The Penalty Box - Teagan Kade Page 0,13
down and smiling even though I know she can’t see me. “Fine, Mom.”
“Just damn fine,” I mutter to myself.
CHAPTER SEVEN
NOLAN
Monday night and all is well.
“Do you each have one of those?” Linnea asks.
We’re seated in the back booth of the diner. It seemed far more fitting. Linnea clearly approves. She hasn’t stopped smiling since we were seated.
I open my shirt a little more so she can see the full tattoo. “The crown? Every King male has one. I guess it’s a kind of birthright.”
She puckers her lips. “I suppose it is kind of sexy, all that ink.”
I pick up my milkshake, heavy on the malt. “And yet you don’t have a single tattoo or blemish on your body, besides the ear.”
Linnea pushes the ear in question forward. “Not even earrings.”
“Because they make you look too feminine?”
“Because basketball is a contact sport, and some bitch could rip them out on the court.”
I laugh. “Fair enough.”
“What you do, though,” she continues, hand gesticulating, “waving your stick around, smashing into everything…ice hockey as more of a collision sport. I’m surprised you have two brain cells to rub together, because boy, the hockey players I’ve met in the past—” she taps the side of her head “—not the sharpest knives in the drawer.”
“You’re saying you weren’t attracted to my keen intellect?”
“Pfft,” she whistles. “Compared to your brothers you’re basically Einstein.”
“You’ve met Titus, right? The guy is basically Einstein.”
She taps her chin as our burgers arrive. “You mean, the one you told me cracks fart jokes and walks around with his pants off?”
She has a point. “Touché.”
“How do you get along with your brothers? I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have siblings, but after me, Mom couldn’t…well…you get the picture. Plumbing problems.”
I lean back, the vinyl of the seat squeaking in turn. “I’m sorry to hear that, but to answer your question, I suppose it’s fine. I’ve always been a bit of an outsider, I guess. I was never big into the party thing or sleeping through the A to Z of the Academy’s female population. I like to keep a quieter profile than my brothers.”
“I imagine that’s not too difficult.”
“You imagine correct.”
“You weren’t shy in the bedroom.”
I smile thinking of the tight warmth of her pussy, the way it drew my cock in. “I can let my inner Hulk out when the moment calls for it.”
“You’re telling me you become a big green monster when you get your dick out, because all I remember is a fine-ass white boy the complete opposite of angry. Don’t even get me started on your cum face. It looked like you were transcending some high spiritual plane.”
I almost choke on my milkshake, forced to swallow it down before I spray the walls with it. “My cum face? Hate to break it to you, but when you came you looked like a stunned m—”
I stop because someone’s standing right next to our table. I look left and take in the figure. They’re wearing a black suit with an earpiece and sunglasses—inside, at night, no less. Bodyguard for sure, but for who?
I don’t have to wait long for the answer.
A man in a navy suit with a second bodyguard approaches. This second bodyguard pulls him out a chair from a nearby table.
The man sits, looking between us and then around the diner. “Quaint.”
“Sorry, who are you?” I ask.
He looks to Linnea. “Why, didn’t she tell you? I’m Linnea’s father, Rex Marsden, and you are?”
The smile has disappeared from Linnea’s face. “You should leave,” she tells him.
I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m going to support Linnea.
“Maybe you should listen,” I suggest.
He ignores me, facing Linnea. “You should have come when I asked. You shouldn’t have forced me to come to you.”
“The lady asked you to leave,” I tell him, ready to move should the situation call for it, but we’re boxed in by the bodyguards. Still, they’d be bold to do anything in here, even if the diner is quiet tonight.
“There’s a wonderful young man I’d like you to meet, a Harry Brenton,” Rex continues, addressing Linnea. “Come to dinner Wednesday night, meet him for yourself.”
Linnea crosses her arms. “I’m not meeting anyone. Now, please, leave.”
“You better—” I start, but a pointed finger from this Rex character cuts me off.
“You better watch your tone,” he starts, the façade dropping and the wizard revealed, though all I see is a bitter prick looking out for his own interests. “I know who you are, Nolan King. I