Page 111 of Kiss Me Tonight

I smile up at him, my heart so full that I fear it might burst. “Deal.”

31

Dominic

If there’s one thing I learned onPut A Ring On It, it’s that Nick Stamos takes his job very seriously.

When he and Mina pull up to my house on Friday afternoon, it’s in a white van withStamos Restoration and Co.printed across the side in blue lettering. Of all the guys I met on the show, Nick is the only one I talk to regularly.

The bastard is a pretty boy through and through, though I doubt he sees himself that way. He works with his hands for a living, a blue-collar worker all the way through, and if he had even a little of the same temperament as the rest of the show’s contestants, he’d have ditched his home-improvement act and signed with some of the modeling agencies that I know would pick him up in a heartbeat.

But that’s not Nick’s speed. Not even a little bit.

Slipping my hands into the front pockets of my worn jeans, I bump Topher in the shoulder. “You ready to put your mouth where your shitty driving is, kid?”

From the other side of Topher, Timmy pipes up, “I thought the saying goes, are you ready to put your money where your mouth is?”

“It would go like that,” Levi’s son grumbles good-naturedly, “if I had any cash.”

To my left, Harry throws up a hand. “Wait. I thought we were getting paid for today’s gig?”

I hook an arm around the football whisperer’s neck and scratch his head with my knuckles, noogie-style. “You and Tim get money. Not-Chris on the other hand . . .”

Topher groans, squeezing his eyes shut. “Coach, I’m sorry I lied about the Chris thing. I just thought it sounded cooler! I seriously thought my real name was Christopher. I panicked and—”

“Pointed the finger at me.” I nod, releasing Harry so I can repeat the process all over again with the lanky kid who looks nothing like his mother save for his blue eyes. “I don’t blame you, kid. Your mother is a scary person.” I drop my voice to a mock-whisper. “I can handle it when she punches me.”

His mouth drops open. “Shepunchedyou?”

Levi has done a lot to me. She’s kissed me with so much passion behind her touch I feel eviscerated, she’s put me in my place when I turn broody, she’s . . . Well, it’s probably not a good idea to think about her going down on me when I’m talking with her son.

I squeeze Topher’s shoulder. “She has not, in fact, punched me though I’m positive she considered it when you rammed into my truck.”

“Scraped,” he interjects earnestly, “Iscrapedyour truck. Big difference.”

“What the hell happened to your truck, DaSilva?” Nick asks, sauntering toward us with Mina’s hand clasped in his. “It looks like it fought a war with a bear and lost.”

Chuckling low, I amble forward to greet my friends. “It fought a war with a Topher and lost.” I grip Nick’s hand, slapping him on the back in a quick hug. Then turn to his pink-haired fiancée, Mina. Her dark eyes flash up at me, and though I never met her before a few months ago, our friendship was instant. She leaps up at me, and I catch her around the waist in a twirling hug. When I set her down, I turn to the three teenage boys who are waiting to be introduced. “That one,” I murmur, pointing to Topher’s lanky frame, “is a Topher.”

He smiles weakly, shrugging his narrow shoulders. “I mean, at least I won? Maybe I need a medal or something.”

“How about a hammer?” I suggest.

“You know, that works too.”

Grinning at him, I quickly introduce my friends to my players. Each one of them is gracious and open. Tim shakes Nick’s hand and then shyly hugs Mina. Topher, the most outgoing out of the three, hugs them both like he’s known them his entire life. And Harry, who’s been staying with his Aunt Gloria while the cops search for his mom down in Portland, loses the frown as soon as he sees all of the power tools Nick hauls out of the van.

“These are so cool!” he exclaims, swinging a sledgehammer around like he’s on the verge of joining the Celtic Olympics and hurling tree trunks across a field. “It looks like Thor’s hammer.”

Mina laughs. “I can see it.” When Nick peers over at her, she cocks her head playfully. “What, you know I love me some Chris Hemsworth.”

“So long as you love me more,” he tells her, ignoring the equipment in his arms in favor of bending over to plant a kiss on her mouth.

When Nick catches me eyeing them, he points the load in his arms in my direction. “What? You aren’t going to tell us that we’re sickening?”

Maybe I would have a month ago—before I met a blond-haired football coach who called me an asshole. “Does it make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside when I do?”

“I felt all warm and fuzzy inside when I saw Natasha in a bikini the other day,” Topher cuts in, leaning down to wrap his hands around the wheelbarrow’s wooden arms. Straightening to his full height, he looks over at me. “I think she has a boyfriend though.”

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