Straddling the Line - By Sarah M. Anderson Page 0,51
back on the counter, gave her a look that she couldn’t quite read. “Do you know how to play pool?”
Ten
Josey stood next to the table, leaning against her stick and swaying to the John Legend music Ben had put on. The way her hips were moving was enough to distract him from the game. Too bad she didn’t seem to notice she was doing it.
“You play a lot of pool?”
“When I have someone to play with. Stick used to come up after practice, but he’s got a girlfriend now. Bobby likes to play for money, but he’s kind of a jerk about it.” Ben sank the striped fourteen. He didn’t have to ask if she played a lot. She’d gotten two balls in. He had one to go. “Billy will play, if I can get him out of the shop. But that’s a big if.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
He lined up the shot. “You don’t need my permission. Ask away.”
“Why do you live in the old shop? And why is it so much bigger than the new one?”
He took an extra second to make the shot. On to the eight ball. “I grew up here. It just felt like home.”
“Really?” She didn’t seem to mind in the least that he was about to beat her.
“Yeah. Back when Crazy Horse was Dad’s business, he didn’t do custom stuff. He had models, and he had guys who built them assembly-style. He made more bikes, so he had to store more bikes. Mom handled the books then. We’d all get up early and come here, then Mom would take us to school and bring us back here afterward. Some nights we’d be here until late, but Mom liked to keep the family together, she always said.”
Keep the family together. That had been what he’d promised her.
“That must have been hard.”
“It wasn’t so bad. As long as we didn’t break anything, we pretty much got to roam free. We built forts out of boxes and had gear wars—like ninja stars, but with gears.”
She gave him a look of amused disbelief. “You threw gears at each other?”
“Hey, I only chipped Bobby’s tooth that one time.”
His innocent look didn’t work—of course, it hadn’t worked on Mom, either. Josey’s mouth dropped open in shock, which gave him all sorts of ideas. Instead, he sank the eight ball and began to rerack the balls. Now that he thought about it, it had been a long time since he’d played pool with anyone. Even if she wasn’t very good at it, it was still nice to play with her and have a real conversation.
“Okay.” The way she said it made it clear that it wasn’t, really, but she didn’t harp on it. “So the new factory…”
“Billy didn’t—doesn’t—like mass-produced anything. He convinced Dad he could make more money doing one custom bike at a time than doing one hundred cookie cutters. He got Bobby to back him up, and I ran the numbers. Dad will argue with one or two of us, but he figured all three Boltons agreeing on something was as close to a sure thing as he was going to get. So we switched. Two years later, we had made enough to build the shop. That was almost six years ago.”
“I see.” She looked around. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
“I’m sure Gina told you she did most of it.”
“Maybe.” She let out a soft giggle and bent over to break. It would be poor sportsmanship to run his hands over the swell of her bottom while she was shooting. He settled for staring.
“You think it’s pretentious to have resident artist-maids.”
This shot was better. Two stripes actually went in as the balls careened around the table. She almost looked like she knew what she was doing. “Don’t forget chef.”
“How could I?”
Still bent almost double, she looked back over her shoulder. “Any other surprises? You’re not hiding mimes in the basement or anything?”
“No mimes.” Sweet merciful heavens, she was still swaying. Her bottom was in serious danger of hypnotizing him. “You?”
“Nothing like Gina. Hang on.”
In six consecutive shots, she cleared the table. He stood gaping at her as the eight ball went down without a whimper. “You let me win?”
“Of course not.” Her innocent look was much more effective than his would ever be. “I was getting a feel for how you play the game.”
She’d let him win to make sure he’d lose. She could give as good as she got. Man, what a woman.
She