CHAPTER FIVE
SAM
I’m shaking my head. It’s almost becoming an automatic response whenever I’m around Chance. “Of course you drive a Mustang.”
He opens the passenger door for me. “What self-respecting, hot-blooded American man wouldn’t? Besides, it was my father’s.”
I don’t know to broach that subject. I’ve read his parents—who died when he was younger, like mine—are off-limits during interviews.
You’re not here for an interview. You’re here on a date.
I slide into the leather bucket and draw in a breath. You’re the one who agreed to this, remember.
The driver seat is filled with casual Chance—that simple white tee and jeans, his dark hair freshly showered. I have to admit, the combination of pine and fresh laundry is damn intoxicating. There’s a tingle between my legs and it’s not from the V8 throbbing under the bonnet.
I fully expect Chance to burn out of the parking lot, but he’s surprisingly restrained as we head out onto the main road, the engine purring, begging to be unleashed. “You’re on your best behavior today, are you?” I muse.
Those ocean eyes cut in my direction. Curse his uber hotness. “You’d rather I misbehave?”
Again with the head shaking.
“What?” he asks, genuinely curious.
“It’s this bad boy act. I mean, do you guys have a handbook on this stuff? Did you all attend the same seminar?”
“Seminar? Like Neil Strauss? Negging?” he laughs. “You think I learned how to be this charming? It’s natural.”
My defenses ease. “You fit the mold, though.”
He turns down a side street. “And what mold would that be?”
“The car, the tattoos, the cockiness…” I have to stop short of adding ‘the body,’ but his smile tells me he knows precisely what was going to come out of my mouth next.
“I suppose you’re a saint then, Mother Teresa reincarnated as a hot masseuse?”
I ignore the compliment, allowing that tingly spot between my legs to take it instead. “I’m not who you think I am.”
“No? I think you are. I think you’re as straight as they come. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done, seriously?”
I think it over. I’m not ready to tell him about that. “I stole an apple from the supermarket last week.”
He seems surprised. “A whole apple?”
I cross my arms, lift my chin. “Yeah. Real gangster shit,” I reply, the cursing strange in my mouth.
He’s not so easily fooled. “You forgot to take it out of your cart, didn’t you?”
Crap. “Maybe.” My smile’s already spreading, and hell, I don’t want it to stop.
We break into laughter, relaxing into it. It’s nice.
He parks in front of a fancy, glass-fronted restaurant and kills the ignition.
“What about you?” I press. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
It’s impossible to miss the sudden change that comes over him, the injection of serious that fills his features. “You know I was overseas?”
This is not where I wanted this question to lead at all. I nod. “I heard.”
“That should tell you everything you need to know. You don’t join the Army for a vacation, though sun and sand were in copious supply.”
“You don’t have to talk about it.”
His eyes meet mine again. “I will if you want me to.”
I smile and look out the window. The restaurant looks like an art gallery. I can’t even pronounce the name on the window. “Is this where we’re going?”
Chance laughs. “Only if you’re a pretentious ass.” He points to the other side of the street. “No, we’re going there.”
I squint. “The food truck?”
“You haven’t had Cajun until you’ve had Ragin’ Cajun. Wait there.”
I watch as Chance makes his way around to my side, opening my door and ushering me out by the hand. I’m struck by how hot his skin is, the massive size of his hand. There’s a flash, a thought of it closing over one of my breasts, my nipples straining against his palm and I squirm.
We approach the truck complete with crocodile-at-a-barbeque artwork. The owner leans out. “Chance fucking Adams.”
Chance reaches up and takes his hand bro style. “Georgio, my man. What’s cooking?”
“On the grill or in life?”
“Whatever.”
“Kids, cooking—It never ends, man.”
“You?”
Chance fakes throwing a ball. “Scoring, of course.”
Georgio looks towards me standing behind Chance. “Speaking of which, who is this lovely lady?”
Chance places his arm around my shoulder, draws me to the window. “This is Samantha with the magic hands.”
Georgio puts his own up. “Brother, I don’t want to know about your sex life.”
I’m about to set the record straight when Chance steps in. “No, my friend, she’s the team massage therapist.”
Georgio reaches down to shake my hand. “Pleased to meet you, Sam. If this knucklehead gives you grief, you just come see Uncle Georgio, you hear?”
“I will.” I sniff. “Something smells amazing.”
“Shit.” Georgio heads to the back of the truck. I hear something sizzling before he returns to the counter. “You kids want to eat?”
“I’m starving,” I announce.
Georgio winks at me. “I’ve got just the thing.” He looks to Chance. “Usual table?”
Chance nods. “You know it.”
The back of the truck opens and Georgio steps out holding a small fold-up table and umbrella. He sets it up right there on the sidewalk next to the truck, the umbrella a flamboyant shade of neon yellow. The whole thing is hilariously different to the establishment across the road. “Enjoy.”
“I’d pull your seat out,” says Chance, “but I’m afraid it’s part of the table.”
I’m laughing as I sit down. Laughing and smiling more in the last fifteen minutes than I have in a month. Crazy as it sounds, maybe Chance is what I need right now. He’s a quarterback and you’re a… I don’t want to finish the thought. It is a ridiculous notion. Regardless of what swoony moves Chance pulls now, there’s no doubt as soon as he had his way with me I’d be old news, relegated to the archive along with who knows how many poor women who thought they had a chance… with Chance. God, I’m not even thinking straight any more.
“You with me, Sam? You don’t have sunstroke, do you?” he jokes.
I break from my thoughts and smile. “It is hot, isn’t it? They say it’s going to be ninety-five tomorrow, maybe a hundred later in the week.”
Chance licks his lips, leaning on the tiny table, barely a couple of feet between us. “You know what the best thing about a heatwave is?”
Here we go… “What? Walking around naked?”
The smile never breaks, those pearly whites gleaming. “I was going to say Snow Cones, but okay, Anastasia Steele.”
He shakes his head looking down at the table. “Stealing apples, walking around naked… You really are a wild one, aren’t you?”
I slap his hand playfully, the touch enough to elicit a look of surprise. “Stop it.”
“There’s no charm off button, you know.”
“Is there a mute button?”
The smile grows. “Touché.”
I look to the truck, Georgio humming something inside. “How do you know Georgio?”
“We did a tour together, saw some real action. The first thing he did when he got home was buy that truck. My mother had Creole on her side, cooked this kind of stuff from time to time, so I guess you could say it’s sentimental… and delicious.”
Right on cue Georgio appears with a tray, handing down dish after dish onto an increasingly cluttered table. Done, he points at each in turn. “We got a fried shrimp po’ boy there for the lady, jambalaya for my boy, some hush puppies to start and praline cheesecake to wrap it all up. You want some beers?”
God, it does look amazing. “That’d be great.”
Georgio winks at Chance. “My kind of girl.”
“And mine,” Chance repeats, Georgio returning shortly with two beers.
Chance picks one up, taking off the top with a twist of his T-shirt, his accordion abs on display in the sun. He does the same with my beer and slides it across. “Dig in.”
Fancy food has never really been my thing. I much prefer street food like this. Maybe Chance read me or maybe he just got lucky, but from the first bite I’m in food heaven.
“Good, right?” Chance enthuses, tucking into his own.
“Yeah,” I mumble, mouth full, trying to eat my po’ boy as ladylike as possible but failing miserably. “It’s de-we-scious”.
He laughs. “Good.”
We’re halfway through when a blonde woman stoops down to us. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Chance looks up.
This is it—one of Chance’s women come to haunt him, a visage of what I will become, but no.
“I’m such a fan.” She bends down a little, phone in hand. “Do you mind?” She’s ignoring me completely. It’s like I’m not even here.
Chance places his fork down, but he doesn’t take his eyes off me. “Sure.”
Blondie snaps a selfie, a small grin from Chance. She stands beaming. “Thank you, so much, Gunner! Enjoy your lunch!”
She goes off and Chance picks up his fork. “Sorry about that.”
“Gunner?” I’ve never heard him called that.
He shrugs it off. “Nickname from way back—the military thing, the football. The fans love it.”
“It’s all part of the job, huh?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“You don’t get sick of random people coming up to you on the street?”
He sits back. “If you’ve done your homework, you should know I’ve wanted to play ball my whole life.”
I nod. I had read something to that effect.
“There was a quarterback for the Cats back when I was about seven or eight, Bobby Garcia. He was a gun, you know? A fucking legend.” He pauses, looks away before returning his attention back to me. “Pops and I were at the Colosseum for a game one day. We stopped for some kettle corn on the way out, and there he was, standing around the corner by himself—Bobby. I was star-struck. I finally built up the courage to go and ask for his autograph. You know what he did? He told me to get lost.”
“Really?”
“I never told Dad about it, even faked his autograph to save face, but I told myself from that day I would become the greatest quarterback football had ever seen, better even than Bobby Garcia.”
“So now you take time out for your fans.”
“I do. It takes barely any effort on my part, but it means the world to them. I sure as fuck don’t want to be Bobby Garcia. The kids—They’re the best. The under-fives never get the pronunciation of my name right, but god damn if it’s isn’t the cutest thing you’ll ever see.”
“You sound eager.”
“I’d like to have kids of my own one day, settle down. Why, are you offering?”
“To have your kids?”
I laugh, trying not to choke in the process. “And there’s the Chance Adams they all love.”
He could, but he doesn’t push it, changing the subject to my line of work. “What were you doing before this gig?”
I’m seriously thinking about opening up to him. I need to talk about it. What harm could there be in it? But I play it down. “I did some work in Vegas after I got my certification. Nothing major.”
“You kind of had quite a,” he scans for the right word, “’strong’ reaction to me when we first met.”
“You were being an asshole. The way you were talking to me. It reminded me of…”
A raised eyebrow. “Of?”
And here’s the turning point. Do I tell him and expose myself or do I keep it bottled up? I make a split decision to go with the former. “I started working for a massage parlor in Las Vegas I thought was reputable, but it turned out to be…” I trail off, but he’s worked it out.
“Oh, shit. I had no idea.”
I nod to myself. “Yeah, stupid, right?”
“You didn’t, did…?”
“No. No, no, no. I figured it out from my first ‘client’ and got the hell out of there before anything went down.” I neglect to tell him the parlor was owned by the Mob, the Mob who probably has someone waiting around the corner to take me out right now.
His cheeks puff out. “Damn.”
“You think I’m naïve, don’t you?”
“You seem like the type who values honesty, so yeah, maybe it was a bit naïve. ‘Massage parlor’ and ‘Vegas’ don’t shout ‘respectable,’ but I’m sure your intentions were good. Besides, if it wasn’t for that place you wouldn’t be here, with me, would you?”
“I suppose not.”
“In a way, that place did you a favor.”
“You’re just trying to make me feel better.”
He comes at me with that cheeky smile the press loves. “It’s working, isn’t it?”
“The food is making me feel better. You’re just a—”
“A what?”
“An extra treat.”
“Now who’s the one with the lines?”
“How was it, kids?” calls Georgio from the window.
I give him a thumbs-up. “Superb.”
“Top notch, my man,” adds Chance.
I run a finger across my lower lip. “So, what now? We’ve still got fifteen minutes before I have to be back at the stadium.”
Chance reels back. “And you think I’m the one coming on strong.”
Again, that wasn’t what I meant at all, but I can’t help but smile. “You wish, Gunner.”
And there it is. Swoon city, here I come.