Be Mine (Jackson Boys 2)

I shrug even though she can’t see it. “You’d find out the truth soon enough. Besides, it’s easier for all of us this way. You’d want me to recite every single detail when I got home.”

“This is true,” she agrees. “Hang up so I can get ready. I want to look good for your girl.”

“She’s not my girl.”

“Yet.”

“True.”

We both know that there’s not a girl alive that can say no to me.

“Maybe we should leave,” Charlie whispers in my ear.

I didn’t have to press the owner for the new waitress’s phone number. She was rushing around when Charlie and I arrived. An hour and a half later, she’s barely taken a moment to breathe between filling pitchers, delivering food, wiping down tables while the only other waitress in the place is flirting with a table of players. Someone across the room shouts for a refill. I shoot a glare at the lazy waitress, but she’s too busy shaking her tatas in front of a couple of my teammates.

I push back my chair to go and grab the unhelpful staff, but Charlotte drags me down.

“Don’t,” she whispers.

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll embarrass her.”

“I’m trying to help her out.”

“Would you want Lainey to come into your workplace and yell at your teammates?”

That image makes me wince. Reluctantly, I drop back into my seat. “What can we do?”

“For Lainey? I think we just need to come here a lot. We’ll order lots of stuff and leave big tips. Not obscene ones that will make her feel bad, but like twenty-five or thirty percent. Encourage your teammates to do the same.”

I nod slowly. “That’s a good plan. Occasionally, I can throw in a big tip.”

“Like after a game?” Charlie drums her fingers on the table while she plots. “That makes sense,” she concludes. “We can chalk it up to superstitions.”

“I don’t have superstitions.”

“You do now.”

“And then I’ll ask her out.”

“No.”

I shoot a frown at Charlie. “Why not?”

“Let’s review what you told me about her. You met her yesterday when she showed up at Stacks with her child. Her bag was full of kid stuff and her washrags had holes in them. You played with her child while she went in to fill out an application. After that, you watched her walk to the bus stop.”

“Yeah? So what about it?” I take another sip of my beer and surreptitiously watch Lainey as she rushes to pour yet another beer. A bell from the kitchen rings. My girl hops to and grabs the food, which she delivers while it’s still hot. She does all of this with a smile on her face. I hope to hell she’s getting tipped well. I wonder if it’d be obvious if I went around and laid a twenty on every table.

“Are you ready to be someone’s dad?”

I nearly spit out my beer at Charlie’s words. “What in the hell did you just ask?”

Charlie purses her lips together. “Exactly. This is a mom. She’s not a groupie. She’s not a social media hookup. She’s not an easy lay. She’s obviously working this job to support her kid. Don’t go after her unless you want to be in a serious relationship.”

I wait for Charlie to laugh and say she’s kidding, but she sits there with her arms folded across her chest and a serious expression on her face. My smile dies off as her words settle in.

“I’m a rookie, Charlie. The only serious relationship I’m going to be in this year is with my team.”

“I know that. I’m here to make sure that you don’t have any distractions, right? And Lainey and her child are a big distraction, if you treat them right. And if you don’t treat them right, then you’re not any better than the waitress over in the corner who isn’t doing her share of the work. It isn’t fair.”

My dick says fuck fairness. “Have you thought that maybe she needs to have something in her life that isn’t serious? I can show her a good time. Give her some nice gifts. Take her kid out. She probably doesn’t want a commitment. It’s a new age, Charlie. Women can have sex just for the sake of sex.”

“Then go after those women, Nick. Lainey isn’t that type of girl. At least, not right now she isn’t.”

“How do you know? You haven’t even met her.”

“She’s tired, Nick. Look at her face. I mean, really look at her. Not just her beautiful body or her gorgeous features, but look at the exhaustion that’s in her eyes. She wants to go home. She doesn’t want to have to deal with a rich playboy whose only concern is whether he’ll get his hands on a small leather ball.”

Using my beer as cover, I do as Charlie orders and examine Lainey’s face. The bright smile on her lips is strained at the corners. Faint lines crease her forehead. Her shoulders hang low as if the entire continent is resting on them. I think back to yesterday and the tears that clung to her eyes as we put the scattered belongings back into her bag.