Page 48 of Face Off
Hayley: So full of yourself, Mr. Miller. Maybe you should focus less on who I’m out with and more on your playing. Seems you’ve been quite distracted lately.
Brooks: Distracted by you. You guessed that right.
She reads the message, shaking her head before putting her phone face down on the table. Pretty boy joins her once again. His hands run along her bare thighs as she leans into him more.
Brooks: Does his touch turn you on as much as mine used to?
Her lips part as she reads the message her thighs squeezing under the table as I assume she is reminiscing.
Brooks: Lose the date, Red. And then I’ll show you just what you’ve been missing.
Hayley
So maybe I overreacted a little when Brooks continued to push the Boyce issue. The issue that seems to be haunting me ever since we returned from Arizona. Boyce managed to get my number from Cassidy and has continued to push the issue of meeting Camden. Yeah, first time in ten years and the asshole now wants to take responsibility for his actions. And while Boyce keeps blowing up my phone, the one person I wish was, has ghosted me.
“It’s been two weeks, Cass, and he won’t even talk to me, yet alone look at me,” I say while spinning mindlessly in my desk chair. “Boyce Cameron isn’t even in my life anymore, and he has somehow managed to continue to fuck everything up for me.”
Maybe I shouldn’t put all the blame on Boyce. I’ve kept my relationship with Boyce a secret from Brooks after all. I should have just come right out and told him about Boyce being Camden’s father. I mean now that Boyce has seen Camden and has continued to blow up my phone about his rights, it’s only a matter of time before everyone knows. He’s not exactly a nobody.
Cassidy pins me with a I told you so look. “Vince said Boyce won’t shut up about Camden. How much he looks likehim. Told his fiancée all about it, who practically insisted on Boyce getting a lawyer.”
The thought of going through a court battle alone terrifies me. Sure, I won’t be entirely alone. I’ll have my parents and Cassidy of course. But deep down, all I want is Brooks by my side. Reassuring me that everything is going to be all right. That my baggage is nothing to worry about. That we’ll get through it together, no matter the cost.
Yeah, I’m a dumbass for asking him for time.
“You know,” Cassidy says, chewing the end of a Twizzler. “Brooks is possessive of you. I saw it the moment Boyce approached you.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So,” she says, sitting forward, her hands resting on her knees. “We go out and make him jealous. That will surely get him talking to you. And when he does, then you’ll have the opportunity to tell him everything.”
Everything. All the little white lies that I seem to be collecting.
I shake my head as I think about Cassidy’s horrible plan. “This is a horrible plan,” I squawk, standing from my chair to pace the room. “This could all blow up in my face, and I could lose him forever.”
“Or… he could show his alpha self and take what’s always been his.”
Ugh. Why can’t my life just be like a simple retro pop song? I want you to want me. There, boy tells girl, girl tells boy, and they live happily ever after. Guess that can’t entirely work for my situation. Add in a baby daddy, some family drama, and you have a reality TV show where no one ends up happy.
Cassidy stops me in my tracks, resting her hands on my shoulders. “No more thinking about it. You’re doing it, and I have the perfect guy for the task.”
Kyle Reynolds.
Cassidy’s older cousin from Idaho. When she suggests her cousin, I’m dumbfounded. For starters, he lives in Idaho, a small quant little town called Ketchum. So, imagine my surprise when she tells me he’s currently in Seattle. We haven’t seen Kyle since ninth grade summer when we went to stay at Cassidy’s grandparents’ lake house. He was a mountain man in the making back then. The blond peach fuzz that covered his chin always made me laugh because he would refuse to shave it. However, the man standing in front of me tonight is no longer a mountain man in the making. He a full-on lumberjack now. And jacked he is. For someone who owns and runs a bar called the Ponderosa for a living, you would think otherwise.
“So, wanna tell me why needed my help tonight, Red?” Kyle says, draping his arm over my shoulder as we walk toward the Nest.
Red.
The nickname that should only be reserved for one person and one person only—Brooks. Don’t get me wrong, Kyle’s a good-looking man, dressed in his blue-plaid flannel rolled at his elbow, while his dark-wash jeans hug his tight ass so well, not as well as Brooks, but it’s a view I don’t mind staring at. He runs his hand through his sandy-blond hair that matches his manicured beard perfectly before opening the door for me, and I can’t help but smile at this plan Cassidy has dreamed up. She has chosen a way too good looking man to make Brooks jealous.
“There’s this guy,” I start as Kyle holds up his hands.
“Woah now, Red. I’m not trying to steal another man’s girl and get my ass handed to me tonight.”
I laugh at Kyle’s reaction because despite his ruggedness, he’s a giant goofball. “No worries, Kyle. I’m completely in love with this guy but fucked everything up. I just need your help to make him jealous, so he’ll talk to me again.”
He stops on the stairs that head to the rooftop bar, narrowing me with a look that says it better not be that dick. And before he can say anything, I interrupt his thoughts. “No, it’s not Boyce if that’s what you’re thinking. God, no. But he is a hockey player, a good one who despises Boyce just as much as anyone who knows what the hell he did to me.”
