Once Upon A Half-Time: A Sports Romance - Sosie Frost Page 0,113

“Am I?”

“Of course not.” He jingled his empty bottle of beer at Nate—the third lined up before him. “Can I get another?”

“See?” My sister glared at Rick. “If you can’t handle me at my worst…”

I muttered to myself. “Then get the hell out of the wedding party.”

“What was that, Mandy?”

I smiled. “Nothing. I’m admiring your bridal boot camp. The red velvet cake is dry.”

“Write it down. Only nineteen more samples to go.”

Nate and Bryce opened their fourth beers. Lucky bastards.

It took two hours to finish, but I only needed to throw up once. Fortunately, it was right when Nate and Rick doodled something obscene on their score cards prompting Lindsey to kick them out of the wedding. They were reinstated by the time I made it back to the table, and my sister decided on a winning flavor.

She chose a three tiered castle of a cake—the bottom layer classic almond, middle a white filled with a strawberry puree, and the top a cream cheese infused fig and blueberry that Lindsey thought would look fantastic on Instagram.

Unless the whole thing was frosted in Pepto Bismol, I’d never eat another piece of cake again.

Mom gathered the leftovers from our end of the table.

“Save some for the wedding.” She snatched a plate away from me. “Honest to goodness, it’s like you don’t even care about finding a husband of your own.”

“I—”

“Mandy, why don’t you smile more?” She tisked her tongue. “You’d be prettier if you smiled like your sister.”

Every straw was the last one. I walked away before I popped an aneurysm. Somehow confronting Nate about the baby was easier than dealing with my Mom about anything.

I gathered the few beer bottles on the tables and handed them to Nate as he tidied the already pristine bar.

“Sure I can’t get you something to drink?” He grinned. “You’re taking a beating out there, and not the good kind.”

“There’s a good kind?”

I didn’t trust his wink. “Would you like a demonstration?”

“Oh, Lord. Someone ought to sit you in time-out.”

“Sometimes it’s fun being bad. You should try it.”

Oh, if he only knew how bad we were. I lowered my voice. “Think we can go somewhere and…talk?”

His smirk grew. I was sure he’d replaced the word talk with something far more exciting and rewarding. It wasn’t fair to blindside him like this. Did I have a choice?

I closed the door to his office before any frosting freak-out or cake-related calamity interrupted us. Nate offered me a seat at his desk, though I wasn’t going near the rat’s nest of receipts, notebooks, folders, files, and general disarray. It was a bookkeeper’s torture.

“So…I take it you spend most of your time brewing the beer?” I parsed through the papers.

“I’m a man of many talents.”

“Humble too.”

“Why should a man be humble? What’s in it for me?”

“Ah, and selfless.”

“You want me to start listing your faults?” he asked.

He’d never find any my mother hadn’t already discovered, cataloged, and posted on Facebook to the family.

I shrugged. “Name one.”

“You’re scared.”

“Of what?”

Those green eyes glittered with mischief. “Me.”

Technically, I wasn’t afraid of him…more like of what he made. I said nothing, daring him to elaborate with an arched eyebrow.

“You know we had something good,” he said. “Why are you so afraid of spending a second night with me?”

“Do you think it’s crazy that a woman wouldn’t want to sleep with you again?”

“It’s inconceivable.”

“Oh…I wouldn’t say that.”

“Don’t pretend you aren’t attracted to me.”

I wouldn’t even try to lie. Nate only got sexier the more I tried to avoid him. I still imagined the ripple of muscle beneath his clothes, the feel of his hands against my hips, the heat of his breath slipping down, down, down to the crest between my legs.

He wasn’t just attractive. Nate dripped testosterone. He charmed, he hunted, and he owned the naïve women who fell for the wolf behind his smile.

One word, and panties would drop. Sexts would send. Hell, whenever he walked into a room, every woman’s uterus lit up like a damn pinball machine, pinging and clinking and blinking fertilize me!

It was a miracle he hadn’t gotten any of his past girls in trouble.

Or was it my luck that my womb happened to be particularly…sticky?

“So…” I cleared my throat. “That…night we spent together?”

I had no idea what was bigger—Nate’s cock or his ego. He grinned.

“I knew you wanted another night. You don’t even have to ask, baby.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“Can I get any head from you?”

“For the love of God, Nate, would you fucking listen to me?”

He