Hard Fall (Trophy Boyfriends #2) - Sara Ney Page 0,32

the one who wanted to pretend to help me. It’s not like I hunted you down!” This man is exasperating.

“Semantics. The point is, you’re doing it.” He puts the napkin—the one that says I like your boobs—back on his lap. “As we speak.”

“You’re twisting the situation around so it suits you and we both know it.”

Buzz pulls out his cell phone, taps on it a few times, scrolls—then holds it out in my direction. “This is my mom. Do you want to disappoint this face?”

Dear lord, his mother is adorable.

Sandwiched in between Buzz and a man who looks almost identical—his brother—she’s beaming and tiny compared to the two of them.

“Is it just you and your brother?”

“No, we have a sister, True. She’s one year younger.”

He’s still holding the phone practically in my face; there is no denying his mother looks delightful and not like someone you’d want to disappoint.

Still.

“This is not my problem.”

“It would be an even trade.”

Is he serious?

“No.” I haven’t lost my appetite, so I keep eating.

“Please?”

That has me looking back up at him.

Shit. Do not beg me, Buzz Wallace. This won’t end well for me.

I swallow the lump of meat in my throat and shake my head firmly. No.

“Please, Hollis. Please, I’m willing to do anything.” He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.

“Gross. Don’t ever do that.”

The smile gets wiped off his face. “Sorry.”

The thing about athletes is—the ones with the winning, can-do attitudes? They never give up. So I said no, but Buzz isn’t ready to accept it, and I have a feeling it only has a tiny bit to do with his mother and a whole lot to do with the fact that he likes me.

There, I said it—Buzz Wallace likes me.

I can see it in the way he looks at me and the way he’s trying to spend time with me, though it’s mostly extortion and blackmail and manipulation.

Not the bad kind, but…

He’s trying too hard.

Be real, Hollis—you wouldn’t give him the time of day if he wasn’t chasing after you like a lovesick puppy.

I study him across the table, the tacos on his plate nearly gone, basket of chips nearly empty, water totally empty, stomach definitely full. He’s watching me in earnest, barely blinking.

“Fine. I’ll do it.”

Buzz throws down his napkin, shoves his chair back away from the table, and pumps his fist in the air. “Yeah buddy!”

Jesus H.

This man is so over the top.

But come on—what’s the worst thing that could happen if I do this?

9

Trace

“Mom, this is Hollis.”

I repeat this in the mirror a few times, practicing the introduction as I pull a bright blue polo over my head. I don’t typically dress up to see my folks, but since I’m taking a date, I class myself up a bit and throw on a nice shirt.

Shorts.

Deck shoes instead of sneakers.

“Mom, meet your future daughter-in-law.”

If I said that, Hollis would kill me with her bare hands, probably in front of my parents.

I grab the candle I bought my mom and head to grab Hollis. She doesn’t know the drive is a bit of a hike, but it’s scenic so I doubt she’ll mind.

She doesn’t because this time when I pick her up, she’s got her laptop along.

The entire ride, she contents herself with whatever book she’s editing, computer glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, fingers tapping away or lightly running over the computer screen in a straight line, as if she’s tracing the sentence in front of her and committing it to memory. Hollis also bites her bottom lip a lot when she’s concentrating; if I’ve glanced over at her once to mentally imprint the image of her in those tortoiseshell glasses, I’ve glanced at her three dozen times.

She’s just that pretty.

She’s busy until, nearly two hours later, we pull into my parents’ driveway, the blacktop lined with trees my dad planted the year Tripp and I bought the place, flanked by a meticulously manicured lawn.

Roger Wallace likes his grass green, trimmed, and pristine.

Hollis removes her glasses. “This place is so cute.”

Cute?

“We didn’t grow up here. They moved in a few years ago when Tripp and I both went pro. It’s closer to Chicago than they were before by three hours.”

She turns to me. “So they can come watch you play, but still out in the country where it’s private?”

I nod. “Exactly. They wanted to be closer so they could see us, but don’t like the city.”

“That makes sense—the city isn’t for everyone.”

It’s really not for me, either, but for now, there’s