Muffin Top

“So I’m paying,” she said, plopping her giant purse onto the counter and unzipping it.

“Nope.” He put his hand on hers, stopping her. “You’re not.”

They silently eye-fought while the mechanic opened up the folder and slid the printed invoice across, all the while looking at him and Lucy as if they were sixteen shades of crazy. Frankie smacked his hand on it before she could. She shot him a dirty look but didn’t voice a protest. Sure, it was a small victory, but he was still relishing it an hour later when the small town wasn’t even a speck in Scarlett’s rearview mirror.

“So, what’s our cover story?” he asked as they sped through Illinois, needing to break up the monotony of the scenery and the excitement of his fantasies, which were making driving uncomfortable.

She turned in her seat and flashed an ornery smile his way. “You wrecked your car checking out my ass while I was crossing the street.”

Yep. Lucy would have her revenge for him paying for the fuel pump. Had he expected her to react any differently? That would be a big nope.

“How can you say something like that about Scarlett?” he asked as he smoothed his palm across the dashboard. “She can hear you.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “You are such a pain in the ass.”

“Why don’t we stick to the truth as much as possible,” he said. “Makes things easier to remember.”

“Good point.” She pursed her full red lips together and looked out at the endless fields of corn or soybeans or wheat or whatever in the hell it was that people grew out here. “We met because your brother is dating one of my best friends.”

“And you couldn’t keep your eyes off me and decided to make it your mission in life to have you wicked way with me.”

She shook her head and put her sunglasses back on, pivoting in her seat so she was looking out the front windshield. “No way. You pursued me. I turned you down four times before I finally agreed to go out with you—just for coffee.”

A coffee date? Really? Women loved him, they didn’t make him go the is-he-a-serial-killer route with an afternoon date. “I’m not sure my ego is going to survive this trip.”

“Your ego is the only thing bigger than you are. It could use a little downsizing,” she said with a chuckle. “Now back to it.”

“Obviously our coffee date lingered into dinner after you realized that you had a thing for devastatingly hot firefighters.” Nice recovery, Hartigan.

“More like you intrigued me with stories about your extensive My Little Pony collection.”

It was a good thing the road in this part of the world was flat, straight, and uneventful because he had to turn his head, his mouth gaping open a bit, to stare at her. My Little Pony? Oh, she was getting mean now. He’d never thought of himself as the testosterone-filled caveman type, but yeah, that plus the coffee date was getting to him. He was about to open his mouth when he saw her lips twitch. The woman was busting his chops, and she was doing it on purpose. He clamped his piehole shut and turned back to the highway.

“Don’t hate on Sparkle Nose.”

She let out a laugh that filled the car. “That’s not a real My Little Pony horse name.”

“It should be, and I’m sticking to it.” Oh yeah. She may have started this ridiculousness, but he was running with it. Never challenge a Hartigan. “Sparkle Nose is the best. I think I should get a temporary tattoo.”

“I agreed to a second date because you made me laugh, and that was all she wrote.”

Not what women usually said about him, but wasn’t that a big part of why he was here in the middle of the farm belt right now? “How long have we been together?”

She tapped her red-tipped nails over the inner seam of her jeans, obviously thinking over the options. “Six months. Enough time to really get to know each other but not so much that we’ve gotten past the cow-eyes thing.”

“Cow eyes?” he asked.

“You know when you get that goofy smile on your face when you see the person?” She must have realized he had no clue what she was talking about, because her eyes widened. “Oh my God. You haven’t really crushed on someone before? With all of the women you’ve dated, you haven’t gotten the stupid cow eyes because just looking at the person makes you all gooey and happy on the inside?”

Frankie didn’t have to think about it. “No.”

“So what, you just banged ’em and left ’em because they were totally interchangeable?” she asked, her astonished tone taking some of the sting out of her words.

“Not even close.” He loved women, all of them. He’d just never been in love with one woman. Maybe it was a defect, a character flaw that had kept him on the field so much longer than almost anyone else in his orbit. He was the player who couldn’t retire even though it was way past time.