Page 54

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SIX

CLARA JUNE

I wake to the smell of fresh coffee and french toast, and rub my eyes to spot just that, sitting atop a courtesy cart in the center of our room. Dean, wearing the hotel bathrobe which looks child size on his large frame, sits on the edge of the bed and strokes his hand down my naked back.

“C’mon baby, sit up. Let’s get some coffee and food in you before our boy is back.

” He helps me sit up because I’m orgasm drunk and dazed, apparently.

He feeds my arms through the bathrobe sleeves, then uses my brush to work out the tangles.

When he’s done, he braids my hair for me, and rolls the cart up to the edge of the bed.

I finger the braid as he fills a mug of coffee in front of me. “You can braid,” I comment, trying not to hyperfocus on the way he called Archie our boy.

“Yeah, I learned how when my mom had shoulder surgery a few years ago. Had to do her hair. YouTube to the rescue.” He takes the silver dome off my plate and the room floods with cinnamon sugary goodness.

“Let me just make sure the do not disturb is still on the door,” he says, getting to his feet. The in-room phone rings, and since I’m nearest, I answer.

“Hello?”

“Hello, this is Anita with guest services. Check out is this morning at eleven, will you be needing a late check out?”

“No,” I reply without confirming with Dean, because a glance at the clock tells me it’s not even eight a.m. yet. We have time. “No, thank you.”

“Great,” she says, typing way too much for a simple no. Then Anita says, “and are we good to go ahead and charge that remaining balance to the card on file?”

I wait a moment for Dean to return, but I hear him at the door, declining housekeeping.

Anita must take my reservation as hesitation, and helpfully adds, “the remaining balance, Mrs. McAllister, is two thousand and six dollars, and seventy two cents after the nine hundred and ninety nine dollar deposit.”

“What?” I gasp. “How much?”

At that moment, Dean returns, tugging at the tiny tie at his waist. I pass him the handset. “I think they messed up your bill.”

Dean winks and takes the receiver, sitting on the mattress next to me, using his free hand to ready his coffee cup for a sip.

“Hi there, this is Dean McAllister. That was my girlfriend.” Heat flares in my belly at the way he describes me.

“Okay,” he bobs his head while listening, forking one of the six strips of bacon on his plate.

“Yep, that’s the card. Yep, that’s it. Run it.

Yep. Alright.” He hangs up and bumps his knee into mine.

“Eat. If you finish fast enough…” he smiles.

He doesn’t have to finish that sentence.

But while eating, I have to ask— “I didn’t hear you correct her—did she figure out she made a mistake? You know, on the room charge?”

Dean chews his bacon before answering. “No mistake.”

I sip my coffee then laugh. “This is a two thousand dollar suite, then? Or three thousand, since she alleged you paid nearly a one thousand dollar deposit.”

He shakes his head, setting his coffee cup back down with a little clink.

“So… the school board denied the request to stay in the hotel last night. They felt it was reasonable that the students take buses home at night, risking their lives, instead of staying one night and driving home in the daylight when the curve on Gull is twelve times safer.”

I just blink.

“But I couldn’t tell the parents that I was watching out for their kids and in the same breath, go to that game. The drive home is horrible, you know? One kid had so much anxiety around it that he quit the team just to avoid the game.”

I listen and blink, because I’m still not really getting this.

“If we forfeit the game, we take ourselves out of the running for championships, which is what most of these boys are working for, you know? Not everyone is a Tanner Colt, or a Boone Holt. And for the ones that aren’t going onto scholarships and the NFL, playoffs are the big thing. I couldn’t take that away from anyone.”

I nod my head. Dean is unlike any other man I’ve met, and that may be cliche and if it is, fine. I’m cliche, because it’s true.

“How did you manage to find a solution?”

He pulls at the back of his neck, cheeks going a little pink.

“Ahh,” he says, almost bashfully, like he doesn’t want to talk about it.

“I told Leah—Leah Mitchell, the principal—that if she and West, the athletic director kept it a secret, that I’d fund it myself, and we’d tell parents that the district funded it. ”

I lean back, trying to understand. “Why don’t you want the boys to know you paid for this and made all of this happen?”

He shrugs. “It’s not about me. It’s not even about the hotel stay. It's about letting these boys play the game they love without worrying about being splattered across asphalt on the drive home.”

“I can’t believe you did that for your team.” I shake my head and reach for his thigh, giving it a squeeze. “Actually, you know what? I can believe you did that for your team.” I stare up at him. “You’re incredible.”

We eat, and we laugh, and all the while, I hold such amazement in my heart for him. After a shower, and Dean eating me out in that shower until I came three times and nearly passed out, Dolly knocks on the door, returning a happy and blissed out Archie.

Archie and I climb into my car—only after Dean walks us there, of course, and he gets in his truck, and the two of us drive behind the buses all the way back to the high school.

Tanner jumps in, and we head to Riley and Jake’s to pick up Rawley, and once all of us are in the car together, we decide to barbecue chicken and make a peach pie (Archie’s idea) to celebrate a great game.

While we’re perusing grocery store aisles, Rawley drops a can of baked beans into the shopping cart, then stops. “Does Dean like ribs?”

I shrug. “Sure. Who doesn’t?.”

Rawley rolls his eyes. “Well, call him and ask so we don’t make a whole dinner that he doesn’t like.” Then he’s gone, catching up to Archie to prevent him from unwrapping and eating a taffy from the per-pound bin.

Rawley both wants and expects Dean to be at dinner tonight.

I hadn’t invited him. I figured after a weekend together, after how much time he’s spent with us, he’d want to go back to his house for a night or two.

For some space. After all, Troy hasn’t called or posed an active problem, and that was the whole reason he was staying with us.

Tanner comes back to the cart with the bag of frozen corn cobs, and drops it in. I push his hair back and ask, “You feel like having company tonight? It’s okay if you don’t.”

He gives that ugh! what now? look that he’s perfected over the last two years. “Who? We only have five chairs, so if you invite aunt Jackie, she’ll have nowhere to sit.” He’s already counting Dean, the same assumption that Rawley made.

“Okay,” I tell him. “No one else then.”

I get my phone out and call Dean after telling the boys to grab a case of water, and to grab the chicken from the meat department. Chewing the inside of my cheek, staring at a wall of dish soaps, all offering softness on hands while murdering grease, Dean answers.

“Hey, mama,” he greets sweetly, sending a surge of wet heat to my core, which seeps into my cotton panties.

“Hey. The boys and I are gonna have a cookout tonight. I know we just saw each other last night, and it’s completely fine if you are busy or just don’t want to or?—”

Dean’s voice cuts mine off. “It wouldn’t be fine if I was busy and it wouldn’t be okay if I didn’t want to come over tonight, Clara June.

I told you before, I want to be there, even if it means on the couch.

I don’t like that ex of yours calling. And even if he wasn’t calling, taking care of you, spending time with you and the boys are my first and only focus. ”

Wow. “Okay.”

“I’ll hang up, and you can call me again,” he says, making me laugh.

“Okay.” I hit end, smiling at the phone, smiling at his words, smiling at how lucky I am. He answers again.

“Hey, mama.”

“Hey,” I reply. “When are you coming over? Just wanna know so I can leave the front door unlocked, since me and the boys will be in the yard.”

He rushes out a breath, a cross between a sigh and something more sinister, like a moan. “I just unloaded the bus. I’m gonna grab some clothes and head over. See you in twenty. I’ll catch a shower at your place, after I barbecue.”

We get home just as Dean is arriving, and he and the boys carry the groceries inside, and get started on the meal.

For the first time in my life, I take a shower, hot and long, while dinner is being made, and I don’t worry about the safety of the boys…

or the food. And when I get out and lotion my body, slipping into leggings and a tank top, I enter my kitchen to find it cleaned and spotless.

Laughter roars from the backyard, and I peek out the window above the sink to see my four guys, around a table, sauce on their fingers and faces, swapping jokes, sunlight at their backs.

My hand is on the door handle when my phone rings from somewhere deep in the house. I run to the bedroom, answering it before it goes to voicemail, still wearing a love drunk smile. “Hello?”

“You know blocking my number isn’t gonna work right? I can always use a different number, Clara June, come on. And quit trying to keep me from my son?—”

“I have sole legal custody. That’s been the case for years. The judge granted me that and you signed off on it, remember?”

“I changed my mind,” Troy states.

“But I haven’t. And neither has the court. And Tanner doesn’t want to see you, and you know what Troy, honestly, screw you. Screw you for showing back up because you think he may be rich or famous in a few years. Screw you for showing interest in one son but not the other two. Screw you, period.”

His chuckle is dark. “Screw me? Screw you, you vindictive little bi–”