CHAPTER SEVEN
PAIGE
I’d been nervous at home getting ready, debating what to wear and how to do my hair after I rushed through a shower. It wasn’t that I was excited or nervous about going on a date with Beaux Hale, quarterback of the Rough Riders, Super Bowl Champions, necessarily. It was that I had a date at all.
It’d been over six months since I’d been out with anyone, and I hadn’t had sex since Spencer broke up with me. I didn’t have time with the other guys I’d gone out on a date with. They’d claimed I didn’t have enough time to give them and walked away before we could ever make it that far.
Which not only still stung, but made me uninterested in dating anyone. If they couldn’t understand the time my dad required, they weren’t worth mine.
I still doubted Beaux would be any different when I arrived back at the garage.
Then my nerves spiked to DefCon freak out levels. And that was Beaux’s fault.
He looked too damn good sitting in the office with my dad, feet kicked up on the desk, beer in his hand and saying something while my dad threw his head back and laughed.
He looked at ease in our rundown garage’s waiting room slash office. He looked like he was just a guy. Not a sports superstar, not plastered on the covers of magazines or headlining interviews on Sportscenter.
Seeing him appear to be just a normal guy, dressed to excite a woman’s libido in well-worn jeans and a pale blue, striped dress shirt, well that did things to me.
As we climbed into the truck and started talking, I was beginning to think he was showing me exactly who he was—just a simple, laid-back guy from Iowa who threw a ball for a living. And I really liked everything he was showing me.
“Do you know what kind of truck you want?” I asked as we drove down the Interstate headed out toward Durham.
“Ford and black,” Beaux replied. “That’s all I really care about.”
“Why a Ford?”
“Because Chevy’s are shit,” Beaux said simply.
“Nice.” I laughed. It sounded exactly like something my dad would say and I turned to the window and watched the trees go by, the clouds roll in.
It felt like it stormed in Raleigh all the time during the summer. Huge gully-gushes that barreled over embankments and flooded roads.
We were supposed to get rain again tonight, and hopefully, it wouldn’t be a bad one. I hated storms and the unpredictability in them.
He pulled in to the Cornerstone Ford and Jeep dealership halfway between Raleigh and Durham. He barely had time to help me out of the truck, when an excited salesman was strolling toward us.
“Hello there, good evening and welcome to Cornerstone, I’m Kyle Ballsman, how can I help you today?”
“Beaux, nice to meet you,” he said and introduced me. While I shook Kyle’s hand, Beaux scanned the parking lot, stopping on a shining black, Ford F-250 Crew Cab truck. The grill was an upgrade but other than that, we couldn’t see anything about the truck.
“I’ll take that one,” Beaux said and turned back to the salesman. “Cash. How soon can we wrap this up?”
“What?” I exclaimed. He was…how could…why… what? “What are you doing?”
He looked at me and grinned. “Told you. I know what I want.”
The heat in his eyes shocked me, forcing me back a step. My goodness he gave good innuendo. I wanted to lick it up like hot fudge off a spoon. Then my common sense kicked in.
“Would you like to take a look at it?” Kyle asked. His surprise was as evident as mine, but he wasn’t about to lose a sale, either. “You’re welcome to test drive it. It’ll only take me a minute to get the keys.”
Beaux shook his head. “Nope. I’m good.”
“You don’t even know if it has Bluetooth. Leather seats.” I tried to come up with things he’d care about since he said he didn’t know anything about trucks or engines. “How it rides. How many miles it has on it. If it’s new or used. You don’t know anything about it!”
So much for simple and normal! My heart was fluttering so quickly I feared it exploding.
Beaux pointed his thumb at me and looked at Kyle. “Does it have that crap?”
“Yes, sir. That truck is brand new and has been fully upgraded, the engine is—”
“Okay then.” Beaux clapped his hands together and dropped them to his hips. “Let’s get this taken care of.”
He held his hand out for me to go in front of him, but I stood there, knowingly gaping at him. I’d never seen anything like this in my life. He didn’t even know how much it cost.
“Maybe we should talk about this.”
“We will. Over dinner.”
I didn’t know whether to slap him upside the head or think what he was doing was sweet.
Slap him. Definitely. But not in public. I’d wait until he was in his new stupid truck he’d tricked me into going to buy with him even though he didn’t care at all about the darn thing.
Which was sort of sweet in itself. He truly didn’t care what he drove. No pretentiousness in him other than paying for it in cash.
A memory of the cash my mom used to send me for birthdays after she left flickered to my mind but I pushed it away. Now wasn’t the time to think about her.
Beaux shocked me further when we sat down, both of us on the other side of Kyle’s desk while he went to get paperwork.
“His name is Ballsman,” he snickered. “Poor man.”
I laughed, unable to stop myself before it burst out. This guy was something else, definitely not right in the head. We were still smiling at each other, that heat I’d felt earlier swirling between us, enveloping us. It seduced me with the sweet scent of his cologne and the soft look in Beaux’s eyes. It pulled me closer, made me feel something for the man in front of me. Things I had no business feeling, but could no longer remember why.
“Beaux,” I said, my voice thick with something unidentifiable. Lust? Need?
“You do feel it.” He leaned closer. “I’ve felt something every time you’ve been working and I’ve seen you for months. Glad you’re finally getting on the same page as me.”
“What?”
“Don’t come into Ride’Em Rough for the burgers, Paige. They’re crap on a bun.”
Oh my goodness. He’d just implied…He did. He said that. I had no response. I’d never waited on him until the other night, always passing it off.
And he kept coming back to see me?
“Why?”
“Because you’re beautiful. You say thank you to everyone. You always smile even when I’ve caught you fighting a yawn. You laugh with the cooks and most of the other servers look to you like you’re they’re big sister. I like it.”
Holy freaking cow.
“Plus,” he smirked. “The wedge sandals and denim shorts you wear make your ass look fan-fucking-tastic.”
I slapped his bicep before I could stop myself. “You’re a jerk.”
“Yeah.” He took my hand and settled it in his and then on his thigh. His warm thigh. Hard and muscled. His hand curled around mine and held me tight to him. “But I think you’re finally beginning to like it.”
Kyle returned with paperwork before I could respond, which was good. Because what in the hell would I have said?
Beaux and Kyle went over the paperwork, while I sat back and watched. Beaux shocked me again when he didn’t even try to get a better deal on the fifty-thousand-plus dollar truck.
We were back on the road an hour later. I soaked in the new car smell and fiddled with the controls on the radio and air vents.
“Why did you want me with you today if you didn’t plan on asking for my advice?”
Without looking at me, one edge of Beaux’s lip lifted and curved. “Because the first time I was in my truck, I wanted to have your fantastic ass sitting next to me.”
“That’s outrageous! You didn’t even try to get a deal on it.”
He flicked on his blinker and glanced at me as he turned a corner. “Why would I do that? I’ve got the cash to pay for it and a few grand is nothing to me. But the extra commission might make that guy’s life a bit easier while he’s providing for his family. Did you see that picture behind the desk? He’s got like six kids.”
I hadn’t even noticed it. The fact Beaux did said volumes about him.
God. That did it. He really was the chivalrous and generous guy he claimed to be, or he was giving me an Emmy-worthy performance. Either way, I was falling for it, hook, line, and sinker.
“That’s really nice of you.”
“I’m a nice guy.”
“Yeah, well, considering our first encounter, forgive me if I’m having a hard time reconciling the two together.”
“Take as long as you need. I got all the time in the world to prove you wrong.” He glanced at me again but this time his gaze swept my body.
I checked to make sure I hadn’t turned on the heated leather seat feature.