Chapter Thirteen Taryn
Danny’s decision to attend Mountain State had upended my carefully laid plans. I would have thought between two-a-day practices and a job, he wouldn’t have time to come around to bug me. Yet most evenings after his second practice, he dropped by the Coffee Kiosk for a grasshopper steamer while I cleaned up and closed the shop. More than once, he’d hinted at coming over to my place afterward, but fortunately, I had homework to hide behind.
He let me hide, but I sensed it was a temporary thing.
The trouble was seeing him every day again took me back to high school, when I’d lived for our study nights. He’d come over to the house, Mom would have snacks waiting, and we’d sit at the dining room table mostly working on homework, but also cracking jokes and gossiping about classmates and sharing bits about our lives. I, of course, had spent too much of that time stealing glances at him when he was immersed in his homework. Half the time when I was staring at my own work, my mind was in a fantasyland where Danny and I were more than study buddies. More than friends.
Other than the venue, nothing had changed. We still gossiped about friends and cracked jokes. And I was still stealing glances at him.
“What did Bax’s T-shirt say today?” I asked as I swept the front of the shop. Even though I hadn’t met any of his roommates, Danny’s descriptions and stories made me feel like I knew them.
He snorted a laugh. “Today’s was excellent.” Clearing his throat, he said, “‘Sometimes I meet people and feel sorry for their dog.’ Bax is a monster on the field, but off it he’s hilarious.” Leaning against the counter, he took a drink of his steamer. “Callahan never stops flipping him shit about having no game with the ladies, especially with his T-shirt collection, but the girls at Stromboli’s the other night sure seemed into him.”
I tried to cover the stutter in my rhythm by pulling out a chair so I could sweep beneath a table. “You went to Stromboli’s the other night? How was it?” Keeping my eyes on my task, I hoped my tone sounded casual.
Classes started in a week. If there were girls at Stromboli’s who were into football players, that meant the groupies had returned to campus. I needed to steel myself for when Danny started dating them.
“Finn has no game whatsoever. He’s so effective on the field—he can read offenses like he’s in the huddle when they call the play—but he doesn’t have a clue with girls.” He chuckled. “I spent pizza night in the corner of the booth highly entertained.”
“Guess you’ll have to give your roommates some pointers, huh?” I stepped around him to put away the broom and dust pan and blinked at the scowl that crossed his features before he lifted his cup to his lips again.
“They’re big boys. They can figure it out for themselves.”
As I clocked out and grabbed my keys and wallet, his grumpy tone tumbled around in my head. He’d said he’d sat in the corner of the booth. Did that mean the groupies didn’t notice him around guys significantly bigger than him? I mean, I hadn’t met any of Danny’s roommates, but I knew their positions—middle linebacker, defensive end, and tight end. Guys playing those positions came in extra-large, while as a receiver, Danny was only large.
He didn’t need to worry. Once classes started, women would be all over him, exactly like the girls in our high school had been. Even though his field of study didn’t have loads of women in it, if he spent any time at all in the Union or the library, women would find him. Guys who looked like Danny Chambers and had his added bonuses of intelligence, humor, and athleticism drew women like cats to catnip.
Peeking my head out of the office, I said, “In case you were wondering, you can’t spend the night in here.”
With athletic grace he pushed away from the counter and stepped behind it to the office to follow me out the back.
After locking up, I wandered over to my car. Danny had taken to parking his Mustang beside mine in the employee lot behind the store. This evening he’d backed his car into the space beside mine so the driver’s doors were together.
In the few short weeks since football camp had started, he’d made a point of putting us back on familiar territory—except for the part where he created opportunities to touch me. Somehow there was a brush of his bare forearm over mine as I wiped down counters, or our fingers would touch when I handed him his usual drink, or his arm would ghost over my shoulders if we sat together at a table before my coworkers clocked out. Tonight as we headed to our cars, he bumped my shoulder with his and then continued walking beside me with only a thin cushion of air separating us. My skin rippled in anticipation of the next brush of his skin, forcing me to struggle to concentrate on his words.
“You ever going to invite me over to your place?”
“Are you going to invite me to yours?” I countered as I leaned against my car door, deliberately putting some space between us.
“Later, when I know my roommates better.”
Something in his tone drew my attention to his face. Though fleeting, the shadow I saw there made me wonder.
“I have a final to study for this week. If you had something to study too, we could study together, but since you don’t—” I shrugged. “Guess you need to go home and get to know your roommates better.”
“School’s about to start, and we’ve hardly spent any time together.” The pouty look on his handsome face did funny things to my insides.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I smirked. “Yeah. Adulting does have some downsides.”
“T...” He sounded the letter out to three syllables.
“Danny...” I mimicked his delivery.
“Can I at least take you for an ice cream? I found a place that serves dipped cones—chocolate, strawberry, caramel. Mmm.” He closed his eyes in rapture, but when he opened them, something wicked danced in their heated silver-gray depths. Trying to figure out why he insisted on turning on the flirt with me was driving me to distraction.
Yet the temptation of a dipped cone had me wavering. Damn. He knew me so well.
“Come on, T. You have time for an ice cream.”
Blowing a breath at my bangs, I said, “Fine. I’ll grab an ice cream with you, but only for half an hour. I need to study tonight because I work a double after class tomorrow.”
When I turned to key myself into my car, his big, warm hand on my arm stayed me.
“I’ll drive.”
Glancing up at him—why did he insist on standing so close?—I said, “Yeah. Me too. I’ll follow you.”
“Not what I meant, Taryn. If you’re only giving me thirty minutes, I want them all. I’ll drop you off back here afterward. Promise.”
The intensity in his words played at odds with his flirty smile, but it was the almost imperceptible squeeze of his hand on my arm that tugged the acquiescing sigh from my chest.
“Fine.” I shoved my keys into the pocket of my shorts and stepped around him to circle the front of his car. “But I really have to head home in half an hour.”
With a triumphant grin, he slid into the driver’s seat and reached across the console to unlock the passenger door. When I closed myself inside his car with him I had to work hard not to suck in a long breath of Danny-scented air. The interior smelled of leather, sandalwood, and something clean that was uniquely him. As always his scent drew me to him, at once making me feel safe and leaving a heaviness low in my belly that I resolutely ignored as I buckled myself in.
“I didn’t know any place in town offered dipped cones. Must be new. How did you discover it?” I asked as he put the car in gear and eased us out of the parking lot.
“Bax knows all the good places in town. He turned me onto it. Wait till you see. They swirl the cones and everything. The coating is that perfect crispiness that cracks when you bite it then melts in your mouth with the ice cream.” His eyes twinkled as he kissed his fingers off his lips. “Mwah! Perfection.”
With a laugh, I said, “Easy there, tiger. Keep your focus on the road.”
The ice-cream shop was a hole-in-the-wall between a popular downtown bar and a specialty boutique selling antique rugs and collectibles. Since I rarely came downtown and only ever spent time in the bar at night after the other downtown shops had closed, I’d never noticed the ice-cream store before. Its cute interior gave off the impression of a turn-of-the-century soda fountain, with its row of round metal-legged tables for two tucked along a dark wood wall opposite a long glass case filled with a variety of pastries that made my mouth water.
Ignoring them, Danny clasped my hand and led me to the opposite end of the room where an older man wearing a red-and-white striped apron and a matching old-timey hat, the fabric creased longways from his forehead to the back of his head, stood behind a part of the case housing gallons of ice cream. Behind him a stainless-steel machine with a long handle and two spigots hummed. A stack of cones waited on the counter beside it. Sunken into that same counter were three round vats with stainless-steel covers.
“What size cone do you want?” Danny asked as we stepped in front of the man.
“Medium.”
“We’d like two medium dipped cones, please,” he said.
“What dipping flavors can I get you?” the man asked as he turned to grab two cones from the stack. “We have chocolate, strawberry, and butterscotch.”
“Chocolate for me,” Danny said. “What about you, T?”
I put a finger to my lips. “That’s a tough one.” My eyes darted between the butterscotch and strawberry cones in the photo on the wall above the counter. At last I said, “Butterscotch.”
“I could have guessed that,” Danny said, his eyes dancing.
The server made a show of swirling vanilla ice cream from the stainless-steel dispenser onto the cones then dipping each cone into its respective vat, doing a little spin to let the excess coating trickle back into the vat before tipping the cone up so there was a perfect curl at the top. He handed my cone to me first, then Danny dropped my hand to take his own cone but set it in the holder beside the register while he pulled his wallet from the pocket of his workout shorts. After he’d paid for our treats, he gestured for me to sit at one of the nearby tables.
It must have been near closing time since only one other table was occupied by a couple of older women who nevertheless gave Danny a long, appreciative look. I shook my head as I sat across from him, and his brows came together.
“What’s that look for?”
“Nothing.” I bit the top off my cone and closed my eyes as rich, buttery sweetness filled my mouth.
“Taryn...” His tone held a warning.
Blinking my eyes open, I shrugged. “You can’t help it. No matter where you go, women admire you.”
His brows shot up.
Nodding over my shoulder in the direction of the other occupied table, I said, “Those two look old enough to be your mom, but they still devoured you with their eyes when you walked by.”
A faint pink hue highlighted his high cheekbones as he snorted his retort. “Riiight.” Tipping his chin at my cone, he asked, “What do you think? Better than the DQ at home, huh?”
“The presentation is more fun.” I glanced around the shop. The black-and-white photos on the walls and the soda fountain behind the glass pastry case gave the impression we’d stepped back to the sixties. I nipped more coating from my cone and licked some rich vanilla ice cream. “Mmm, yeah. The ice cream is better too.”
As he watched me enjoy my treat, the silver of Danny’s eyes heated in a way that zinged straight to the apex of my thighs. Beneath the table I crossed one knee over the other and wondered at his expression. It implied something more than friends.
Dropping my gaze back to my cone, I nibbled more butterscotch then gestured to his cone. “Are you going to let that melt?”
A scratchy laugh hiccupped from his throat before he cleared it. “Just wondering if you were going to give me a taste of your butterscotch.”
“You are so transparent.”
“What?” Leaning back in his chair, he feigned innocence.
“I’m warning you. If you eat half my cone in one bite—as usual—I’m returning the favor.”
Reluctantly, I held my cone out to him, and he wrapped his fingers around my wrist to take a taste. His eyes danced above the treat as he opened his mouth wide. Involuntarily, I tugged back, but he tightened his hold and at the last second backed off to restrict himself to a taste. I hoped he didn’t notice the pounding of my pulse at the touch of his fingers on my skin.
With a thin-lipped smile, Danny enjoyed his taste and held out his cone for me to try. Narrowing my eyes, I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and gingerly lowered my head to take a bite. I’d been on the receiving end of his teasing in the past, and I neither wanted to chomp at air nor wear ice cream on my nose and chin. But he held still as I nipped a bit of chocolatey coating and vanilla cream from his cone.
“I think I like yours better,” he said as he studied his treat.
“Sorry, dude. I’m not trading.” To emphasize my point, I took a rather unladylike mouthful of ice cream, leaving behind a rather generous part of the shell. I licked vanilla ice cream from my lips and crunched the butterscotch shell.
Shaking his head, an enigmatic expression on his face, Danny said, “You’re a mean woman, T.”
Though his gaze flicked to my treat for a second, somehow I had the impression he wasn’t talking about sharing ice cream.
“Have you registered for classes yet?” I asked—more to take my mind off watching his tongue slide out to lick a drop of melted cream from the shell of his dessert than because it was important.
“All the new players had to stay after morning practice yesterday to register.” He rolled his eyes. “Cost me an hour of work for something I could have done on my own.”
“You may be an atypical freshman, but sometimes people are going to forget that. Might as well figure that out now.” I smirked. “So what does your first semester look like?”
“Calculus, physics, Intro to Engineering, and”—his pause came with a smirk—“public speaking. You gonna help me with that one, Miss Communications Major?”
I shot him a grimace from beneath my brows. “I’ve seen you in action. You can BS your way through anything without taking a course on it.”
“It’s required for my major.” He chomped down on his cone and swallowed the bite. “Since it must have been a required class for you too, I figured you could help me with it.”
“Out of the lineup you described, that class is going to be your least challenging. I doubt you’ll need any help with it at all.” I nibbled around the edge of my cone. “Your schedule sounds pretty full, though, especially with a job and football.”
What I didn’t say was that I didn’t hear much time in his day for socializing. That knowledge should have relieved me, but instead a pang of regret stabbed me in the solar plexus.
He popped the bottom of his cone into his mouth, grinned at me as he chewed and swallowed and said, “Don’t worry, T. We’ll find time to study together in the evenings after I finish practice and you get off work.” After delivering his comment as a foregone conclusion, he leaned back in his chair and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “One of the best parts of going to school here is hanging out with you again.”