Page 15 of Score to Settle
He shakes Harper’s hand and immediately backs up. “Nice to meet you, Harper,” he says, turning away. “See you at practice, Sullivan,” he calls over his shoulder.
Flic slides our drinks across the bar and smiles. “Rescuing women again, Jake?”
I shrug. “I’m pretty sure Harper can take care of herself.”
“Yes, I can,” Harper says from beside me. From the edge to her voice, she’s none too pleased by the rescue. “And isn’t he on your team? You acted like you hate each other.”
“Gordon is my teammate. I trust him on the field to bring down the opposing team but off the field, it’s different.” The truth is, I wouldn’t trust him not to step over a sweet little grandmother who’s fallen down if it meant getting his dick serviced.
“Come on,” Harper replies. “The man rescues puppies in his spare time. What’s not to like?”
A muscle ticks in my jaw. How can she buy into that crap Gordon posts all over his socials? “Not all reputations are justified.”
“Is yours?” she shoots back, fixing me with a questioning look.
I hold her gaze, noticing how those big brown eyes of hers are flecked with gold. The kind of eyes that draw someone in. I think of leaning in, brushing Harper’s hair away from her face, and whispering in her ear how happy I’d be to show her just how true my reputation is. It’s the kind of move that would really piss her off. But the short-term win of annoying Harper isn’t going to help my rep. So I settle for honesty instead. “I’m not going to pretend I don’t enjoy sex, but I’m not into one-time hookupsanymore and I haven’t been for a long time. Most of the stuff about me isn’t true.”
“Why don’t you ever deny it then?” she fires back.
“Because I don’t give a shit what people think of me. If they want to think I’m that person, why do I care? But now it’s affecting the team and my career.” I shrug.
Harper stares at me like I’m a math equation she’s trying to solve. Then she gives a shake of her head. “So you’re telling me you’ve changed?”
“I guess that’s what you’re here to find out.” I scoop up the beer bottles and my soda and head back to the booth before she can ask any more questions. My thoughts pull to the comment I overheard her make on the phone last night.
Jake already thinks he’s God’s gift to the world.
Suddenly I’m wishing I’d left Harper to the likes of Gordon. The last thing I want tonight is to answer questions. I don’t buy Harper’s curiosity for a second. She’s probably no better than the gossip sites that twist everything I say. That’s the last time I go out of my way to rescue her ungrateful ass.
It’s 2 a.m. before I give up trying to sleep. From across the room, Chase is snoring lightly on the pullout.Just like old times, I think, trying to be annoyed he’s bunking in with me, but still finding myself happy he’s home. Besides, it’s not Chase keeping me awake. It’s thinking about Harper and her questions tonight.
So you’re telling me you’ve changed?
I usually don’t care what people think, so why does the disbelief in her tone annoy the hell out of me?
I make my way barefoot to the kitchen, being careful to avoid the creaking floorboards engrained in my memory froman adolescence of sneaking around this house without Mama knowing. I smirk to myself at the thought. Without fail, any time I snuck out to a party or a hookup, Mama would yank me out of bed early the next morning with a list of chores as long as my arm. Of course she knew.
But as soon as I step through the doorway into the kitchen, I see Harper at one end of the table, the glow of her laptop illuminating her face in the dim room. She looks up, eyes widening in surprise.
“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t think anyone else would be up,” she says. “I can go to my room.”
“Don’t leave on my account,” I reply, moving to the fridge to grab some water, aware of her watching me. I’m suddenly conscious I’m shirtless and wearing only a pair of basketball shorts low on my hips. Based on the glimpse I caught before I turned away, she’s wearing a tee and not much else. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Me neither,” Harper says.
I lean against the counter and take a sip of water, watching her over the lip of my glass. Her hair is pulled up in a messy bun, strands falling loose to frame her face. The oversized tee she’s wearing slips off one shoulder, exposing a delicate collarbone. From the way her breasts swell against the fabric, she’s not wearing a bra.
I feel my dick harden and snap my eyes up to her face instead, but the way she’s biting her lip in concentration as she stares at her laptop doesn’t help the straining I can feel starting to happen against my shorts. This is clearly the side effect of not dating anyone for so long. Harper might be sexy as hell and scantily dressed in the middle of the night in my house, but she also looks like she’s one step away from throwing me under a bus. Something my head isn’t going to forget, even if my dick has.
I take a seat on the bench opposite before she can see the raging hard-on about to make a tent out of my shorts.
“Are you writing the feature about me already?” I ask, uneasy at the thought.
She shakes her head and shoots me a look. “I’d need to actually know something about you to start writing.”
Ouch.She’s got a point, although I notice she doesn’t expand her answer to tell me what she is working on. I lean across the table to take a peek but she closes the laptop quickly.
“Working on your master plan?” I quip.
