“You saved your academic career,” he answered. “I found a place where I don’t have to worry about things scuttling around my feet if I don’t turn on the lights. I learned a lot about your family, too.”
“Like what?”
“Your dad is a bully,” he said. “He tries to use his size and language to intimidate you. Your mom is scared and so is your sister.”
Maybe I should have been offended—he was talking about my father, after all, not some stranger. Maybe I should have defended him or denied what Shane was saying. “Yes, that’s true,” I answered. “My brother is scared of him, too.”
“That’s because Max is weak. But you’re not afraid,” he stated.
That was also true. “Are you using your football scouting skills on me?” I asked.
“I guess I am,” he said. “I try to read guys when I watch them play and I talk to their coaches to learn about their character. We don’t want to sign someone who will quit on us and let us down, for example.”
“I don’t quit. If you signed me, I wouldn’t let you down.”
“I would put my money on you.” Now he was fully nodding. “Let’s go eat.” He pulled out, glancing once into the mirror at his new home, and then turning in the direction of the healthy place where I’d taken him before.
“You’re hungry a lot,” I pointed out.
“I also like doing stuff with you.”
He did? I smiled, but I turned to look out the window so he wouldn’t see.
“When we’re done, why don’t we go back to that lighthouse?” he suggested.
“Why?”
“You can see so far, like your eyes are perfect,” Shane explained. “First, we’ll have some leafy greens and vegetable proteins. Sound good?”
I nodded, too. I liked doing things with him—I just liked him, in general. In every way.
Chapter 6
“AShirley Temple. No, a cherry Coke,” my sister said. “No, a rum and Coke.”
I looked at her and I really, really wanted to do my thirteen-year-old eye roll. That had been the point in my life when I’d believed that toting around a stack of old books I’d found in the garage made me look erudite and cultured, but eventually I’d left them on a bench because they were heavy.
“No, wait,” Morgan ordered. “I’ll have a whiskey and Coke. Is that something people drink?” she asked the bartender. “Does it sound sophisticated?”
He stifled a yawn and didn’t bother to answer her question. “Whiskey and Coke it is,” he announced, and turned his back on us.
I had already made my own sophisticated choice, a ginger ale. After the whole thing at the party last January, I had no desire to drink myself even close to sick. Anyway, I had to be on my gametonight and ginger ale wouldn’t interfere with that. If anything, I’d feel refreshed and ready.
My sister wasn’t concerned about those things. The bartender thumped a glass on the square napkin in front of her and she immediately took a large swallow from it. Then the liquid spewed back out of her mouth as she coughed. “Ugh, I didn’t know what whiskey would be so strong. I thought the Coke would cover it,” she sputtered.
That really summed up both of us, early-twenties ladies who were socially inept enough to sit at the most popular bar in town to sip pop and spit out our drinks. At least we looked good, in my estimation. It had taken forever to get us this way! I had been preparing to come here when Morgan had wandered into my room, as she was doing more and more frequently.
“Why are you getting gussied up?” she’d asked me.
“No reason.” I’d turned to study my backside in the mirror above my dresser, which only showed a small section of me at a time.
“I haven’t seen you wear anything nice in years,” she had commented. “Is that a skirt?”
I had looked down at what I had chosen. Yes, this was a skirt (a short one) and I was tall. My legs looked long but they also looked very, very white, like pieces of string cheese. “I’m not sure about this,” I said, thinking out loud. I’d heard that a bunch of the Woodsmen players were back in town to celebrate the recent marriage of a defensive end. It was all rumor—but maybe not. Because one of the guys who ate at our restaurant with the Junior Woodsmen, a nice older man named Eddie, had saidsomething about “a big night” and how excited he was to go out and celebrate with the “boys.” I had asked him what they were celebrating, because I didn’t mind chatting with customers when I had a minute.
“Ronan’s wedding,” he’d told me. I had made the connections: he meant Ronan Wilder, the guy who had moved up from the Junior Woodsmen and onto the real Woodsmen team. He was also the defensive end who had recently eloped. We fans knew everything about their lives.
And by doing some additional social media research, I had determined that tonight was the night that the “boys” would be out around town for that celebration. I had decided to give my former idea of Woodsmen-snagging another shot. I had been feeling pretty good about myself lately, since I’d been taking more time to exercise and I had also been following some of Shane’s dietary tips (such as, it didn’t hurt me to have fruit and also that cold, leftover french fries weren’t a complete meal). The bit of my butt that I could see in the dresser mirror had looked pretty good, too.
