You know what happened after that.
After filling an ice bucket with water as if it is a vase, I spin to face Cody, who’s wandering around the spacious two-bedroom suite, taking in all the eclectic details. His strides slow when he realizes only one of the two beds is unmade. I was blubbering to him as if he was the maid when he arrived, so I can’t accuse them of not doing their job.
“We... ah… Dr. Cameron told Lennox to keep an eye on me. I think he slept on the sofa in my room.” As quickly as my goodie-two-shoes ways slip back into place like they never left, I remember about the bold new attitude I was prepping for before he arrived. “Not that I need to explain myself to you. Who I share a bed with is no one’s business but mine.”
Cody holds his hands up like he’s under arrest before taking a step back. “You’reexactlyright. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t treading on anyone’s toes. You were quick to put Mr. Cabarello in place last night, but I don’t know if you’re ready to tackle his son’s loathsomeness just yet.”
I almost defend Lennox’s moody ways, but the apparent interest in Cody’s eyes steers me in another direction. “Why would you care either way?” My tone is a little too bitchy for my liking. He was nothing but a gentleman last night, so why am I painting him with the same brush I used to craft Lennox’s not-so-shiny portrait? “You made it obvious last night that you’re not interested. If you were, you wouldn’t have left.”
His lips thin as his head bobs. “I deserve that. But if you take a step back and look at the picture from my point of view, you’d understand why I walked away with my tail between my legs. Things looked extremely cozy between Lennox and you last night.” Before I can give him the well-versed ‘we’re friends’ line, he adds, “But then I realized if you were my girl, and you almost drowned because of my stupidity, there’s no way in hell I’d show up for a game the very next day as if nothing happened. So it has me wondering if Lennox cares about you as much as you do him.”
Ouch!That hurt—a lot—but it won’t stop me from saying, “Baseball is very important to Lennox.” I stop before I tack on,it was all he had when he lost his mother.
“Yeah, it is. It’s the same for me.” Cody steps closer to me like there’s more than two feet between us. “Yet here I am, with you, making sure you’re okay.” He chuckles, but I’m confident it isn’t his real laugh even with us only meeting days ago. “And we were strangers only days ago.”
Laughter rips from my throat before I can stop it. “I was just thinking that.” Cody’s chuckles subside when I add, “But then I remembered Lennox has a theory as to why you’re hanging around like a bad smell.”
He takes my dig at his ego in stride. “And that is?”
“You want to win a wager,” I reply without pause for thought or an immature stutter.
Cody is either in the wrong profession or he’s genuinely stumped as to what I’m referring. That’s how good his acting skills are. “Wager? What wager?”
His tongue wets his lips when I spread my hands across my hips. “The one you’d win by claiming my virginity.”
“You’re a virgin!”
I kick him in the shin to bring him down to my level before clamping his big mouth with my hand. “No, but half the idiots in Lennox’s team can’t tell the difference between a nun and a whore.”
When his eyes either gloss over in confirmation or because I clamped his nose along with his mouth, I drop my hand, then take a step back.
I want to keep retreating when he murmurs, “That’s what Adam was on about yesterday afternoon. I swear to God, Summer, I had no clue that he was talking about you when he asked me what I thought my odds were. I assumed he was referencing my return to the MLB after my injury.” The tick of his jaw is kind of cute when he growls through clenched teeth. “If I had known it was about you, I would have…” The balling of his hands finalizes his statement. He wants to defend my honor instead of tarnishing it.
It makes me swoon—only a little but there’s no hiding it.
After giving himself a couple of seconds to settle down, Cody loosens his fists then says, “I know you have no reason to believe me, we’re practically strangers, but I’d love the opportunity to prove Lennox and those other idiots wrong.” My heart does that weird beat thing again when he smiles a breathtaking grin. “I’ll even shake on a three-date stipulation if it makes you feel more comfortable.”
He hides his balk well when I murmur, “Ten would be better. With how fast some guys operate these days, three dates could be over by this afternoon.”
“Touché,” he replies, still grinning. “So I’ll see you ten dates and raise it to twenty.”
“Twenty? Wow.” I hold my hand against my chest. “Do you think you have twenty whole dates in you?”
Some of my sassy attitude takes a step back when his impressive form fills the minute gap of air between us. “If it would tie you to me for the rest of the summer, I’d happily stretch it out to fifty.” His lips are mere inches from mine, proving Lennox lied when he said it reeks like dog shit. His breath smells scrumptious. “So what do you say, Cocoa? Shall we drink margaritas and watch the sun set?”
“It’s barely noon,” I gabber out, shocked.
There’s no doubt I need to book in for a heart scan when it skips a beat from him twirling one of my wayward curls around his index finger while murmuring, “I know. That’s what makes it so much more enticing.”
22
Lennox
When a scene of chaos and destruction confronts me, I step out of the doorway of my room to make sure I’m not entering the wrong one. This couldn’t possibly be my room. It has a frat slash sorority vibe associated with it, and Summer loathes those atmospheres even more than the professors who think students are playthings for them to mess with.
I realize I have the right room when Summer greets me with a grin. “Hey there, Lenigan69.” She dumps an empty bottle of vodka into the bin near the kitchenette before spinning around to face me. Although she looks super-hot in a movement-constricting mini-dress, she looks nothing like the Summer I know. “What took you so long to ditch the game? Did Coach Randall have you buttering up the sports journalists again?”
I don’t ask her if she saw the interview where I mentioned her father. I switch to the cause of the glassiness of her eyes when the scent of alcohol lingering in the air increases the closer she gets to me. “Have you been drinking?” When she nods, I gasp out, “It’s five in the afternoon.”
