Hard Love (Trophy Boyfriends 3)

After the group of them send us off, waving from the porch like a squad of eager teenage girls spying on their friend, we climb into my car wordlessly, stoically sitting in silence a few moments before buckling up.

I have no words.

This whole evening has left me speechless.

But then.

A giggle escapes my throat and that giggle turns into a laugh, which makes Tripp laugh, and soon, we’re both laughing and tears are streaming out of my eyes and he can’t breathe and I can’t even see the START button on my car’s dashboard to push it.

“Th-that w-was…” I stutter. “Beyond.”

“Ya think?”FifteenTrippWe’re not even to the exit gates in my brother’s subdivision when my phone pings and he’s sending me a message.

Buzz: How’s it going? Have you proposed to Chandler yet?

Me: Buzz off.

Buzz: Ha ha, very funny. But for real, how are the two of you kids hitting it off?

Me: Is Mom railroading her into driving me home a setup???

Buzz: We just thought you’d benefit from being thrown together.

Me: How many times do I have to tell you people—CHANDLER DOES NOT LIKE ME.

Buzz: Well duh, not many people do. But the fact that she knocks you off your feet—literally—is saying a lot.

Buzz: Are you home yet?

Me: No and I’d prefer not to be texting while she’s driving. It’s rude.

Buzz: Since when do you care about that? You must LIKE HER.

Buzz: Ask her on a date.

Me: Mind your own business for once in your life.

I glance over at Chandler, whose eyes are illuminated by the oncoming traffic—they appear brighter, highlighted, and naturally pretty. She’s dressed down, a bit more casual than normal; it’s a look that suits her.

Buzz: We voted and the family thinks you need to ask her on a date.

Me: Stop, or I’m blocking all of you and changing my phone number.

My fingers must be moving at a rapid pace because Chandler clears her throat and glances over curiously.

“Whoever that is must be making you mad. I can hear you furiously texting all the way from here.”

I close the main screen and cram the phone in my back pocket. “Sorry, that was Buzz. He never shuts up or stops bossing me around.”

“I thought you were the oldest.”

“That’s never mattered. He loves annoying me.” And I’m not the exception—he loves needling our sister, too, whenever True is around and in town. “Next left.”

She slows the car down and puts on the turn signal.

“Not for nothing. I wish I had siblings to annoy the crap out of me. Being an only child sucks.” Chandler hits the turn signal for the right we have to make at the traffic light. “I mean—it was great growing up with Hollis and her sister Fiona. We were really close and it was sort of the same? But our family is nothing like yours. Our parents aren’t any fun whatsoever.”

Yeah, I’ve met Hollis’s dad a few times at the ESPYs, which is like the Oscars for sports, and obviously at the wedding I bumped into him at the dessert bar. Arrogant, stuffy, and humorless are just a few words to describe him and I wonder if Chandler’s father is the same way.

Nothing like Roger Wallace, that’s for damn sure.

Good old Roger let us get away with way too much—as long as our grades were good and we loved the sports we were playing and we were having a great time. That’s what he cared about. He didn’t push us because he wanted us to be famous or enter the pros—he pushed us because we had dreams. Without the encouragement and discipline he instilled in us, those dreams would have never been realized.

Still, Dad was easy enough to bamboozle—somehow we all managed to get away with murder where he was concerned.

Mom? Not so much.

Chandler doesn’t initiate useless chitchat on the way back to my place, but the silence is far from uncomfortable—not like the first time we rode together, in my truck, from the wedding rehearsal to the rehearsal dinner. The night she jumped from my vehicle and practically tripped over her own two feet to get inside the building before I did.

I find myself leaning forward in her little white Jeep to flip through her satellite radio playlist—the stations she has favorited—and am surprised to see lots of the same stations I listen to. Comedy, comedy, talk radio, comedy, the news, and several music selections.

“Second right.”

I choose one and sit back, resting my head against the headrest, humming to the classic rock song playing out of her speakers.

“Fourth house on the right.”

Chandler goes slow past the other houses in the neighborhood; they’re not the most modest homes, but none of them are as showy and huge as they are in Buzz’s neighborhood. And I have a hundred dollars burning a hole in my pocket that says the house Chandler grew up in is probably more than triple the size of any of these.