Stranded Ranch : A Sweet Cowboy Romance (A Pride and Pranks Romance)

Chapter 7

We gathered all the lanterns my grandparents had in the house and brought them with us down the rickety basement steps, the only access through the kitchen. My grandpa had played ping pong in the Vietnam war and had had the table in their basement for as long as I could remember. Summers with Dusty and Julia meant a lot of ping pong competitions. We had all started terrible, as most kids are, but mix that with a lot of bored, hot summer days sneaking into the house to cool off, and we grew to be good competition for each other. Julia was usually more of a skilled competitor where sports were involved, but for whatever reason, ping pong was something I did better. The hours Dusty and I used to spend playing against one another came back to me as strong as the smell of moth and dampness that hit my nose when we reached the dark basement. The lanterns gave the musty room a cozy yellow glow.

Even if the power hadn’t been off, the room had always felt dark to me. At one time, in the prime of the home’s life, the basement had been used as a second family room. A box TV straight from the eighties sat on a small stand in the back corner and a few pieces of mismatched furniture were settled haphazardly around it. Dark wood paneling lined the walls and I shivered a bit as the cold from the basement seeped into my skin. The ping pong table sat dusty and unused at the base of the stairs.

I had played a bit at college—usually there was an apartment lounge somewhere with a ping pong table in it. I quickly found out that it’s one of those sports where, when a guy finds out you can hold your own, you become a member of some ping pong club where guys would call me up at random to play against them. Ping pong had been a safe way for me to hang around boys since we were both so focused on the game, I had less time to say something dumb and make a fool out of myself. It had been nearly ten years since Dusty and I had shared a table. By the ease with which he held the paddle in his hands and the quick way he had agreed to make a pie if he lost...I had to assume he was good. Really good.

“I don’t remember you being a leftie,” I said, nodding toward the hand he held his paddle in.

“It was probably hard to tell when your vision was so blurry from crying.”

“Bring it on, Bennett.” I flipped the paddle up in the air, watching as it spun gracefully. I wasn’t trying to show off, necessarily, but thought it was a nice touch. Until it bounced out of my hand and clattered to the table.

“I’m shaking in my boots.”

“Serve the dang ball.”

He won the ping round so he went first. The game went steady for the first few rounds of back and forth. He would get a point and then me, keeping an easy pace with each other. Unless he was holding back until he got a feel for how I play. Which, coincidentally, was exactly what I was doing. Usually, the first half of any ping pong match was a general assessment of your opponent’s skill level. Ping pong was like volleyball. If you played against people with a similar skill level as you, it could be the most enjoyable game in the world. If one team was significantly worse or better, it was literal torture. We seemed evenly matched for the most part, as we eased into the game, amid light ribbing and teasing. It had been a while since I had played, but it came back quickly. It was amazing the way sports could connect people. Or in our case, reconnect. Being back at the ping pong table where we had spent so much of our summers together felt like old times almost instantly.

The ball popped up high, and I reached across with a forearm swing and slammed it down on his side of the table. Instead of trying to go for the ball, he only covered his head with his arms, protecting himself.

“Nineteen to seventeen, chicken,” I boasted.

He picked up the ball near his foot. “I gave you that one.”

“I was aiming for your face, but I missed.”

He laughed. “My serve, hotshot.”

It was another point for me. He put both hands on the table with his head down, while I sang out, “Twenty to seventeen. My mouth is watering.”

He lifted his head, a smile playing on his lips. “Mine too.”

I could have played off the comment. He was just talking about ping pong. Teasing. Laughing. But then he looked at me about two seconds too long, his teasing eyes boring into mine. Forcing me to only think about one thing, a full-blown make-out session in the dark, damp basement. I was a walking cliche after that…rapid heartbeat, flutters in the stomach, shortness of breath, and—

“Game point,” Dusty said, watching me curiously and snapping me out of my fantasy.

I shook it off and crouched down into my ready position and was surprised when he suddenly put his paddle down on the table.

“Did you ever see that movie The Princess Bride?”

“Who hasn’t seen that movie?”

“Remember the sword fight scene?”

“Yeah…” A bad feeling started entering my stomach at this point.

A smile that had been simmering at the surface for at least half the game began making its way across his face. There was a gleam in his eyes as he nodded when he could tell I had figured out what he was telling me.

“Imagine me, Inigo Montoya, switching my sword hand. That’s me right now.” He theatrically tossed his paddle into his right hand, and unlike me caught it with the grace of a cat.

My heart sank. “You’re not a leftie.”

“No.”

I crossed my arms at my chest. “It’s not my problem how you choose to play the game. I’m still ahead.”

“Fair. I’m just switching hands so I can crush you.”

Our eyes were locked, both of us trying not to break.

“Not sure what the rule books say about switching hands during the game.”

“Are you scared?”

“No, but I really want chocolate pie. And I don’t want to make it. Things were going pretty well for me with you as a leftie.”

“I could stay a leftie and still beat you. I’m not worried. I’m mostly just worried about your ego. I’m sure you’d want to beat me at my best.”

“Eh, I’m not too picky.”

He laughed while I tried to rein in my facial expression. My cheeks hurt from smiling.

“Go ahead and switch it up. It will be more poetic to crush you with your dominant hand.”

He only smiled before pounding me with an ace serve. Meaning the serve was so fast it glanced off the farthest corner possible on the table, gaining him a quick and decisive point. I could only gape at the ball and then at him.

He grinned. “Eighteen to twenty.”

I scooted back a foot as he served again. This time I returned the ball, but straight into the net.

My eyes narrowed. “What kind of spin are you putting on that ball?”

He gave me a mock confused look. “Spin? Nineteen to twenty. Worried yet?”

“Serve the ball.”

Another point in his favor tied us up at twenty. The game was played until the first person reached the score of twenty-one points, but the winner had to win by two points. Which meant it was time for me to put an end to this madness.

“Have you ever seen that movie, The Princess Bride?”

He had been about ready to serve again, before he stopped himself, meeting my eyes, instantly wary.

“What?”

“Remember that part after Inigo switched hands with his sword?”

A disbelieving smile stretched out across his face as he shook his head. “Don’t say it.”

“Imagine me like the man in black, switching my sword hand.” I dramatically threw my paddle up in the air catching it with my left. Emphasis on the words ‘catching it.’ It was a beautiful, triumphant moment.

“You’re a leftie.”

“Game on, cowboy.”

Our eyes were locked in a battle of wills, both of us grinning like idiots, trying to rein in our smiles but unsuccessful at doing so.

“My serve,” I said. He tossed me the ball and scooted back from the table a couple of feet, body stilled and ready, obviously waiting for me to pound it across his table. Well, I had seen enough of his forearm work that I knew I couldn’t win by my offensive skills. Good defense was my only chance. I brought my serve back and made it seem like I was going to slam it across the table when instead I hit the ball so soft it barely tipped over the net. Dusty scrambled forward as fast as he could but ultimately hit only air.

I sighed triumphantly. “Twenty-one to twenty.”

“That’s how you want to play, huh?”

“You mean, like winning? Generally.”

He shook his head slowly, a dangerous smile forming across his lips. “Buckle up, girl. My serve.”

His next serve seemed like an easy return, but the second my paddle touched it, the ball bounced off somewhere behind me. I turned back to glare at Dusty. “You and your dang spins.”

“No idea what you’re talking about. I’m trying to go easy on you.”

“Shut up.”

We went back and forth like that, each of us trying our biggest and grandest tricks, gaining a point, only to have the other person do the same on the next serve. We were tied thirty to thirty when we stopped for a group meeting.

“Alright,” I began. “We obviously could do this all night.”

“If you want to just admit defeat and get started baking that pie, I’d be fine with that.”

“Ha. The only way this is going to end is if we both go back to using our non-dominant hand.”

“You were winning when we were doing that.”

I grinned. “It just seems like the best way.”

“You really want me to attempt to bake a pie, don’t you?”

I folded my arms. “Listen, Bennett. If you think for one second that I am just going to let you loose in my grandmother’s kitchen by yourself, you’re crazy. When the lights come back on, we will both be making that pie.”

He laughed. “That does make me feel better. Alright, switch hands.”

He went to serve before he stopped. “Wait. What if the electricity doesn’t come back on today? What else are we playing for?”

“Nothing! Aren’t you tired?”

“I could do this all day. How about we play for a secret?”

My eyes narrowed. “What secret?”

“I think you know.” The soft voice, his teasing smile made my heart flutter. “I need to know why you kissed me.”

“I can’t believe you’re still thinking about it after all this time.”

“I gotta admit, I hadn’t thought about it for years, but now with you here again and smelling really good…I just have questions that won’t ease up.”

“Well, sorry. That’s a secret I’m taking to my grave.”

He studied me for a moment, mischief in his eyes. “Alright then. We play for a kiss. If I win, you do it again, only this time, we’ll see if you can hit your mark. And if you win…I’ll show you how it’s done.”

I could only stare at his mouth. My eyes could see nothing else but full, luscious boy lips. I no longer had a stomach. Or, I did, but it was lodged somewhere between my throat and chest. My cheeks burned, my nerves were zinging, all the while desperately trying to play it cool. Which is something I had never been able to pull off.

“Those seem like pretty high stakes considering that until yesterday I hadn’t seen you for eight years.”

Studying me for a moment he added in a softer tone, “Yeah, but…it doesn’t really feel like it’s been eight years, does it?”

I could only agree with him. Perhaps this connection between us felt weird to him too. This something humming between us was only getting stronger, which made me nervous because we lived two separate lives. In two different states.

He continued. “How about this? You lose and you can cash it in anytime before I leave. From the looks of the storm, I might be here a few more days.”

Reality came flooding back at his mention of the storm, however. Somehow, down in this damp, cozy cave, I had allowed myself to push all storm thoughts aside. The thought of him leaving us alone on this ranch scared me, even though twenty-four hours earlier, he hadn’t been a thought in my conscience. But nerves aside, I had to see this through. If this was my last chance to prove myself, then…well, I’d better do it.

“Deal.”

His eyes lit up. “Really?”

“You’re going to lose so it won’t matter too much what your end of the bet is.”

“I’d like to think that if I won, we would both win.”

I was swooned into silence. Mercy, Dusty Bennett as a man did different things to my senses than as a boy. When I noticed the smile on his face, I asked, “Is that your plan? To get me all flustered so you can win? Cheap shot.”

“Are you flustered?” He looked intrigued at this idea.

What was happening? I had never had this easy of a relationship with a man in all my life. How was it happening like this? So easy? And with Dusty? My sister’s childhood crush. Thankfully, she was happily married at the moment and not secretly pining for her long-lost crush. At least I sincerely hoped she wasn’t.

“Serve the ball, cowboy.”

He laughed and moved into position, both of us having switched hands. The game went slower this time as we each lobbed the ball back and forth, playing more defense than offense, waiting for the other to make a mistake. Which I did. And, for the record, it was a legit mistake. I returned the ball too softly and it landed in the net. Happens to people all the time.

“I think somebody secretly wants to get some.”

“Shut up. My serve.”

“Game point,” Dusty said. “But I probably don’t need to tell you that.”

It was my serve. And a lot was riding on this moment. Though I was beginning to feel the same as Dusty, even if I lost, I would still be a winner.

In all actuality, it was good that I had that attitude. Because I did lose. I hid my face behind my hands while Dusty casually flung his paddle onto the table as if he did this all the time. I was hiding a humongous grin, and I was embarrassed that I let him into my head enough to lose this game. He had set me up to make a great ace shot with my forearm. Except I had never had a good forearm shot. I was a much better defensive player. Which he must have known. He played right into my weakness.

I heard movement closer to me, and I gave myself a second to put on my brave face before removing my hands.

He walked toward me slowly, his soft green eyes boring into mine. Oh my heavens, were we going to do this now? In my nasty sweatshirt and sweatpants? My heart rate spiked. I thought he said…sometime…not now.

He paused in his pursuit and folded his arms, eyeing me. “Why do you look like I’m about to kill a baby bunny? Did you think I was going to kiss you right now?”

“No,” I scoffed.

“You did.”

A piece of fuzz on my sweatpants needed my direct attention.

He leaned forward with barely restrained glee, to meet my eyes. “I’m not giving away the farm. You’ve got to work for it. Besides, you have to kiss me. You have until I leave, whenever that is.” He slid past me, brushing against my arm lightly, and began walking up the stairs.

“This might be our best game yet, Lou.”