Chapter Thirteen Cash
Chapter Thirteen
Cash
I’d asked Saylor to meet me at the screening room because Piper had let it slip she had a class there on Thursday afternoon.
If the woman was going to try to bail on me, she’d have to miss class or sneak out early to do it.
As skittish as she was about going out with me, I didn’t want to take any chances.
I’d quarterbacked my high school team to two state championships my junior and senior years of high school.
If not for fucking up my knee sophomore year of college, I was on my way to quarterbacking the Huskies to a conference championship.
I knew how to play hard for what I wanted.
Even though Saylor and I hadn’t spent a ton of time together—yet—I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anyone, including my long-term ex-girlfriend back in Washington.
Saylor’s self-confidence and swagger drew me to her before I’d even set eyes on her stunning face. She had no doubt about her worth and wouldn’t stand for anyone not appreciating it. I could relate to her assertiveness and take-no-prisoners attitude. So fucking hot.
Saylor was the whole sexy package. I couldn’t wait to take her on the best date she’d ever had.
With my duffel bag on the floor at my feet, I leaned casually against the wall opposite the door to the screening room, my hands in my pockets, the picture of nonchalance.
While she’d eagerly kissed the shit out of me behind the anonymity of our masks at Mardi Gras, since I’d finally discovered her identity at the cornhole tournament, she’d been acting standoffish.
After our conversation about postgrad plans, I understood why.
I wasn’t asking her to marry me. I only wanted a chance to get to know the prettiest and most intriguing woman I’d ever met.
After that? Well, later could sort itself out.
The door to the little theater opened, and people streamed out of it, some on their phones, some chatting with each other.
I recognized the whiney-ass director of Saylor’s project as he exited the room by himself, his expression pinched, and I hoped it didn’t mean something bad for her.
Our date was supposed to be fun, but if she was still stressing over their project, that could be a problem.
Unease prickled through me. As a quarterback, I lived for timing. On the field, my timing was impeccable. But I may have made a colossal mistake in timing this date if Barry What’s-his-bucket’s expression was anything to go by.
As the room emptied out, a group of students surrounding my date emerged, all of them grinning, but none of their grins were as big as Saylor’s.
When her gaze landed on me, the wattage of her smile dialed up to blinding, and I let out a breath.
She said something to the people surrounding her and then stepped over to me as they wandered down the hallway toward the Union’s cafeteria.
“Hello, handsome. This date had better deliver, especially since it follows what just happened in there.” Saylor nodded over her shoulder in the direction of the theater.
Taking a chance, I leaned down and brushed a kiss over the silky skin of her cheek before whispering in her ear, “Like I told you before, sweetheart. I always come through on my promises.”
I clocked the tiny shiver that rippled over her and grinned inwardly with satisfaction.
Dropping my hand to the small of her back, I guided her toward the stairwell leading out to a sidewalk that ran along the faculty parking lot in front of the Union.
I’d taken a different chance and parked my Jeep in some professor’s spot.
At this time of the evening, I doubted I’d be ticketed let alone towed, and I didn’t want to waste date time on accidentally running into anyone we knew as we walked across campus to the student lot.
“I saw the expression on your director’s face as he walked out of class. It was one-eighty different from yours. So what happened in there?” I asked as we tossed our bags into the back seat of my ride.
Saylor slid into the passenger seat and buckled herself in before turning to me with a wicked gleam in her gorgeous amber eyes.
“Today was the final screening of Film 301 projects. We screen and critique two or three films each class for the two weeks leading up to finals. My group’s was the first film of the afternoon, and let’s just say, Barry’s choices were roundly panned. ”
“Ouch! You seem pretty happy about that, but doesn’t that mean your project took a digger?” I asked as I wheeled us out of the parking lot.
“The thing is, everyone in the room has copies of the original scripts used to make the movies. The editors in the room are watching the films for editing choices, the cinematographers for cinematography choices, the directors for director’s choices, et cetera.
” She turned in her seat to see if I was following.
When I nodded, she continued. “Not only did the directors call Barry out for his nonsensical ideas, but the professor also came back to how he coulda, shoulda, woulda directed our project better based on how the other directors in our cohort had directed theirs—how we’d been taught to direct a film last semester. ”
I glanced over to catch the diabolical smirk on her face. “You truly enjoyed his takedown, didn’t you?”
“You have no idea.” She laughed. “The rest of the team received kudos for our work, especially in the face of Barry’s poor direction.
They really liked the way I’d edited the scene where the monster materializes from its hiding spot on a tree to flow over and cover up the unsuspecting heroine—something Barry had wanted me to change at the last minute, but I’d refused.
Esme did such a great job with the special effects that the scene needed to stay right where Tamir wrote it.
” With a fist pump, she growled, “Vindication, thy name is Saylor Davis.”
I didn’t think I’d ever heard anything sexier than Saylor’s excitement about owning her decision.
“Any chance you’re going to show me this project? After everything you’ve shared about it, I kinda want to see it.”
“It won’t be as impressive on my computer,” she hedged.
“Bet I could talk someone into letting us watch it in the film room at the facility.” I waggled my brows at her.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I smiled. “But not tonight. Tonight is about getting know each other better.” As I maneuvered us into the flow of traffic and headed out of town, I said, “You wanna pick the tunes?”
I was curious about what she liked to listen to, so when she chose the alternative rock station the college pumped out from its studio in the middle of campus, I smiled.
“I’m not sure I would have pegged you as a headbanger, but I like it. A lot.”
She bobbed along to the newest Balefire song. “I saw these guys at a small venue in Missoula last year. They were awesome.”
“Jealous. I wanted to go to that show, but I had practice.”
“Does that ever bother you?”
“What?”
“Giving up fun for football?”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ve had plenty of fun both on the field and off it.” I let that sit for a second. “Tonight, for example, is going to be a real good time.”
Half an hour later, we pulled into the parking lot where everyone staged for river floats, and Saylor shot me a dubious look. “We aren’t floating the river at this time of night, are we?”
“It’s called a sunset float, and we’ll be out by dark.” I hopped out of my ride and came around to open her door for her. “The changing rooms are over there.” I nodded in the direction of a brick building nestled in the corner of the parking lot.
“I don’t know about this, Cash,” Saylor demurred.
“Don’t worry. We won’t be the only raft on the water. But you’ll have to hustle up so we’re not dead last.”
With one last frown in my direction, Saylor grabbed her messenger bag and headed to the changing rooms. While she was putting on her swimsuit, I gathered up the raft I’d stowed in the back of my Jeep, pumped it up with my portable air pump, and tossed in the pair of towels I’d vacuum-sealed in a watertight bag.
Then I grabbed the small cooler I’d borrowed from Taco and filled with sandwiches, brownies, and beer and set it on the ground beside the raft.
The “raft” was actually a glorified inner tube with seating for two and that mini cooler.
I tossed my T-shirt into the back seat of the Jeep and draped another towel over my shoulders.
The vacuum-sealed towels were for the ride back to my Jeep on the shuttle I’d reserved.
By the time I had everything ready, Saylor was walking across the parking lot wearing a hot-pink bikini top with some kind of scarf knotted around her hips.
She’d pulled her hair up in a ponytail, her look so effortlessly sexy she stole all my coherent thought for a few seconds.
“Snap out of it, Cash. It’s just a bikini,” she said with a naughty smirk as she joined me beside my Jeep.
“Maybe on someone else, it’s just a bikini,” I muttered as I reached for her bag. “Let me stow that in the covered compartment.”
After hiding her valuables out of sight, I closed and locked the Jeep, dropping the keys into a zippered pocket on my board shorts.
Snagging the raft with one hand and the cooler with the other, I led the way down to the launch point at the edge of the river.
Even though it was spring, an upstream dam controlled the water levels, keeping the river consistently placid and never more than chest-deep.
It was more like a lazy river at an amusement park than a normal Montana mountain stream.
Or that was what my teammates had told me when I asked them about the sunset float I’d seen on a flyer on campus. Since I was still new to the area, I hadn’t had a chance to vet the experience for myself.
Though it was late May, it was also seven in the evening when we waded into the water. Involuntarily, I sucked in a breath as the cold water swirled around my feet and ankles.