Page 77 of Playbook
He comes up behind his girlfriend and slides both hands up the back of her thighs and onto her ass. My brows rise.
I keep watching, even though I feel like maybe I shouldn’t. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before—or, hell, probably done at a party—but the atmosphere just feels wrong for that kind of PDA…so wrong.
I glance over at London. She’s trying really hard to look anywhere but at where her ex has his hands.
I try to put myself in his position. If London really was my girlfriend,I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off her. Maybe it’s my bad for assuming that feeling up a girl in front of her dad was probably crossing a line. Again, what the hell do I know?
I’m gonna have to call Knox or Hendrick for relationship advice—words I cannot believe I’m saying.
Am I playing it too cool to convince this prick I’m her boyfriend? Maybe a little butt-squeeze would really sell it. Before I can decide on how to work that in while my girl sits on the edge of the pool, Ben yells for his brother and Gretchen to swim to the other end.
Fuck it. I come up on her, wrapping my arms around her waist and hoisting her up over my shoulder. That puts her ass right at my shoulder. I smack that perfect, round ass and then keep my hand there. Well, damn, that is nice.
“What are you doing?” London screeches. “Put me down.”
“Or what?”
“Brogan Six!”
“Love it when you say my name like that, sweetheart.”
I had no idea what to expect from today, but London’s family hang is fun. There’s food and drinks, lazy naps on lounge chairs, and nice conversations with London’s family. The whole thing is like nothing I’ve ever been a part of. I had no idea families could function like this. I latch on to a little tension between London and her parents over her job situation, but the fact that they’re spending the day together despite their differences just reinforces all the ways in which what I had from the man and woman who gave me my DNA was wildly different.
I’m just finishing another game of volleyball in the pool when I get out and look for London. She disappeared sometime while I was playing and missed the awesome victory dance me and her grandma made up. I don’t want to spoil it, but it involved a lot of hip bumping and spirit fingers.
I finally find her inside in the kitchen.
“Hey,” I say, standing on the rug so I don’t get the floor wet. “Whatcha doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar. You’re hiding. What’s wrong?”
She huffs a short laugh. “How are you so certain that I’m lying?”
I pad across the room to her. “I’m an expert on all things London, like any good boyfriend.”
She smirks.
“You get this cute little wrinkle right here.” I press my finger gently to the spot between her eyes.
“I do not.”
She totally does.
“Is everything okay?” I try another tactic to get her to tell me what’s up.
“Yeah.” She lets a little of her irritation bleed into her tone. “It’s dumb.”
“Tell me anyway. I say dumb shit all the time.”
Another small laugh leaves her lips and she twists her hands in front of her like she isn’t sure she wants to confide in me. “I hate him and I hate how he still gets under my skin after all this time.”
“Chris,” I say, nodding. “Yeah, he seems like a real peach. Why’d you break up?” What I really want to ask is why were you ever with him? He so doesn’t seem like the guy for her.
“He cheated on me. Like alot. Basically the entire time we dated. Two years of lies.” She shakes her head and looks annoyed. At him and a little at herself, I think.
“We went to high school together but didn’t start dating until sophomore year of college. He went to Stanford and I stayed here. He was visiting for Christmas and we ran into each other one night out at a bar…that was it. We were inseparable until he left, then we texted nonstop and took turns going to see the other.”
