Page 141 of The Score

“Please don’t tell me you got on a plane and flew all the way here just to give me the onceover,” he mutters.

“No. I was already in the city visiting my folks and brother.”

Mr. Hayes settles on the sofa and proceeds to ignore me.

I take off my jacket and drape it over the back of the armchair. Then I sit down.

He balks. “What are you doing?”

“Getting comfortable.” I raise a brow. “Didn’t I mention? I’m spending the night.”

“Like hell you are!”

His outrage makes me chuckle. “Come on, sir. I thought we already established that arguing with your daughter is pointless. She asked me to stay the night and keep an eye on you, so that’s what I’m doing.” Because I will do anything that woman asks. I’d sell my soul to the devil himself if Allie told me to do it.

“I don’t like this,” Mr. Hayes grumbles.

“I don’t care,” I say cheerfully.

And that’s how I wind up watching college football with Joe Hayes for the next hour. It’s almost nine o’clock now, and my stomach is grumbling. I hadn’t eaten dinner, and Mr. Hayes doesn’t object when I order a pizza. “Sausage and bacon okay?” I ask him as I place the order.

He grunts. I guess that means yes.

Another hour passes. We don’t talk. We scarf down pizza, drink beer, and switch from football to hockey. The Bruins are playing tonight. Every time we shout at the screen or cheer for a goal, we glance at each other warily afterward, as if remembering who we’re with.

Between the second and third period I put down my beer and say, “I love your daughter, sir.”

And he says, “I know you do, pretty boy.”

I don’t know if that’s acceptance, or if it’s a ‘yeah you love her but I still hate you.’ I decide to treat it as the former.

Around eleven, I help him up the stairs and wait outside his bedroom door, listening to him wander around and change for bed. Then I knock. “You all right in there?” I call out.

“I’m fucking fine. Go to bed.”

Chuckling to myself, I duck into Allie’s childhoodroom, where Joe said I could crash tonight. First thing I notice? The scent. Holy shit, it’s thescent. The mysterious fragrance that’s always surrounding Allie and that I can never place.

I wander over to her dresser and pick up a small vial of perfume. Or at least I think it’s perfume. The label is pale-blue and readsAlliein a pretty script font. What the fuck?

“Eva had it made for her.”

I jump in surprise, turning to find Mr. Hayes standing in the doorway wearing nothing but plaid boxers. I can’t help but gape at his chest. Dude’s in his late forties and suffering from MS, and he’s rocking asix-pack. I’m impressed. I guess that explains how he landed Allie’s smokin’ hot model mom. Shit, and it suddenly occurs to me that if this is how Allie’s dad looks now, she’s got expectations. I’m going to have to look forward to working out for the rest of my life.

At my blank look, he gestures to the perfume bottle in my hand. “My wife…AJ’s mom…she had a friend in France, this fashion designer she worked with once. He knew a perfumer—is that what you call ’em? Perfumers?”

“I have no idea, sir.”

“Anyway, Eva’s friend gave her perfume one year, a scent made especially for Eva. AJ was green with envy, so for her twelfth birthday, Eva told her she was getting a special perfume for her too. My wife was sick at that point, real sick, so she was doing everything she could to make AJ happy. She asked AJ what scent she wanted, and AJ says—” he snorts in amusement “—strawberries and roses.”

I laugh too, because now it makes total sense why I could never figure it out. Roses and strawberries.Two completely different fragrances, yet somehow, when combined, they work. They’reAllie.

“She got six vials made. I think AJ might be down to three? I’m not sure. She’s very stingy with that shit. Doesn’t want it to run out, I guess.”

“So Allie has a French perfume that was created just for her? That’s kinda badass.”

He shrugs. “Eva spent a lot of time in France. Spoke French fluently too. She always wanted AJ to learn it, but AJ wasn’t interested.”

My heart squeezes. “She’s interested in it now.”

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