Bulldozer (Hard to Love 3)

White noise. All I hear is white noise and a faint staticky sound. I look at the screen to make sure he hasn’t hung up on me and see that the call time is still ticking.

“Hello?” I say weakly.

A heavy sigh comes through the phone. “Yeah.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“You do that and I’ll charter a jet home,” he calmly states. “Maybe we should do this face to face.”

I’m shaking my head before he even stops speaking. “No. That’s okay. We can do this now,” I reply, tone super indignant. Even though I take care not to poke the grizzly bear any more than I already have.

“First. If you ever not answer the phone on me again, I’m going to spank your ass.”

“’Scuse me––”

“Nah. I get to talk now. You just dropped a shit ton of sports metaphors on me and it took me a while to sift through those. I mean it, Amanda. You make me worry like that again and my handprint will be a permanent stamp on you gorgeous ass. I almost called in favors from NYPD detectives I’m friendly with to go check out the house.”

I called that one. I had a hunch.

“I take it you’re upset about Patty?”

“I don’t know who Patty is, nor do I care.” I go with prickly this time. My feelings are hurt and he’s got a lot of explaining to do before those feel better.

“She’s a professional soccer player and yes, you do care. Barry represents her. We have the same PR people and they asked me to do it as a favor, to get her face out there.”

Oh, her face was out there.

“She looked very happy to be all over your arm.” He snorts and my irritation spikes. “Are you kidding me?” I snap.

“Look, I can’t help what other people do, or don’t do. All I can tell you is a friend asked me for a favor and I said yes. I’m not interested in Patty. I don’t give a nut if she’s interested in me. The fake shit. That’s work. I’ve been doing it for so long I don’t notice it anymore. The public gets that guy. And you, unfortunately, get me.”

He takes a deep breath.

“I have come up with a million reasons to stay away from you and nothing has worked…I’m tired of fighting this. I didn’t ask you to come with me to L.A. because of your work and Sam. That’s what I told myself. But the truth is that I didn’t ask because I can’t keep my hands off of you anymore. I can’t do it…I want you…I miss you. All I want to do right now is hold you and kiss you and I can’t because I have lunch with Barry and the people from Nike tomorrow…Mandy?”

“Yeah,” I sniff. “I miss you, too.”

Chapter Twenty

“Hello,” a deep voice bellows from the foyer. Sam’s eyes light up. He jumps down from the counter stool while Roxy is already halfway out, scampering to greet the one she loves.

Meanwhile, I stay rooted to the limestone floor with my heart doing a sun salutation inside my chest. This is bad. It is really bad how beyond happy his voice makes me. Out of Siberia, back home where he belongs.

I slowly make my way to the front of the house. Grant is crouched low, my son with his arms wrapped tightly around his neck, my dog jumping up on the both of them to shower Grant with sloppy kisses.

The oxygen is back. He’s brought the oxygen back with him. I can breathe again. I stick my hands into the back pockets of my jean shorts to hide the shaking. I bite the inside of my cheek to stop my chin from trembling. I don’t know what I did to deserve him––what stars got crossed for Life to lead me here––but I’m not going to second-guess it this time.

The man of my dreams looks up at me with a breathtaking grin and I grimace because that smile karate chops me in the privates. I’m pretty sure he just singlehandedly kick-started my ovulation cycle.

His smile drops when he notes my pained expression. “What?”

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“That,” I say pointing at his face. He keeps looking at me like that and I’ll be dropping more eggs than a free-range hen. “It’s not nice. You can’t just…just go around doing that…to people…who are your friends.” Boy, the wheels are really coming off of this bus.

Keep it together, Amanda!

“Huh?” Grant looks like someone conked him on the head with a blunt object. Guilty as charged. Raising a hand. I’m the blunt object.

Sam pushes off, rubbing his eyes. “What are we eating for dinner?”

My sicko mind immediately rifles through a catalogue of images of Grant’s dick and picks its favorite.

“Pizza,” I tell him while turning a particularly nasty shade of red. “I’ll order pizza.”