Page 81 of Enticing the Enforcer
“What?!” Shelby shouts, holding her hands up. “Say that again, you did what?”
“I left her a note on my locker with her name on it. I had no idea if she’d get it or if it’d still be there when I got back, or, more likely, in the trash. But somehow she did get it. I’d offered to show her around, and she messaged me about the best place to get a burger–”
“The Jefferson Parks Special,” Shelby says under her breath. “You mean she’d had it before.”
“Yep, the night before. We met up outside the Den. I had a bag of takeout, and I took her on a tour of campus.”
“And you kept this from me?” Shelby asks, her expression going from incredulous, to angry, to shocked, then rolling back again. “I thought we were friends!”
Her outrage is kind of adorable. “She asked me to.”
“And that’s all?” Reid asks, skeptically. “You had dinner and a tour that didn’t include you taking off your pants.”
“We kissed.”
“Like the song,” Shelby confirms.
“Yeah,” I admit, my chest tightening. “Like the song.”
“And you didn’t try to sleep with her?” Reid raises an eyebrow.
I huff a dark laugh. “You know how I am, I wouldn’t havenotslept with her.”
“Like a dog with a boner.”
Shelby smacks him on the arm. “Gross.”
But I can’t help laughing too, even if it’s bitter. “He’s not wrong. I’ve never forced anyone–ever–but I usually don’t have to do much to charm a woman. With Ingrid…” I trail off, the memory hitting hard. “She kissed me, but there was this hesitation. This mistrust and obviously some baggage. I respected that. Then she walked away.” My throat feels tight, but I push on. “When she showed up in Chicago, I was shocked. I honestly never thought I’d see her again. Then we actually got to know one another. And I didn’t even mind waiting.”
Reid studies me for a long moment, then lets out a low whistle. “That’s how you know it’s real. You didn’t care about getting laid. You cared about her.”
Shelby nods, softer now. “Exactly. Ingrid’s not just another girl on your list. She never was. That’s why you wrote her name down in the first place, because she was different. She wasn’t a conquest. She was a manifestation.”
Her words dig deep, twisting in my chest. Different. Always different. That’s why she’s in my head every damn minute, why no one else even registers anymore.
But now? Now I may have run out of chances.
Because how the hell do you get to a girl like Ingrid Flockton when she doesn’t want to see you?
Reese drives,one hand draped on the wheel, the other flipping the radio stations until he lands on some old country song he hums under his breath. I stare out the window, jaw tight, phone facedown in my lap.
We’re rounding the corner by campus, the arena coming into view, when a guy steps out from the sidewalk.
Reese mutters, “Shit,” under his breath, slowing the truck.
I haven’t opened social media since Ingrid hung up on me. The silence between us is bad enough–I don’t need to scroll through a feed full of speculation, fan edits, and headlines dissecting every breath we’ve ever taken together.
The guy, different from the one I knocked to the ground a few weeks before, beelines for my side of the car, eyes sharp, mouth already moving as I open the door. “Jefferson, what do you have to say about–”
“No comment,” I snap before he can finish.
He keeps pace as we get out, grabbing our bags out of the back, relentless. “No comment to the fact that Ingrid was seen with Jake Merchant at the post-tour wrap party?”
My foot slips like it forgot what it’s supposed to be doing. The words hit me sideways, sharp and hot, like someone just shoved a live wire under my skin. Jake. Merchant.
Well. That was fast.
Reese reacts before I can. He circles the front of the car, his body a solid wall between me and the reporter. “He said no comment,” Reese growls, his voice low enough to mean business. “And get the fuck out of here before I call security.”
