Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
The ladies are all older than me and covered in pastel.
“He’s here!” one of them cries.
“And in a suit!”
“And with the date!”
Gavin is bum-rushed like a celebrity and swept into hugs and cheek pinches as soon as we step inside the restaurant.
“We didn’t know if you were still coming,” a lady in a purple sweater says. “We’re just getting settled.”
Plates of pulled pork, coleslaw, and cornbread are shoved at us both as they shout names that barely register. There are at least a dozen of them.
I look at Gavin.
“Ladies,” he says, silencing his fan club. “Reese is my date tonight.” He looks at me like he half expects me to argue. “She doesn’t know what we’re doing.”
My shoulders tense.
“A virgin,” one of them coos with a chuckle.
Gavin gives me a wicked look. “I doubt that.”
I meet his gaze and fight the urge to push the line with a far from.
The ladies cackle.
“This way!” the one with chunky pearls around her neck calls. “Quit dragon your feet and let’s get cracking.”
Everyone laughs because that must be funny if you wear pastel and spend Thursday nights eating barbecue.
Gavin and I follow behind, plates in our hands as we weave through a bustling dining room to an empty back room. There are four square tables covered in colorful tiles, mats, and stands.
Gavin chuckles around a bite of cornbread at my confused face. “We’re getting our mahj on.”
I take my first bite of food, the nostalgic flavors melting on my tongue. “Mahj?”
“Mahjong, sweetie,” one of the ladies explains. “We play once a month. Gavin here comes to give us something to look at.” She looks over the tops of her glasses and gives me a nudge. “Though he’s never given us a view like this.”
Giggles ensue.
“Gretta, behave,” Gavin says as he takes a glass of sweet tea someone offers. “Don’t want Reese here to get jealous.”
Gavin and his harem make small talk as I try to process this date.
We’re playing mahjong.
At a barbecue restaurant.
With a gaggle of pastel-covered ladies ogling Gavin.
Who’s in a suit.
With a face I want to lick like one of Matt’s lollipops.
We’re assigned to one of the tables along with Jan, Dawn, and Carol, who offer us a glass of wine, which I decline.
“The company Reese works for just bought Glass of Vine,” Gavin announces to the group. This triggers a new buzz of conversation around his mom’s new house in town and the soft reopening of the vineyard. “Running it all by herself right now.”
“And Banyan,” I correct. Though I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Questions are directed to me about the future of a vineyard being bought by a private equity firm so far away.
“Um.” I take a bite of pulled pork. “Undecided really. Get it to run itself and go from there and see.” That’s not right. “We’ll find a potential buyer in three to five years when we can turn a profit.”
The ladies nod like this is the sort of thing that happens in Fontain all the time.
Gavin scoops slaw onto his fork, pausing briefly to ask, “What’s the name of the firm again?”
The ladies look at me expectantly.
I wipe my mouth. “The Rutledge Group.”
“Hm.” He takes another bite, eying me a beat before answering a question Carol asks.
We finish our food, drinks are refilled, and a declaration is made that we have five minutes until start time. Because only four can play and I don’t know what’s going on, Gavin and I are partners.
Partners, apparently, who have to share a single chair.
Gavin sits, knees wide, jacket open, and a wolfish grin on his face as he pats his leg.
Oh, hell no. “I’m not sitting on your lap.”
“Why not?” Dawn says without looking up from the tiles she’s shuffling.
“Yeah,” Gavin teases. “Why not, Reese?”
Dawn looks up long enough to wiggle her brows. “If I were ten years younger . . .”
She has to be at least seventy.
Carol pipes in with, “And we can’t put two chairs over there. You’ll be able to see the other racks. Cheating won’t be tolerated, I don’t care what Gavin’s wearing.” When I think she’s done: “Unless he takes his shirt off.”
I almost tell her about the happy trail.
“I don’t cheat,” I say, fully offended.
Carol eyes me as she swallows a sip of wine. “We don’t know that.”
“What’s wrong?” Gavin settles back in the chair. “You scared of my lap?”
I glare at him then perch on his knee, as far away from his suit, sexy new face, and young, hard body as I can get.
Until he sits upright and closes the space between us. His face is at my shoulder and one arm wraps around my waist. When I jerk away from him, his grip tightens on me like a Chinese finger trap.
“No fighting,” he reminds me.
Between his suit and the incorrigible ladies, I relent. Also, he smells good.
His hold on me loosens—slightly—and in a low voice he says, “Good girl.”
I gasp and elbow his chest. I will not be good girl’d by this man—I won’t be good girl’d by any man.
“Just seeing how far you’d let me go,” he says with a chuckle. He reaches his arms around either side of me to grab a handful of the scattered tiles from the middle of the table.
Once I accept that my body is going to be tortured by this situation, I remember that I’m playing a game I’ve never played, and I hate losing. I turn my head slightly and his face is at my face, that sharp jaw of his nearly slicing my skin.
“I don’t know how to play mahjong.” Even my whisper sounds panicked.
I glance around at the ladies, all sipping their wine and settling into chairs at other tables.
Dawn, Carol, and Jan have all gone to top off their drinks.
They’re probably experts. “You play and I’ll watch. ” I move to stand. “Standing.”
He grabs my hips and pulls me back to his lap.
“Not so fast.” He returns both hands to the table.
“I’ll teach you.” He shows me the tiles he’s collected, the designs so crazy and intricate it’s hard to differentiate between them.
“This is a bam,” he explains. “A crack. Flower.” He grabs a few more, showing me the designs.
“These are all dragons, but the black empty one is soap.” Oh, God.
“These are dots. Winds.” He sorts through the pile. “And a joker.”
Next comes a card filled with a million different patterns of numbers and letters that he briefly explains. Something about pungs and kongs. Calling and discarding.
I will never in a million years remember any of it.
Gavin chuckles. “Relax, this is fun.” He taps on the plastic stand in front of me. “This is your rack. This part is the pusher.” He opens and closes a long arm that sweeps tiles across the table. “You’ll get the tiles, and I’ll tell you what to do with them.”
“This is the date?”
He grins. “This is it.”
It is the least romantic environment I could have imagined, yet somehow, it suits him. It feels right. And truth be told, other than the games I’ve played with Addie over the last few weeks, I don’t know the last time I played one.
Gavin fiddles with the pusher. Still close. His warm breath still on my neck and making chills race down my spine.
In his ear, I say, “Stop touching my rack.”
A laugh sticks in the back of his throat as the three ladies rejoin our table. He whispers, “It’s a nice rack.”
He keeps one hand on the table at the tiles and drops the other to my leg, just above my knee. It’s either too high or not high enough.
So only he can hear, I say, “Too bad you’ll never know how nice.”
“Mm,” he hums, close enough his jaw brushes my neck. “We’ll see about that.”
This sabbatical has ruined me, because it’s a challenge I might love to lose.
Ready or not, the game begins, and I force myself to forget I’m lap sitting in public.
Walls of tiles are built then deconstructed by an exchange called the Charleston.
The ladies are shouting words and numbers between sips of wine and flips of tiles. All the while, Gavin tells me what to do, every whisper of bam, crack, dot pulling my body closer to his.
“My hand is crying,” Jan groans.
“I think Reese is cheating,” Carol jokes.
I laugh. “Blame the guy in the suit.”
Gavin takes this as an invitation to slide his hand farther up my leg. “It’s not cheating if you go after winds and dragons every time, Ms. Carol.”
She laughs at this.
And with me in a sexy lace top and Gavin all cleaned up in a suit, this is our date. In the back room of a barbecue restaurant with racks of tiles and ladies who love Gavin and pastel, we play mahjong.
At first, I’m overwhelmed—there are so many pieces and rules—but as soon as I realize it’s a game rooted in strategy and probability, I catch on quick.
Where Gavin’s voice in my ear the first game is all guidance and advice—we lose that one—I tell him in the second game that I’ll do better without him, and it brings a shift. His voice gets lower, closer, and not a single word is about the game.
“Two crack,” I call as I discard.
In my ear: “You smell good.” He sniffs. It’s subtle, but it happens. “You always smell good.”
I swallow.
“Call,” Jan says, taking the tile.
Gavin: “I lied the other day.”
I clear my throat, and as discreetly as I can manage, I ask, “How?”
Dawn discards and says, “West wind.”
Gavin’s back in my ear, his hand higher up my thigh while the other is wrapped around my waist. “When I said I’d try to stop thinking about you. I haven’t.”
I do not react.
Carol: “Flower.”
“Call,” I say. I take the flower and display it on the rack along with three others then discard. “Five dot.”
Gavin: “I’ve been thinking of you more. Especially after that kiss.” He breathes against my skin. “Do you always moan like that?”
That’s it, I’m purring.
“Enough with the dots,” Jan mutters before taking a sip of her wine.
Gavin: “You think about the kiss?”
I draw a tile and discard.
Gavin: “You ignoring me?” His fingers slip under the hem of my shirt at my side and dance across my skin. “That’s not fair if I’m thinking about your—”
I elbow him in the ribs. “I’m trying to win a game,” I whisper-snap, rearranging my tiles on the rack. “And I haven’t thought about the—” I make the mistake of glancing at him, and why does he look like that? “It.”
“Eight bam.”
Gavin’s mouth is somehow closer, his fingers gently stroking my hip. “Liar.”
I pull a joker. “Nine crack.” To Gavin: “I can’t be distracted into losing.”
His hand drops to the hem of my jeans and he tucks one finger beneath it.
Two can play this game: I arch my back and my ass slides against his lap. His breath hitches—ha!
“Sorry,” I say over my shoulder. “Cramp.”
Joke’s on me because he tightens his grip and pulls me deep into his lap—where I feel what he feels. My mouth goes dry.
Dawn: “East wind.”
“Call.” Carol draws the tile, displays her kong, then discards a six bam.
Jan calls, then discards a north wind.
Gavin: “You’ve been thinking about more than the kiss.”
Our eyes meet and my yes is right there. Because I have been. To the point I’m half insane.
Because I keep thinking what if one kiss leads to two leads to a life’s worth and that’s insane.
Despite every difference between us, I like him. A lot. I like the way he looks at me and cares for Addie and does the right thing. I like him despite his lack of ambition to finish his shed house or be anything more than a lawn man.
“Say you’ve been thinking about the same things I have,” he begs in my ear.
Yes, my brain screams. Yes, yes, yes.
“I—”
Jan calls, “Four dot,” and I look away from Gavin to say, “Call.”
I take the tile and grin. “No thanks to your eye candy, that’s mahjong, ladies.”
As I call off my tiles, the table collectively groans and tosses their cards to the center.
“Gavin, your girlfriend’s a con.”
I laugh and take a sip of my water. “Not his girlfriend.”
“She keeps saying that.” Gavin pokes my ribs. “But I’ll get her to crack.”
Everyone laughs.
Even me.