Page 19

CHAPTER TEN

Rumor has it he did her in a kiddie pool.

Maverick

I asked her for one thing.

One fucking thing!

"You have nine minutes! I have no qualms about throwing your ass out naked."

And she can't bother obeying my one rule. Okay, so it isn't one rule, but it's the main rule.

She can’t be here for Wednesday night’s poker game.

"Eight minutes!"

It might be easier to explain why I broke the bathroom door down than it would be to keep fucking counting.

I rub the ache behind my ribs, my heart rate increasing with the dwindling timeline.

One meal.

One mistake.

Showing her I cared that she didn't starve was the worst thing I could have done.

It didn't matter that I pushed an IOU across the table last night and barked out orders for her to remain scarce tonight.

She's not scared. Maybe she is a little; she did hustle out of the kitchen when I was yelling at Rowan on the phone earlier.

But the air has shifted. Ainsley James realizes that I'm not as scary as the rumors make me out to be .

Which. Is. A. Fucking. Problem.

I need those rumors. I need fear. My life depends on them.

"Six fucking minutes!"

I know she can hear me over that deranged singing she's doing.

My watch buzzes. I know, I know. I need to walk away and calm my ass down.

I march through the living room and jerk open the balcony door. Yes, this is precisely what I need—fresh air. A beer would be nice too, but I'll open one of those later when the guys get here.

I set the timer on my watch for five minutes and take the chance to call Pops.

"Yell-O."

His old Southern greeting puts a smile on my face. When I was growing up, he didn't speak this way, he was always so professional on the phone, but since his stroke, words have been harder for him to form—hence the Southern slang he adopted.

"Old man," I return smoothly.

"Maverick! How you doing, my boy?"

My boy. My father never called me his boy or his son. Only Maverick. "I'm good."

"School going well?" I wouldn't know. I haven't been in a few weeks. "Getting good grades?" I better be, or someone will pay the price.

"Yep. All good up here."

I can hear the question in his voice before he says it. "Have you been sleeping? You sound tired."

I take a seat in one of the plastic chairs, pulling the deck of cards from my pocket along with a marker. Checking my watch, I note Ainsley has three minutes. I think that deserves three IOUs just for pushing her luck.

I begin scribbling the letters on the cards with the phone pinched between my shoulder and cheek. "You don't sound so chipper yourself, old man."

He grunts. "You didn't answer my question. "

I shuffle to the next card. "I'm sleeping fine. I just had a late-night studying." Is it exam time? Maybe I should ask Rowan. I like to take those exams myself.

"Uh-huh," he says in a tone that tells me he knows I'm lying.

"You know it kills me that even after a massive stroke, you still think you know better than everyone." I walk back into the house and shove the three cards under the door, feeling better already.

"I do know better than everyone, boy. Especially you and your sneaky brother."

Oh hell. What did he do this time?

Walking back to the sofa, I plop down, landing on something hard.

I dig through the cushions and find not one, but two, stuffed sea lions.

Seriously, Ainsley? The least she can do is adequately cover her tracks by stowing her walruses or sea lions—whatever—in her room if she wants to keep pretending she sleeps in there every night.

"He thinks I don't know what he's doing when those girls come over for tutoring. They don't bring books! You need books to study."

I grin, rolling one of the sea lions over, and spot writing on the tag. Lawrence. She named him? This girl never ceases to shock me.

"I told you, Pops, everything is online. The schools use online books now. As long as the students have a phone or a tablet, they can study."

True, but not in Cooper's case. He's fucking those girls or at least the one, Melissa. His girlfriend. The others probably are there to study for a little while.

"Uh-huh."

My watch vibrates, letting me know Ainsley's time is up. "I gotta go, Pops. Lay off the sodas, yeah?"

"I told you I just have one after supper!"

"Yeah, yeah. Now who's lying?"

"Get some sleep, Maverick." His voice turns serious. "I mean it. I will come up there."

Yes, he will, and no one needs to see my pops knock me down a few pegs. "Yes, sir." My mother didn't raise a disrespectful shit .

"Call your brother later," he says just before hanging up on me. He probably didn't mean to. His fine motor skills aren't what they used to be.

I stride back down the hallway, the warm breeze from the balcony invigorating me with excitement. Nah. It's not the breeze. It's fucking with Ainsley.

"Time’s up!" I raise my hand to beat one last time when it wrenches open, and I'm met with stunning blue eyes and a wet head.

"Something is wrong with you," she says, brushing past me and not gently.

I feel a smile tugging at my mouth. "I will shove you off the balcony, Ainsley," I call after her, the door to her room slamming before I can finish. "You will be out of here before the guys get here."

I don't care if she's upset at having to clear out.

Any other day, she can veg out on my couch and consume the Wi-Fi, but not tonight.

Tonight is poker night, and no girls—or distractions—are allowed.

And the whole keeping her a secret thing .

. . Let's just agree that I have more than one reason to need her gone. I need some privacy, like yesterday.

Knowing she ignored me, I open the bathroom door and let enough steam out to power a train. She must have had the water that hot. I'm surprised she doesn't have third-degree burns.

Not your problem, Maverick.

Wiping off the mirror, I snag the stupid amount of hair ties and scrunchies on the counter and stuff them in my pocket. Why does she need so many—something floats in the toilet, catching my eye.

Squatting, I lean over for a closer look and see that it's the three IOUs I slid under the door, each one with the letters FU written in what looks to be lipstick.

And . . . my dick is getting hard.

Why must her fight turn me on?

I snap a picture—it was funny and brave—before flushing the cards and yanking open the shower curtain.

There I round up the eight almost-empty bottles of shampoos and conditioners and—her fucking toothbrush?

Who brushes their teeth in the shower? Never mind.

Of course she brushes her teeth in the shower.

Opening the hall closet, I shake my head and dump all her shit in before slamming it closed.

Do I care if they spill or she can't find them later? No, because she didn't bother to hide the shit like I had asked her.

Maybe it's about time I follow through with my threat to Mike. He needs an IOU for every day Ainsley stays here and not in her apartment. It's not enough that I don't have any privacy, but it's getting harder every day to hide my secrets. I'm tired of living in my bedroom. I want my space back.

Finally, the door slams, and I look up to see Ainsley standing in a bikini—a very tiny bikini.

"Where the hell are you going?"

She puts a hand on her hip, cocking it out just enough to draw my eyes lower than they need to go. "Since you're banning me from your little sleepover, I'm going to hang out by the pool."

The hell she is.

"Not the pool here, people will notice you. Go somewhere else to soak up the sun."

She narrows her eyes. "Fine. I thought you were finding me a forever home. I'm tired of living here."

The feeling is mutual.

"Why did you say it like you are one of those abused dogs they try to guilt people into adopting with sad music?"

"I'd just like to have a place where I'm not kicked out every Wednesday so my roommate can throw down a spade and belch out a victory jingle."

She's in a mood today.

I like it.

"That's not how it works. We?—"

She waves me off, clipping my remark.

"I don't care, Maverick. I'm not going to let you get to me today. I'm just going to take my boxed wine to the gym and drink it in the car. "

I rear back. "Why the gym?"

"Why not?"

I have no fucking clue how to respond to that, so I go with "I'm not bailing you out of jail," and walk away.

I need a fucking shower—a cold one.

Sebastian breezes through my door like he lives here, heading straight for the balcony and hanging over the ledge as if he's looking for something. "Dude, did you know there's a chick floating in our beer pool?"

I sigh, closing my laptop, and rub my temples. I knew I shouldn't have left her alone. When I came out of the shower, she was gone. I assumed she heeded my warning. Evidently, not.

"Where?"

He doesn't look at me. "On the sidewalk. Her feet are propped up on the hood of your car, and I'm pretty sure she's chugging wine from a box."

I'm going to kill her.

"A brunette?" My tone borders on indifferent, but I'm anything but. I want to be damn sure who I plan on killing.

"Hell yeah. All that silky hair is piled up into this sloppy bun that just begs to be yanked." Told you it was notable. "Want me to shoo her off?"

I bet he would like that. He'd shoo her off with his number programmed into her phone and then he’d leave the game early to celebrate his loss, balls deep. Too bad that won't be happening. Ever. My new roommate is off-limits and still very much a secret to Sebastian. Guess that's about to end.

Let the rumor mill flourish with this new information.

"No, I'll take care of it. Get the table set up while I'm gone."

"Maybe you should wait a minute, push the game back an hour or so? "

"What the fuck for? Just because you lose money, doesn't mean the rest of us want to delay our payday."

Sebastian turns his head, speaking to someone outside before facing me. "Because we all want to enjoy the show a little longer."

We all?