He shrugs a little, takes another long look at my boobs, and then drags his ass to the back door. “You’d make a lot more money shaking your tits down the street at the Beach House. I hear those girls make a couple grand a night.”
“No thanks.” I could go a whole lifetime without some random seeing my naked chest again.
“Your funeral. I guess you’re here to mount a Mustang, eh?” He chuckles at his own crude joke.
“I just want to make a living. I have a kid.”
My new boss swings around. “You? A kid? You’re barely a kid yourself!”
Then why’d you suggest I go down the street and take off my clothes for money, asshole. “I’m older than I look.” Chip told me I looked like I was a twenty-five-year-old hooker. That was after I informed him that I was pregnant. Before, when he was plying me with booze at the age of sixteen, he said I looked sweet and young—like someone who needed protection from the big bad world.
The boss raises his eyebrows. “If you say so. I’m Simon Cronett. I own this dump. I’ll pay you the minimum. You can keep your tips.” His eyes fall to my chest again. “You’ll get some nice ones if you show off your titties a little more. No sex with the boys on the grounds. I don’t want to get busted for some kind of prostitution shit.”
“I’m here to wait tables. Nothing else.”
Cronett doesn’t look like he’s convinced. “We’ll see. Also, I don’t give a fuck that you’ve got a kid. While you’re here, you’re one hundred percent mine. Not get your ass inside and start cleaning up. The boys will be here in a few hours.” He slaps me hard on my ass. I jump in surprise. When I give him a death glare, he only smirks. “What you gonna do? Quit?”
Yeah, I do want to quit. Not even a half hour in this guy’s presence and I feel like I’m going to have to take a shower for a week to get the dirt off. But I can’t quit and he knows it.
Chapter Three
Nick
The end of practice can’t arrive soon enough. I want to get over to Stacks to see if the girl is there. I spent all last night thinking about her and cursing myself for not getting her phone number, but the owner of the bar is a friend of the team. If she’s applying for a job there, he should have it. As soon as the last whistle blows, I hustle to the showers. It’s a quick rinse and dry and then off to my locker to change.
“Got somewhere to go, Rook?” Chip calls from his locker three stalls down as I’m pulling on my pants.
“He’s got that sweet honey at home. I’d be in a hurry to leave if I were him, too,” someone else jokes.
“Nah, Charlotte’s my friend.”
“I got friends like those. Those are the best kind.” Chip waggles his eyebrows like a kid who just got into his first frat and not a five-year vet who’s pushing thirty.
I don’t bother to explain any further. No one believed me in college and it looks like none of the pros are buying that line either. They’ll figure it out once I start seeing someone else.
Around the locker room, the conversation regarding the game, the new prospects, our first game, flows around me. I’m not thinking about football. My thoughts are stuck on the hot brunette with the unending curves kneeling on the pavement at the dump one lot over. I haven’t ever hooked up with a mom before. I guess that makes me a rookie in more ways than one.
Reaching into my locker, I tug my shirt over my head, sling my pack across my body and grab my phone. Charlie picks up on the second ring.
“Want to go to a bar with me?”
“It’s five o’clock.”
“Right. Perfect bar time. They serve food there and everything.”
“I hate bar food.”
“Charlie.”
“Is this about a woman?” she guesses.
“Not exactly.” But I can’t lie to her.
She groans. “You just got here.”
“I know, but there’s this girl. No, woman.” Neither sound right. She’s a mother but there’s a sweet innocence about her that made me think she was young—younger than me, at least.
“I don’t even want to know. Go by yourself.”
“She’s…skittish.” There was a wariness in her eyes. She’ll be more comfortable around Charlie. Besides, Charlie’s new to town and could use a friend.
“Then leave her alone.”
“I can’t.”
“Really?” I hear a rustle. “I’ve never heard you say that about a woman.” I’ve piqued her interest. “Give me five minutes. Where is it?”
I give her the address. “It’s a dump,” I warn. “And, the food’s probably bad. It smelled rank there yesterday.”
“I love how you’re giving me the real details after I’ve agreed to come.”