Be Mine (Jackson Boys 2)

“New barbecue today?” I ask. Now’s not to the time to throw a tantrum, I realize. Not on the first day of Stacks’ grand re-opening. I live with Charlie. She might put spiders in my bed or something if I ruin today.

“Yup.”

“I’ll have a sandwich, fries, and a beer.” It’s still training camp so I’m going to indulge. Once the season starts, I try to adhere to a cleaner diet. Ever since Tom Brady divulged his training and nutrition regime, teams have been preaching more about our food intake, but, hell, if you can’t enjoy a good meat sandwich and a beer, what’s the point of doing all this shit?

Charlie told me that they’ve been buying meet that has been barbecued for twenty-four hours from some specialty place west of the city. She brought some home the other night and I nearly wept with how good it was.

“We have cranberry beef brisket, hand-cut fries, and some special zesty ketchup. How’s that sound?” She sets a cold draft on a napkin.

“Sounds great. I’m going to need the energy.” Peters plans to work me like a dog. He wants me to do extra strength training so that I don’t get injured.

She trots off to put in my order. Without her distracting me, I can’t keep my eyes from drifting back to Lainey, who is leaning over the bar chatting up Diane. What are those two talking about? Diane wasn’t around two years ago when Lainey first got her job, so their sudden chumminess confuses me. And makes me a little jealous, which is stupid. Why am I jealous of Diane who is married to a man and has three kids?

It’s Lainey, I guess. She makes me a little wild in the head. My mind goes through a hundred different scenarios that feature her naked in my condo. Good thing I’m sitting down because my dick hardens into a spike.

“Here you go, Nick.” Charlie presents me with my food.

“Looks great.” And it does. The heaping mound of brisket smells amazing, and after the workout this morning, I feel like I could eat about ten of these. I dig in to satisfy one lustful craving since the other one will be unfulfilled.

“Do you have anything going on tonight?” Charlie doesn’t care that I can’t answer because my mouth is full of tongue-melting brisket. She probably prefers it that way. “No guys coming over? No girls?” I shake my head. “Good,” she replies. “Because you’re on babysitting duty.”

She picks up her purse and slaps me hard on the back as she passes by me. The quarter pound of meat I just inhaled stays stuck in the back of my throat. I finally swallow it, but not until after Charlie exits Stacks. When I look up, I see Lainey’s mouth set in an unhappy line.

“This wasn’t my idea,” I tell her, feeling weirdly defensive.

“I know.” She looks pissed anyway. “But I need to run over to Houston for the afternoon to pick up something for one of your teammates, and Charlie’s driving to San Antonio to meet with a client.”

Houston? I’m going to have to buy Charlie a hothouse full of flowers for engineering this. I try to hide my glee so as not to tip off Lainey that the errand run to Houston isn’t all that it seems. She’d probably try to weasel out of it if she knew. “What time do you want me to pick up Cassidy?”

“In an hour.” And then, as though it kills her, “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“No problem. We’ll have fun. Does she remember me?” It’s been a while and the little peanut was so young when we last saw each other. My chest tightens slightly as I remember the last day in the park we had together. I didn’t realize I loved kids until Cassidy came along.

Lainey doesn’t answer right away. Bummer. She probably doesn’t want to hurt my feelings.

“She does a little,” she reveals.

“Really?” I perk up.

“But…”

“But what?”

Lainey points to my chin. “I hate to tell you this, but she might not like the beard. She saw a picture of Hitler the other night and thought his mustache looked cute.”

I wince. “What’d you tell her?”

“That Hitler was a very bad man that hurt children. She now thinks he’s the devil and is eyeing every man with facial hair with suspicion.”

I rub a hand across my bushy growth. I started growing it out last November and then, when I started winning, I was apprehensive of changing anything. Even Coach encouraged me not to shave. “You think I should get rid of it?”

“She’s four. I think you can risk it. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with a good ’stache. Look at Erik Estrada.” Lainey wipes her brow as if the thought of this Erik guy gets her overheated.

My eyes narrow. Is Lainey dating someone? I hadn’t thought of that possibility, but why not? She’s smoking hot and there are plenty of men out there who would love to wife her up. Still, as long as she’s not married, there’s still time for me to make a move. First thing is discovering who this dick is and pushing him out of the scene.