Chapter Fifteen Danny
A fter coming home from the bookstore, I tallied up my expenses and acquired a bit of appreciation for how much time Taryn insisted on putting in at the coffee shop. I’d put away a fair bit of money when I was enlisted, but even with Uncle Sam’s help via the G.I. Bill, I was going to need hours at the tire shop if I didn’t want to run through those savings before the end of freshman year. Between physical and online books, a graphing calculator, and a basic computer, I’d spent enough money to buy a second car. Never mind what I’d spent on furniture when I moved into the house on Jock Street.
I’d had the idea I’d stop by the coffee shop and razz Taryn for a minute like usual before heading to work, but since we had a date lined up for after she’d closed the shop and I’d finished with practice, I decided to clock in early at the tire store. But I should have stopped by her work on the way.
More than once, my mind strayed to our date. She hadn’t hinted at what it would be, and my curiosity was distracting the hell out of me. I bounced a hammer off my thumb, making it throb for long enough to start to concern me. Then I forgot to secure the air hose before firing up the pneumatic wrench. The hissing air alerted my coworkers to my rookie move, and they flipped me shit about it for the rest of the afternoon.
At last Taryn put me out of my misery a few minutes before I clocked out to head to practice.
Taryn: Are we still celebrating your mad football skills tonight?
Me: We’d better be.
She shot me an eye-roll emoji followed by:
Taryn: Meet me at the mini-golf near City Park at 8:30 p.m.
Me: I don’t know where City Park is. We should probably ride together so you can show me.
My suggestion was met with another eye-roll emoji. Guess I was more transparent than I thought.
Taryn: City Park is one block off Main on the east end of town. There’s a BIG sign.
Me: You’re going to feel bad if I get lost.
Taryn: If you get lost finding such an easy place, I’m going to wonder if your ability to run a route is overrated.
Me. Harsh. So very harsh.
Taryn: Not as harsh as the differences between our scorecards tonight.
Me: Since when did you learn to trash talk?
Taryn: Since the football team discovered the Coffee Kiosk.
She followed that up with a winky-face emoji, and my good mood at seeing her words on my screen evaporated. Wildcats were frequenting her coffee shop? What the hell did that mean? I’d been dropping by for the past month, and I hadn’t seen a single teammate in the place. Granted, I usually stopped right before closing, but...
The fuck ? Were my teammates hitting on my girl? How the hell did they even know about her? While Taryn was never far from my thoughts, I hadn’t talked about her with any of the guys. After the disaster with Derek Watson in high school that had put me and her in the friend zone for the past five years, I’d learned my lesson. No way would I give in to a teammate—or anyone—over her ever again. Taryn Hamilton was my girl. End of story.
Practice lacked some of its usual fun as I scanned the faces of my teammates, wondering which ones were hanging out at the Coffee Kiosk while I was working at Touchstone. Afterward, I showered in record time and hit a drive-thru for a burger. I did not want to be late for my date with Taryn.
When she rolled up beside me in her compact car, the lights over the mini-golf course were coming on. Laughter from a couple of families taking advantage of the course on this warm August evening wafted through my open window. I rolled it up and stepped out of my car.
While I’d been away putting up with monotony broken up by a short stay overseas, my forever gorgeous Taryn had become effortlessly sexy. She stood in front of her car with a hand on her hip, a teasing smile ghosting across her features. She’d pulled her thick, dark hair into a ponytail, but stray tendrils escaped to caress her long, graceful neck the way my fingers itched to do. Her red V-neck T-shirt hinted at her pretty cleavage and clung to her curves in a way that made my mouth water. She’d tucked the shirt into a pair of white shorts that hit at mid-thigh and showed off her tan. How she managed a tan with all the hours she put in at the coffee shop was a mystery.
“Ready to celebrate your football prowess with a beatdown on the golf course?” she sassed.
“Taryn, Taryn, Taryn. Exactly how many times have you won at mini-golf? Once? Twice?” I stepped up close enough to catch a whiff of her spicy perfume accented with a faint scent of coffee. Delicious.
“While you were off saving the world, I was here, practicing my putting.” Spinning on her heel, she headed in the direction of the pro shop. “This is now my home turf,” she tossed over her shoulder with a smirk.
Caught up in the sexy sway of her hips as she walked ahead of me, it took me a second to form a sentence. Stepping next to her at the window, I said, “That’s some tough talk.”
“Don’t you worry your fine self. I can back it up,” she said as she handed her debit card to the attendant who charged it and handed her a scorecard and a pair of putters.
By the fourth hole, she was winning by a stroke and gloating rather obnoxiously. It was adorable. Except I couldn’t stop thinking about that comment about Wildcats players hanging out where she worked.
“So which Wildcats have you been practicing your trash talk with?” I asked as I lined up a shot.
“Fitz and Tarvi.”
I pulled my shot to the right and bounced the ball off the front of the windmill, missing the hole by a foot in a two-square-foot space.
“Seriously? What are those two doing hanging out at the coffee shop?”
She lined up her shot and kissed the ball off the left side of the hole, but she was better poised to sink it on the next turn than I was. “Fitz is along for the ride—or maybe the entertainment. Tarvi and Hailey are working on a thing—or maybe just honing their flirting skills. I’m not exactly sure.”
As soon as she said her coworker’s name, I relaxed and bounced my ball through the front door of the windmill and off the ramp in the back. Taryn glared at me, which made the shot even more fun.
“Hailey wants to go to the football party they’re hosting after your first game. Tarvi wants both of us to go, but those kinds of parties aren’t my scene.” Her shot sailed cleanly through the windmill to land beside mine in the back, so our score difference remained the same as we stepped over to the next hole.
Her casual comment didn’t require explanation. No amount of apology would ever fix my fuckup. But in my heart of hearts I had to admit I wasn’t sad she didn’t want to go to a football party. Her lack of interest gave me an out not to attend those parties either yet still save face with my teammates for skipping them. Because my girlfriend didn’t like them.
With only the two of us in our “group,” it wasn’t long before we’d caught up to one of the families playing ahead of us. Two busy little girls with messy pigtails and a running commentary on their skills as they raced around inside the loop-de-loop hole held up our game. From what I could gather, they’d be going pro anytime now. Taryn hid a grin behind her hand, but I didn’t bother hiding mine. Those kids were hilarious.
Stepping next to her, I casually slipped my arm around her waist and worked my ass off not to stuff my nose into her neck to draw in a lungful of her spicy perfume. She went utterly stiff when my body made contact with hers. Turning her head, she shot me a confused look, which I returned with a smile. Since my first day home after my discharge, I’d been subtly working toward moving us out of the friend zone. Based on her response to my move, I’d been too subtle.
Before she could balk or move away, the little girls’ dad noticed us waiting and nodded to the next hole. “We’re probably going to be a while. Maybe you want to play ahead and come back to this one?”
Taryn shrugged, and I said, “Sure.”
Reluctantly, I dropped my arm from its new favorite place wrapped around T’s waist, and we walked over to the water hazard. The two of us glanced at this hole then back to where the toddlers were playing and exchanged a smirk. Bet the frilly dresses those two had on would be drenched before they finished with the water hazard.
“You said you work most Saturdays.”
As she set up her shot, she nodded. “The perks of being promoted to assistant manager.”
“Do you ever get any off?”
“You mean like for the season-opening football game?” Though her head was down, her focus on her shot, I caught the tiny grin that tipped up the corner of her mouth.
“Yeah.”
She took her shot, chipping her ball over the water to land next to the hole, showing off that she wasn’t lying when she’d said she’d been practicing while I was away. Stepping aside to allow me my turn, she rested her hands on the top of her putter.
“Turns out I have that particular Saturday off. I was thinking about watching some Wildcats football.”
I lined up my shot. “Were you, now? Perfect timing since I’ll be suited up.”
She cleared her throat right as I swung, and I shanked my shot. My ball teetered on the edge of the water, and I put my hands up and blew at it in the hopes it wouldn’t drop into the drink. Taryn cracked up at my antics, her laughter making a trip into the water worth it.
“Does ‘suited up’ mean time on the field?” she asked as she neatly stepped past my scary shot to take her next one.
“What kind of a question is that, T? Of course I’ll be running routes and catching balls.”
“Just making sure. Wouldn’t want to waste my student pass on any old game.”
Her teasing smirk lit me up. But I played that close to the vest. “For the next four years, there won’t be ‘any old games.’ Count on it.” I gave her a side-eye. “You’re going to want to find a way to take Saturdays off. Just sayin’.”
Forced into an unnatural stance to take my shot, I mostly willed the ball away from one water hazard and nearly rolled it into the opposite water hazard. Taryn chipped hers perfectly and gained another point on me as my play ended in one-over-par on the hole. We finished up right as the family behind us did, so we switched holes.
As we passed them, Taryn gazed at the chattering little girls with a wistful kind of sadness. Then she blinked and glanced up at their mom with a smile. “Twins?” she asked.
“Twenty minutes apart.” The woman sighed. “They were talking in the womb.”
“They’re adorable.”
“Until we play this next hole.” The dad’s tone said he was kind of looking forward to it.
While we played the looping hole, I snagged every opportunity to touch my girl—a brush of our bare arms, a gentle shoulder bump, tugging on her ponytail—and I relished every hitch in her breath, every tiny shiver, every wide-eyed glance. By the second-to-last hole when I’d managed to break her concentration enough to tie her—a nice side perk, but not my goal—she planted her hand on her hip and glared at me.
“Danny Chambers. We are playing this hole fair. You stay over there”—she pointed to a spot right outside the raised edge of the playing area—“and keep your hands to yourself while I shoot.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I was good at feigning innocence, but she wasn’t buying it.
“You were losing so you resorted to underhanded touchy-feely tricks.” She glared. “It’s not a win if you have to cheat.”
Giving her a sly smile, I said, “Who said I was trying to win?”
“Ha. Ha. You’re sooo funny.”
She lined up her shot and impressively chipped her ball into the top of the volcano—a hole in one. Forgetting herself, she danced a little happy dance and flung her arms around my neck. I wrapped my arms around her too and swung her in the air, both of us laughing. I sensed her awareness of our bodies pressed together a second before her laughter stopped.
The electric blue of her eyes sparked, but she said, “You can put me down.”
Her soft curves molded to my body like two parts of one whole. Fuck . No one else had ever felt so good, so right, pressed up against me like this. I would have held her for the rest of the evening if she’d let me. Instead, I slowly let her slide down my body until her feet touched the ground again, savoring the sensation of being close to her.
Wide-eyed, she smoothed her hand over her hair and picked up her putter from where she’d dropped it by the tee. Sliding her eyes sort of past me, she said, “Your turn.” The scratchiness of her voice told me she wasn’t as immune to me as she pretended to be.
After four tries I finally made the shot, and we moved on to the last hole. But something had shifted between us. Taryn kept sneaking looks at me like I was some sort of puzzle she needed to figure out. She also went out of her way to put distance between us. I was okay with her first response. Not so much with the second.