Page 11

Chapter Eleven

Bash

Lainey hasn’t even opened the box of frosted cherry Pop-Tarts in the pantry. Or the Junior Mints.

I look down at Bruce as I close the pantry door, shaking my head. “She’s really pissed, dude. It might be time to break out some wieners.”

Ballpark wieners, that is. Lainey’s parents used to have a bonfire just about every weekend in the summer. She always loved roasting her own hot dogs in the flames, preferring them charred to a crisp.

I didn’t even realize those were the good old days until they were over. Eric and I would set up a two-person tent and sleep in sleeping bags, sneaking out of it with flashlights to roam the neighborhood in the middle of the night.

He’s an insurance agent now. Married with a two-year-old daughter and another kid on the way.

Lainey finally got home around twelve thirty this morning.

I was on the couch waiting, and she barely even acknowledged me, as usual.

My attraction to her has taken over my thoughts.

Even though I know Lainey isn’t a person who would cheat in a relationship, I fought my urge to ask her where she’d been.

Who even am I? She’s not my girlfriend. I’m not even a jealous type. I’ve always told myself if a woman wants me, great. And if not, someone else will. And up until now, the more emotionally detached women were from me, the better.

It’s all different with Lainey, though. She’s not just a woman. I care for her. And her being mad at me for more than a week feels like someone’s shredding my insides with a cheese grater.

Makes me want to kick my own ass, honestly. And that’s as fucked up as I’ve ever been over anyone.

I’m home alone with Bruce in the middle of the day. My workouts are over and I’ve got an hour before I have to leave for my afternoon volunteering coaching youth hockey. I might need to ask those pimple-faced fourteen-year-olds for some advice on women.

He’s probably busy, but what the hell. I push a button on my phone screen to call Eric.

“Sebastian Stone.” He answers on the second ring, a smile in his tone. “How the hell are you?”

“Still sexy as fuck. How are you, brother?”

“No complaints. Callie’s morning sickness passed, thank fuck. She wasn’t just sick in the morning; it was all the time. Neither one of us was getting enough sleep for a couple of months.”

“Damn. Glad she’s feeling better. Is this a good time to talk?”

“Yeah, I’m on the way from lunch back to the office. What’s new?”

I move the phone away from my mouth and huff out a sigh. Eric has known me for so long that I don’t need to tiptoe.

“Lainey’s pissed at me.”

He barks out a single note of laughter. “She can be a hothead. She’ll get over it.”

“It’s been more than a week. She won’t look at me and she blows me off every time I text her or try to talk to her.”

After a couple seconds of silence, he says, “Is she okay?”

“Yeah, I think so. She’s gotten to know Carter’s wife Suki and her friends and she went out to trivia with them last night. Didn’t get home ’til twelve thirty.”

He chuckles. “She’s a grown-ass woman, man. She knows how to take care of herself.”

I stand up from the recliner I’m sitting in, agitated. “It’s not that she came home late, it’s that she’s pissed at me.”

“What’d you do?”

I pause. How can I tell him what I said without making him assume it was just me dogging on Shane like I always do?

“Shane came to visit her first weekend here. I was a shit to him and he got pissed and left. He wouldn’t even talk to Lainey; he just drove off. I don’t like the way he treats her.”

“Keep this between you and me, but my parents aren’t thrilled with Shane, either.”

I stop pacing. “Why?”

“Mom referred her friend Jenny to Shane’s business because Jenny’s daughter and her husband want to build a pool.

Jenny’s daughter didn’t say anything about how she heard about his business, and she told her mom, who told my mom, that Shane made her uncomfortable when he came over to give her an estimate. ”

My pulse pounds, anger already building in his chest. “How? What did he do?”

Eric sighs heavily. “Something about him telling her he’d move them up on the schedule in order to get her into a bikini faster, as long as she’d sent him pics of her in it.”

“That motherfucker.”

“Exactly. I told Mom she needs to tell Lainey, but she’s worried Lainey will just get mad at her.”

My jaw tenses. “She excuses his shitty behavior. Just because it’s not the worst possible shit a man could do to a woman, that doesn’t make it okay.”

“You know I agree.” His voice is glum. “I feel bad. Like I ignored little warning signs because she was so happy.”

“Like what?”

There’s a pause. “He calls her a nerd. Not in an affectionate way. Callie has never liked him, and she hates him at this point because she and Lainey got ready for Shane and Lainey’s engagement party, and Shane didn’t say a thing about how Lainey looked when he saw her. He just said, ‘Hey.’”

“What the fuck? Why are you just now telling me all this?”

He hums, considering. “I don’t know. We just haven’t talked in a while. Have we talked since the engagement party? I know I texted to make sure you were okay the next morning because you got so hammered.”

That headache lasted two days.

“You should have called me.” I run a hand through my hair, pacing into the kitchen. “I knew I should have punched that smug bastard when I had the chance.”

“I guess I need to talk to Lainey,” he says.

“Yeah, you do. Today.”

“She’s doing okay otherwise? Mom said her research thing’s going well.”

My jaw refuses to unclench. “I don’t know because she hasn’t talked to me in more than a week.”

“Oh yeah, you never told me what you did.”

“I told her Shane’s not good enough for her.”

A pause. “That’s it?”

“Yep.”

“You’ve said that to her a lot and she usually blows you off.”

“Not this time. I think she might have cried.”

He exhales hard. “Shit. Okay, I’ll talk to her today.”

“Let me know how it goes.”

“Bash, I’m just pulling into the office, but is there something else going on with you? You sound different.”

It’s the worst possible time to tell him. Or is it the best? We’re on the phone, so he can’t punch me. And he has to go, so he can’t yell at me for the next hour.

“I might have feelings for Lainey.”

I hear him opening his car door, and then the other end of the line goes deathly silent. “Eric?”

“You might ?” The car door closes again. Shit.

I square my shoulders. It’s time to man up. “I do.”

“What kind of feelings?”

My laugh is humorless. “You don’t want me to go into detail, trust me.”

“Jesus fuck, Bash. I have to tell my sister her fiancé is a piece of shit later today. If you fuck her when she’s vulnerable, I’ll never speak to you again.”

I scowl. “What the hell kind of guy do you think I am? I’d never do that.”

“You said feelings , which for you means one thing.”

I shake my head, the truth really sinking in now that I’m saying it out loud. “Not this time.”

“Bash.” He’s agitated. “I have a meeting. I can’t talk about this right now. Are you sure? Because seriously, when you turned her down for prom, she was devastated. If she thinks there’s a chance and then you fuck her over?—”

“I was twenty-one and she was seventeen!” I yell. “If it got out I took a minor to her prom, the league would have put me out on my ass!”

“That wasn’t the reason you said no, and we both know it.”

My shoulders slump. “No, it wasn’t. I didn’t feel that way about her, and I don’t even know where it came from, but since she moved in with me...I can’t think about anything else.”

He groans. “Have you said anything to her about it?”

“No. You’re the only one I’ve told.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to her and I guess we’ll see what she decides. But either way, keep it in your fucking pants.”

“Don’t be a dick.”

“Don’t you be a dick. That’s my sister. I know you.”

I want to throw my phone into the wall. I was already tied up in knots over Lainey, and now it feels like someone set the knots on fire.

“You think I’m such an asshole that I’d prey on Lainey? Use her? That’s what you think?”

“No. You know I don’t think that. I’m just saying give her time. That’s reasonable, right?”

“Of course. But I don’t need you telling me that. I already know. Give me some fucking credit. I’m the only one who’s been saying all along that Shane’s a fucking loser.”

“I really have to go. Let’s talk later.”

“Okay. Text me to let me know how it goes with Lainey, okay?”

“I will.”

I end the call and scrub a hand down my face. It’s a good thing I’ll be busy with youth hockey all afternoon. Any distraction from thinking about Eric and Lainey’s conversation will help keep me from losing my mind over it.