Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
MAVERICK
“ W hoa.” Dad smacked me on the back. “You okay?”
I nodded and spat the mushroom that had just tried to kill me into a napkin. Once I could breathe again, I twisted in my seat to glare at my mother. “Do you mind?”
“What?” She feigned innocence. “If I’m going to die soon, I might as well guilt you kids into making up before I’m gone.”
Why did she have to talk like that?
When her treatments had started, she’d held on to a glimmer of hope that the drugs would work. That the intense chemotherapy, that first induction, would be enough to kill the leukemia cells. But that glimmer of hope had faded when the biopsy results had come back with cancer cells. The hope had disappeared entirely after the reinduction and transplant and subsequent test after test.
Now Mom seemed determined to use that fucking word at every opportunity.
Die.
She was dying. But did we have to fucking talk about it ?
“Can we not share dying wishes over dinner?”
She gave me a sad smile.
Mom was breaking my heart one sad smile at a time.
“Make the most of it.” Her favorite saying.
Mom always told me to make the most of it.
“So? What do you say?” She looked between Stevie and me. “One date?”
Stevie’s eyes were huge, and for a woman who absolutely hated meat lover’s pizza, she shoved a huge bite into her mouth, gagging as she chewed, just so she wouldn’t have to answer.
I glanced to Dad, hoping he’d come to my rescue.
He was focused on his meal. So were Elle and Declan.
“Uh...” I dragged a hand over my face.
The doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it.” I was out of my chair and jogging through the house before anyone else could move.
The door pushed open before I got there in time, Mabel’s head poking inside. “Hello!”
“Hi.” I took her arm, practically hauling her inside.
“Maverick, what?—”
“Mom, Mabel’s here,” I called. “Without Bodhi. So now you can tell her what you told me in the truck earlier.”
Mabel gave me a sideways glance. “Um, what’s going on?”
“Mom is making dying wishes. Welcome to the worst dinner of all time.”
She groaned, spinning for the door. “Maybe I’ll skip the pizza and watch Bodhi’s practice instead.”
“Not a chance.” I pushed her in front of me, both my hands on her shoulders, as I marched her into the dining room .
“Hey, everyone.” Mabel held up a hand to wave.
“Hi, sweetie.” Elle stood, rushing to the kitchen to get her a plate. “Hungry? What flavor?”
“Surprise me,” my sister said.
“Bodhi is at baseball?” Declan asked as he pulled out the empty chair at his side.
“Yep. For another hour.” Mabel didn’t move, so I nudged her forward, earning a glare over her shoulder.
But she gave up the fight, sitting beside Stevie, who looked to still be chewing that same bite with a grimace.
“Mom just told us that her dying wish is for Stevie and me to date.”
Mabel laughed. “That’s funny, Mom.”
“She wasn’t joking.” I stood behind Mom’s chair, my arms crossed over my chest.
“I wasn’t joking,” Mom repeated.
Mabel scrunched up her nose. “They’ll kill each other.”
Stevie swallowed. “Exactly.”
Mom simply shrugged and poked her slice of pizza with a tine on her fork. “Be that as it may, it’s my wish. And like I told your brother as we were driving over, my wish for you”—the fork got aimed at Mabel’s nose—“to go out with that doctor.”
“Not this again.” The moment that Elle handed my sister a plate with a slice of each pizza, Mabel stole a move from Stevie’s playbook and shoved a huge bite in her mouth.
The doctor was a guy Mabel had met at the gym. Apparently, he was gorgeous. Divorced.
Mabel had slipped a month ago and mentioned to Mom that he was hot. And that he’d asked her out for dinner.
Mabel had her reasons for saying no. She was in no rush to date again, not after the shitshow that had happened with Bodhi’s dad, even if it had been years and years ago.
Did that stop Mom from pushing? Hell no.
“Fine.” Mom held up her hands. “You can all ignore me. But let it be known that my dying wishes are on record.”
Could we stop talking about dying wishes?
Fuck, I hated this. I hated it so much I couldn’t stand still, so I retreated to the kitchen, pacing beside the island as a wave of restless, angry energy rolled through my veins.
My fingers were jittery. My appetite had been smashed like a fly under a swatter. I wanted to scream and rage and that familiar burn in the back of my throat just wouldn’t go away.
I’d never felt more helpless in my life.
Fuck cancer.
And fuck dying wishes.
I had no desire to date Stevie, and judging by the sour look on her face, she sure as hell didn’t want to date me either.
We hated each other. Period.
Mom had been given over a decade to come to terms with that reality. Not even a date would change the facts.
Stevie considered me the enemy. It had been that way since we were ten.
One day, the two of us had been riding bikes around the neighborhood with some of the other kids. The next, she’d told me she never wanted to be my friend again. We’d started fighting before middle school and had simply never stopped.
All because I’d said something about her boobs.
Was it a stupid comment? Absolutely. I’d been a ten-year-old boy, stupid was on brand.
And when Stevie had started her own mudslinging, as a stupid, ten-year-old boy, I hadn’t let it go. Instead, when she’d told me I had an ugly, big nose and was chubby, I’d told her that she sounded like a donkey when she laughed. Hee-haw. Hee-haw.
She’d run away mad. And I’d cried when I got home. Maybe I’d known, deep down, even as a stupid, ten-year-old boy, that my friendship with Stevie was over.
Our parents had tried to force us to work it out and not let this animosity fester for twelve years. They’d pushed and we’d pushed back, against them and each other. Fight after fight had led us here.
I was the villain in Stevie Adair’s story. And she was the adversary in mine.
Also my nose was fucking perfect. I might have been a little pudgy at ten, but I was ripped now.
There were plenty of women in Mission who liked my nose and abs just fine.
“Maverick, come and sit down,” Dad said. “Before your pizza gets cold.”
I sighed and returned to my chair.
“Please?” Mom put her hand on my leg. And with another sad smile, my resolve crumbled.
Say no. Just say no. “Fine.”
Stevie’s jaw dropped. When she spoke, her voice was a near shriek. “Fine?”
None of this was fine. But what the hell else was I supposed to say? “Would you go on a date with me?”
Maybe I was a bastard for putting her on the spot, but I’d let her be the asshole here and squash Mom’s wish.
She must have realized what I was doing. Her nostrils flared .
There wasn’t another soul on earth who could make a nostril flare look pretty. Stevie managed it every time.
Was that why I got such a thrill from provoking her?
In any mood, Stevie was beautiful. Pissed off? The gold flecks in her eyes danced like flames. They never got that way with anyone else. Just me.
Well, she could glare and snarl at me over one date. It would make my mother happy.
Or she could say no.
Break Mom’s heart.
The ball was in her court.
Declan kicked her leg under the table.
“Ouch. Dad,” she hissed.
He gave her pleading eyes. So did Elle.
When she faced me again, it was with a look that could flay meat from bone. “I’d love to, Maverick.”
Mom exhaled. “I know you’re doing this because you’re being guilted into it. But I don’t even care. Thank you.”
Stevie gave her a tight smile, then stood, taking her plate to the kitchen. She put it in the dishwasher, slamming the door too hard, then headed for the front door.
“Be back.” I stood too, and by the time I’d jogged to catch up, Stevie was nearly to her Jeep parked on the street. “Stevie.”
She whirled, finger raised. “You. Are. The. Worst, Maverick Houston.”
“This wasn’t my fucking idea.” I held out my arms.
“ You should have told her no. Not left me to disappoint her.”
“This is what she wants. It’s one date. You can survive it. ”
She scoffed. “My reputation won’t.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
She waved a hand at my six-foot-four frame. “It means you’re... you.”
“Hot. Athletic. Sexy. Great nose and bone structure. Yes, your reputation will never recover.”
She gritted her teeth, raised her fists and shook them in the air.
If only I had a dollar for every time that I’d pushed her to that gesture. God, it was fun pissing her off. Besides playing football, watching football or coaching football, it was my favorite hobby.
Well, except for sex.
“You are a manwhore,” she said.
I huffed. “Can you even say ‘manwhore’ these days? It’s not nice to judge people based on their sexual proclivities. And, for the record, I’m not a manwhore.”
Stevie’s expression flattened.
Okay, so I was kind of a manwhore.
In my defense, I’d had a hard time adjusting to Mom’s diagnosis, and mindless sex had been my coping mechanism when football wasn’t an option.
But this spring, those random hookups had started to feel shallow. I hadn’t had sex in over a month. And I doubted I would anytime soon either, especially at my house.
Last week, my roommate and best friend, Rush Ramsey, had become a father. His girlfriend, Faye, had given birth to a healthy baby boy.
Rally Ramsey slept a lot, ate a lot, shit a lot and cried a lot.
He was fucking awesome .
That baby had been a blissful distraction. Faye had even let me babysit this morning so Rush could go to class and she could score a shower.
And not that a newborn would know if I was screwing a girl in the room downstairs, but that idea just didn’t sit right with me.
But apparently, the fact that I was incredibly responsible with children and babies didn’t win me any favors with Stevie Adair.
Nope, I was just a manwhore.
Hell, this date was going to suck.
“What if we just pretended to go?” Stevie asked.
“She’ll ask questions.” Meredith Houston was a trust-but-verify kind of mom. “By the time we get our story straight, we might as well have just gone to dinner.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, her jaw working as she thought it over. As she came to the realization that this was happening unless she wanted to waltz back inside and break Mom’s heart. “When and where?”
I knew she’d come around. “Saturday?”
We were in the slowest time of year for Treasure State Wildcats football players. We actually had weekends free at the moment.
“Fine.” She kicked her toe into the grass.
“Six o’clock? Dolly’s Diner?”
“No. Someplace obscure.”
So she wouldn’t have to be seen with me. What-the-fuck-ever. “Luna?”
It was the most expensive restaurant in Mission. Not a place overly crowded with college students.
“You’re buying,” she said .
“Obviously,” I deadpanned. “It’s a date.”
Mom’s dying wish. Damn it. I wanted to scream.
Stevie tipped her head to the sky.
And did it for me.