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“That’sCoach Blaketo you, Miss Loren. But I’ll only be moonlighting in my Camellia High polo. I’ll still be sporting a suit and tie until four in the afternoon.”
“Right, you’re a lawyer now. How original. And that’sMs. Reedto you.”
I shoot her my sexiest smirk, and she barely falters as her eyes skim over me in a way that reminds me she’s immune to my brand of charm. “My apologies, Ms. Reed. I’ll be sure to get it right the next time we run into one another.”
“Don’t worry, it shouldn’t happen often, since I assume you’ll only be gracing us with your presence for the duration of football season,” she retorts, lifting her chin and crossing her own arms.
“We could always plan to meet up after hours, you know, for a little extracurricular activity,” I flirt, bouncing my eyebrows at her until she scoffs.
“I see you haven’t left your ego behind in Baton Rouge.”
“And you seem to be keeping tabs on me,” I point out, smiling wider now.
She frowns in return. “Doesn’t it bother you to hear that you’ve earned a reputation for having a cocky attitude and loose morals? Especially since it’s followed you home?”
“Loosemorals?” I continue grinning, though her question most definitely hits harder than I expect. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you, Reed? Still single and walking around with your nose in a Jane Austen book?”
She flinches, and I realize I’m being overly harsh. Then I watch as she visibly musters up the courage to respond. “While you’ve been preoccupied with sleeping your way around LSU’s campus, I’ve been busy working on a double major in education and English lit, so, yeah. Call me a spinster, but I’ll take a good Regency romance over flailing around in this dating pool any day,” she says, her tone acerbic. “Especially now thatyou’reback to pollute the waters.”
I roll my shoulders back before I reach up to adjust the collar of my polo. If I were wearing my usual dress shirt, this is the point where I’d start loosening my tie or unbuttoning the cuffs and rolling my sleeves just to watch her drool. As if that kind of crap would work on Loren, anyway.
“That’s funny, because in my experience, the ladies of Camellia have been more than happy to welcome Blake the Snake back with open hearts and open arms. Well, and open?—”
“Ugh, spare me.” She blocks me with her palm.
And I’m grateful for the interruption once I hear how disgusting I sound. She was right before. I could stand to tone down the frat-boy talk, especially since I hadn’t exactly planned on bringing that douche back home in the first place. But once I returned to Camellia, the only thing that made me interesting was my reputation for having such “loose morals” throughout my stint in college.
Sure, I did my fair share of partying and bedding eager sorority girls over the years, but I’d never set out to bethatguy. It’s not like I’d mislead any of them into thinking we were in a relationship, and the few times I did venture into monogamous territory were just that—monogamous. I’d never cheat on a woman, and since I didn’t commit to anyone unless I liked her enough to make the relationship part come easily, I didn’t make any frivolous commitments.
Still, I liked women, and I especially enjoyed making them feel good about themselves when we were together, even if I wasn’t after anything serious. So I began relying only on reputation to screen my prospects. Girls didn’t approach me unless they understood what I was and wasn’t looking for. Everyone seemed happy with the arrangement, and no one got hurt. But after a few years, the rumors became progressively worse, and it got too hard to correct them without making myself too vulnerable.
Then I moved back, and people only acknowledged me as Blake the Snake or JD’s brother. It wasn’t a hard choice between which one of those titles I was more apt to lean into. Although the joke’s on me, because I can’t seem to shake either of them.
“I’m sure your mother would have been real proud to hear you say that,” Loren’s voice rings out bitterly, bringing me back from my thoughts.
My stomach churns as anger bubbles to the surface. How dare she bring my mom into this? Especially since it’s barely been a year since her passing, and Loren knows as well as anyone that my mom and I were close.
“And how the hell would you know what my mom would have thought?” I fire back, narrowing my eyes at her.
“The same way I know more than I care to of your whereabouts in general—Mrs. Monica told me herself. We were in a book club together for the last few years before she died. She worried about you more than you think, by the way. Nearly every character in every plot reminded her of her boys, though she related all of the handsome but wayward and confused male leads to you.”
I grimace. “A book club, Reed? That’s where you get your gossip? What are you, sixty?”
“Only at heart,” she retorts.
“No wonder you’re still single.”
She sniffs indignantly. “What I’m hearing is, ‘Wow, Loren, you’re so mature and classy, must be the wise company you keep.’”
“Oh, I get it now. You’re so busy trying to find someone else’s mom to latch onto that you haven’t had time to hunt for a man.”
Her lips part in a quiet gasp, and she blinks at me in disbelief. “I—I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Yeah, well, I’m already a disappointment to my dead parents, so …” I stuff my hands in my pockets, then I look away and shrug. “I guess it doesn’t matter.”
“For the record, I never said you were a disappointment to your mother. I just wanted you to know how much she loved you and worried about you, how she talked about you all the time, and that her last wish was to see you happy and settled,” she mumbles.
“I don’t hear the difference,” I lie.
