Playing for Keeps (21 page)

“Gracie, you’re an angel,” he said, kissing me on the cheek. He saluted Pete with the bottle and ruffled Chloe’s hair as he sat down.

“Hey.” She scowled at him and whacked his hand aside. “I’m not a frickin’ dog.”

“Watch your goddamn mouth, young lady.” Daddy gave her a stern look. He turned that look on me. “What’s Nell’s dog doing here?”

“Nell is going on a trip, and we’re watching him while she’s gone.”

Chloe frowned. “Where’s she going? She’s getting married in a five weeks.”

At this point, that seemed debatable. “Paris.”

“
Paris
. I want to go too.” She batted her eyes at our dad. “Daddy, can I go with Nell?”

He shrugged as he took another pull. “Fine with me. Take the mutt with you.”

I frowned at my dad. “She can’t go. She has school.”

He faced Pete. “Tell me you’re staying for dinner and saving me from all this estrogen.”

Pete’s lips twitched. “There’s always George, too.”

George must have been on the other side of the door, eavesdropping on our conversation, because he barked once in agreement.

I pointed at all of them. “You guys better behave or I’ll char your steaks.”

“Steak?” Daddy perked up. “We’re having steak? No goddamn tofu?”

“No tofu.”

“And potatoes?” he asked hopefully.

“Yes. I thought since Pete was coming over we could have a normal meal.” Plus Nell wasn’t here to check on us.

“Hot damn.” He grinned at Pete and reached across the table to slap his shoulder. “What’re you doing for dinner tomorrow night, boy?”

Pete grinned back and glanced at me. “Depends on what I’m offered.”

Chloe snorted.

Blushing, I stood. “I better get the steaks on.”

Chloe jumped up and joined me at the counter. “I’ll help.”

“Since when?” Chloe didn’t cook—at all. Making a sandwich was a challenge for her.

“Since you’re getting it on with Pete,” she whispered.

“
Shhh
.” I nervously glanced over my shoulder to see if our dad heard. He and Pete were engrossed in pre-football season talk and thankfully weren’t paying any attention to us. I scowled at my little sister. “Pete and I are friends.”

“Really good friends by the look of things.”

I slapped a steak onto the boiler pan. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah. You’re right.” She wrinkled her nose at the raw meat and took the pepper grinder. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I mean, so what if the sexual tension was so thick I almost suffocated when I walked in? I should get my eyes checked because I’m sure your lips weren’t really as puffy and red as I saw.”

“Enough already.” I pushed the pepper aside. It was either that or slap the smirk off her face. “You want to make the steaks inedible?”

“I don’t know why you’re being so sensitive. I think it’s cool that you and Pete hooked up.” She sprinkled salt indiscriminately on the meat. “Pete’s already part of the family and we all like him. Though I’m kind of disappointed that I didn’t get a crack at him.”

“Chloe…”

She ignored the warning in my voice. Typical. “I mean, why should
I
be the only Connors sister not to know how he performs.”

“Chloe.”

“I had such high hopes of seducing him at the wedding. Weddings are good for that kind of thing. I read in Cosmo that weddings are the number one place where people get caught having sex. Except for airplanes, that is.”

“Chloe.”

She blinked innocently at me. “What?”

“Shut
up
.”

“Jeez, you’re touchy.” She opened the oven door, took the boiler rack, and struggled to shove it in. “How do you get this damn thing in here?”

“Here.” I swatted her aside and fit the tray in myself.

She leaned against the counter and watched me wash my hands. “I’m glad really that you hooked up with Pete. I was beginning to get worried about you.”

My eyelid twitched.

“I mean, it can’t be good to abstain for that long, right? You haven’t dated anyone since Kevin. That’s an awful long time to go without sex.”

“How would you know?”

She ignored me. “It’s a good thing guys prefer non-attached, purely-for-sex relationships. It works out well for you.”

“It does?” I put a hand to my eyelid.

“Well, yeah. It’s a win-win situation. You both get sex and there’s no hard feelings when you split up?”

“When we split up?”

“Well, sure.” She blinked. “It’s not like this is a permanent thing.”

“No?”

“Of course not,” she said vehemently. “You wouldn’t leave me and Daddy.”

“Right.” Silly of me to forget that. I grabbed the salad bowl and set it on the table. I must have done it a little too hard because Pete looked up at me with a brow raised in question.

For a moment I wanted to be selfish like Nell and grab what I wanted with two fists. I wanted to drag Pete by his deliciously form-fitting T-shirt out the door and away from my stifling family. I wanted to cook dinner for just the two of us—nude. Or maybe with a pair of high-heeled shoes because I thought Pete would really get off on that.

Who was I kidding? I couldn’t leave my dad and sister. I tried to imagine a world where I was without them, but it was impossible. Even Nell, though she’d moved out on her own, spent more time here than her own place.

I gazed at Pete and wondered if sharing me with my family would be enough for him. But I already knew the answer, and it made me want to weep.

Chapter Seventeen

The ability to gain victory by changing and adapting according to your opponent is called genius.

— Sun Tzu, The Art of War

With Nell off gallivanting in Paris, it was up to me to make sure the rest of the wedding coordination went smoothly. Well, it’d been up to me from the beginning, but now I was truly on my own.

I like working on my own. It’s one of the reasons I’ve lasted working for my dad for so long. For all his faults, he realizes I need autonomy and lets me run the office the way I want to. On the mats he may be king, but the office was completely my domain.

Everything was pretty much set. The replies to the invites had slowly rolled in—one hundred eighty-one people so far. Riley was taking care of his to-do items. The only things left were planning the bridal shower and bachelorette party.

I figured we still had time for the bachelorette party, but the bridal shower needed to happen right away. After all, we had less than five weeks till the wedding and, according to weddingplanning.com, the shower should take place one to two months before.

It also said we needed to send out invitations. I’d thought I could just email Nell’s friends.

Sigh.

The upside was the Web site said you didn’t have to have invites printed up. You could buy simple ones and fill them in with the info. Kind of like the invitations to birthdays you used to get when you were a kid, minus the Barbie or Strawberry Shortcake.

So Monday morning I stayed home a little later than usual so I could stop by a stationery store on my way to work.

“Woof.” George sat on the porch, calmly waiting for me when I exited the house.

“Yes, you’re going with me.”

His tail wagged happily and he trotted out to my car and patiently waited by the passenger door.

The first few days George and I spent together were wretched. He missed Nell. Consequently, he acted out. He tore up the yard, chewed up my favorite tennis shoes, and peed in my car. So I decided to have a heart to heart with him.

We came to an agreement. He didn’t spaz out and I took him with me when I left the house. So far, he’d kept up his end of the deal admirably. We went to work and he laid around my office and watched me with content puppy eyes. When it was time for the kids’ classes, he became agitated, so I told him he could go out and watch if he stayed out of the way. The surprising thing was he actually did that. The kids said hello and showered affection on him before and after their classes and during their classes George sat quietly and watched.

I wasn’t sure what brought around the change from
freak mutt
to
obedient dog
but I wasn’t going to question it. I just prayed it lasted.

He jumped into the front seat when I opened the door and I strapped him in. Nell was right—having him sit in the front seemed to work as far as his carsickness went. He hadn’t barfed in my car once.

We both rocked out to Audioslave all the way to the store’s parking lot. I pulled my parking brake and turned to George. “Wait for me here.”

He barked once.

“Good dog.” I scratched him behind the ears and got out.

I ran in, grabbed the first set of wedding shower invitations I saw, and paid for them. They were on the sale table and I congratulated myself that I got them at a huge discount. Four minutes later we were on our way to work.

“I can’t wait till this wedding is over and life is back to normal, George.”

He woofed once in agreement. George was sick of it all too.

We arrived at the studio after the first adult class had started. George raced back to my office as soon as I opened the door but I stood there and frowned. Why was Wendell teaching this morning? And where was Daddy?

I nodded curtly at Wendell when he flashed his mega-watt smile at me, waved at the couple students who called out a greeting, and followed George to my office.

I closed my door. I was tempted to lock it but I didn’t think that’d be appropriate. Of course, I doubted even a locked door could kept Wendell from getting to me.

My family liked to tease me that Wendell had a little crush on me. Actually, it was a full-blown obsession. The only thing that kept him in line was respect—and fear—for my dad.

The class had barely ended when my door opened. Wendell stood in the doorway, his eyes dilated with infatuation. “Gracie, you look so—”

He struggled for a word. I debated helping him, but instead I sat back and timed how long it took him to come up with one.

“—nice,” he finally finished.

“Thanks, Wendell. Hey, do you know where my dad is?”

“I’m covering for him.”

“I see that, but do you know why?”

He scratched his head. “Because he told me to.”

Did I mention Wendell was a Marine? Independent thinking wasn’t a specialty of his.

“Okay.” I smiled mildly at him. “Thanks.”

Anyone else would have recognized that as the dismissal it was. Wendell, of course, missed it completely. He stepped further into my office. “Gracie, I was wondering if, uh—”

I sighed. You’d think after being turned down each time he’d asked me out over the past ten years that he’d get the clue that I didn’t want to go out with him.

“—maybe go to a movie with me.”

George lifted his head from his paws and growled. I looked at him appreciatively. He didn’t like Wendell asking me out any more than I did.

“What’s wrong with the mutt?”

“Don’t call him a mutt.” I called George to me. He came obediently, but the whole time he kept a suspicious watch on Wendell.

I rubbed his coat. I could get to love this dog.

“Sorry, Gracie.” Wendell looked properly abashed. “I won’t call him that again.”

“Okay.” I looked at the clock. “The next class is starting soon.”

“I better get out there.”

He looked so forlorn I had to toss him a bone, so to speak. “You’re doing a great job with the students, Wendell.”

He instantly beamed again. “Thanks.” He bounced out a happy man.

Shaking my head, I looked down at George. “Some people are so easily satisfied.”

I swear he rolled his eyes.

Opening a drawer, I got out a couple doggie treats I’d stocked up on after Nell had left. “Thanks for sticking up for me, George.”

He lowered his head modestly. I gave him the treats and watched him munch on them, his tail doing double time.

I called my soon-to-be brother-in-law later that afternoon. “Riley, you busy?”

“Never for you, Gracie. What’s up?”

At one time I’d have thought his answer was too slick and practiced. Now I heard the genuineness behind it. “I need your help.”

“What can I do?”

I glanced at the boxes of shower invitations on my desk. “I brought wedding shower invitations today and I need help addressing them.”

“I can come over tonight. About seven thirty?”

“That’s great. I really appreciate it.”

“I’m the one that appreciates it. You’re saving me from ordering take out and eating in front of the Weather Channel.”

Darn that sister of mine. I wondered if she realized how her leaving would affect her fiancé. Probably not.

“See you later.” I hung up and debated inviting Pete over too. The thing was Pete’s penmanship was atrocious. I never understood that, seeing as he was such an excellent doodler.

But I decided to invite him over anyway. For moral support. Or to put the stamps on the envelopes. I dialed his cell number.

He came on a second later. “Grace, I miss you.”

His voice was low pitched and hit me right in the pit of my stomach. I shivered. “I miss you, too.”

“Tell me you’re calling to tell me you’ll be waiting for me when I get home.”

I grinned. He had this fierce fantasy of coming home to find me in the kitchen in heels, an apron, and nothing else. “Sorry, big boy.”

“Maybe next time. What’s up?”

“Riley’s coming over to help me with the bridal shower invites and I wondered if you wanted to come keep us company.”

There was a glint of mischievousness when he spoke. “Keep you company how?”

“Want to rub the cramps out of my hand?”

“Your hand isn’t what I want to rub.”

His voice was thick with innuendo, and my body reacted instantly. I gulped. “We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“We won’t be alone.” It came out more of a mournful wail than I meant it to.

“We’ll work around it.”

Wouldn’t it be delicious to sneak out and play without anyone knowing? Maybe I could even have Pete help me with dinner. We
would
have to eat, after all. And what if I needed something from the pantry, something on a very high shelf that I couldn’t reach?