ballet classes at the high school, helping Jack with his six-year-old daughter Kimmie Joy, managing the restaurant, and making time for Logan.
Logan doesn’t notice anything outside of my little sister and this station, which is pretty typical male.
Since he bought WNFO last year, he’s been consumed with making it the hottest sports radio channel in his dad’s media empire.
I’ve never met Kellan Murphy, but from what I’ve heard and observed in the behavior of my future brother-in-law, he’s an impossible man to please.
Luckily, our dad left us pretty well connected in the football world, and Jack kept the tradition going when he was the star quarterback in Houston. He retired at the top of his game, and now that he’s the head coach at the high school, there’s a legion of fans still interested in what he’s doing and who’s playing for him.
Any time we have a slow night, we can always pull Jack in for a conversation that pulls in big numbers. Logan retired with a record-setting reputation, and even though I was pretty much a loner in the league, I still have a few friends who make interesting interview subjects.
Logan’s in the booth wearing a pair of headphones when I enter, and he signals for me to wait. He fit right into our clan, and after sitting up one night, shooting the shit about the future of the game and how it’s impacting players, we got the idea for this talk show. I let him take the lead, since he’s got the broadcasting degree.
“Ready?” He meets me at the door to the small studio, slapping me on the shoulder. “The guys are calling in in five. What do you think about recording these chats and putting them on a YouTube channel? A lot of podcasters are doing that now, and it might bring in a new audience—and a new revenue stream.”
“Sounds good to me.” I follow him into the room where a round table holds two very expensive microphones. “We’d have to find somebody to produce it.”
I sit in one of the office chairs and pick up the black headset. The guys will appear in a split screen on the giant television hanging on the wall in front of us.
