Fair Play (5 page)

“No, I was too busy making friends with Nick’s daughter Scarlet. She was adorable, and she likes my photographs, so of course she’s cool.”

“How old is this adorable cool daughter?”

“Just turned four I think. Smart for a four year old though.”

“So when you going out on a date with Mr. Universe?”

Bridgette tosses her wrapper into the bag, and so do I.

“Mr. Universe?”

“Yeah, that man’s hot. He’s got every woman in South Carolina panting and drooling, and you’re all chatting it up with him on a plane.”

“I’m not going on a date with him. I’m taking their pictures and that’s it.”

She snorts. “Yeah I’ll bet.”

I shove her shoulder, and she sways away from me, snickering.

“I wouldn’t say no if he asked me, though.” I wink at her, and she smiles an I-knew-you-liked-him-like-that smile.

I pick up a handful of sand and pour it out into a little mound on the ground.

“You wanna come back to the barbecue with me? I know Blake would love to see you again.”

“Sure, I can come for a little while. I have to be up early, but I could use a beer. You have beer, right?”

She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “Girl, they’re firefighters, of course they got beer.”

“Are there any hot single firefighters at your barbecue?”

She blows a puff of air from her lips in disbelief. “Duh, of course we got hot firefighters.”

“Okay, why didn’t you say so sooner?”

“Well, I was thinking you might wanna save yourself for Mr. Wood,” she says, wiggling her eyebrows.

“I have to keep my options open. He’s a busy father and football player. He might not have time to date.”

“All men got time, they’re just greedy with it. Let’s go, Blake’s gonna be coming up this beach pretty soon to give me some time.”

We stand up, and I brush the sand from my shorts and gather up my empty sack.

“Lead the way.” I swing my arm out in the direction she came from, and she starts down the beach.

I slip off my flip-flops after we’ve walked for a few minutes. I wasn’t planning on walking far or I’d have worn better shoes.

“How much farther?”

“See the fire? That’s us,” she says, pointing at a glow in the distance. When we are at the edge of the party, I hear Blake call out to Bridgette.

“Hey B, where you been?”

“Look what I found on the beach,” she says, pointing at me.

“Awwww, it’s little Téa Brown from Shy Town!”

“Hey, Blake, how’ve you been?”

He rounds the huge bonfire and picks me up in a bear hug. Blake’s drunk as a skunk, and he sort of smells like one too.

“Put her down, you ol’ drunken loon,” Bridgette says, scolding her husband.

He drops me, and I let out an oomph and a laugh.

“Hey everybody, this here is B’s old best friend Téa from Chicago,” Blake yells and hold up my arm like the winner of a boxing match.

The whole crowd responds with a unified “Hey Téa!” and then they whoop and raise their red solo cups in a toast to my arrival. I feel like Norm in Cheers when he entered the bar and everyone yelled “Norm!”

Someone hands me a cup of beer with a two-inch head on it, and I immediately feel at home with the group.

“Watch out, these guys will get you drunker than a one-legged sailor in no time,” Bridgette says.

“Sounds like fun.” I raise my glass and another loud hoop goes up. These are fun people, my kind of people.

“Don’t forget you have a job in the morning,” Bridgette says, reminding me of my date/job with Nick tomorrow.

“Oh, I won’t forget, no worries. I’d do that photo shoot even if I were puking and seeing double.”

One corner of her mouth rises in a smirk.

“I’ll bet you would.”

The wind picks up my hair and blows it out behind me, and at the same time I feel a hand on my elbow.

“Hi, I’m Matt, wanna dance?”

When I turn around, I’m staring at the chest of an enormous muscle-bound man with a short tight haircut that resembles a Marine’s.

I tilt my face up to his and narrow my eyes, “There’s no music, Matt.”

“We can make our own music.”

Oh God, he didn’t just say that? I think I just threw up a little bit of fish taco in my mouth. That line is going down in my cheesy pick-up line list.

“Dude, you really need a better pick-up line. That was horrible.”

“Matt, this is Téa. Téa, this is Matt. Matt says he’s sorry for being an idiot, and he’s going to go away now, aren’t you, Matt?” Blake says.

“Y'all are harsh. I just wanted to dance with the little lady.”

“She’s just stopping by, Matt, leave her be,” Blake says with a warning in his voice.

Matt turns to walk away, and I swear on my mother’s grave that he calls me a bitch.

“I’m so sorry honey, he’s part of our firehouse, but that doesn’t mean we like him. He's always getting too drunk for his own good.”

“It’s all right. I’ve dealt with worse. Hey, who’s manning the fire station if all of you are here?” I ask.

“We have two parties. Half the guys like a casual thing like this.” He spreads out his arms wide, “and the other half like to have dinner at somebody’s house. Those guys are on call.”

“Ah, makes sense. Too bad Matt doesn’t like a bug-free party with a home cooked meal.”

“Oh, he does. I’m sure he’ll find a way to be at both, he always does.”

“Sounds like an asshole.”

“You got it, sister. But he’s part of the family, so we have to put up with him.”

“I’ve never had a relative like that, but I have had plenty of asshole boyfriends. I’m trying a dating service now.”

Bridgette’s brows shoot up, and she fiddles with the thin gold chain around her neck.

“Really? How’s that going for you?”

“Well, I was about to delete my account, and I met this cool guy. We message back and forth for, oh shit,” I grip my cup hard enough to slosh beer out onto my hand. I blew him off. We were supposed to message an hour ago.

“What’s the matter?”

“The guy, the one I met, we were supposed to meet up online over an hour ago and chat. It’s like an online date and I stood him up.”

“Call him up now, let’s get to know him,” Blake says in a booming voice right before he stumbles back into his folding chair. I cringe when his ass meets the canvas material, fearing he’ll rip right through it.

“Oh my God, Blake, you need to slow down on the drinking.”

“You okay?” I ask, and he mumbles something about having another beer. “That’s one sturdy-ass lawn chair, buddy,” I say.

“He’s fine, I’m going to have to keep an eye on him though. He’s not a drinker but when he starts, he doesn’t know when to stop. So why don’t you message your friend now?”

I suck in a breath between my teeth. “He has a daughter, I don’t want to bug him too late. What if he has to get up early or something?”

“What’s with you and guys with kids?” she asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Nicolas Wood has a kid. This online guy has a kid. Is that a prerequisite of yours?”

“No, I never thought about it but you're right, huh? I don’t mind the single daddy thing though. It sort of says I’m done with all the bullshit, and now I’m ready to settle down.” 

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. You need another drink? You spilled half of that one when the ol’ chief there got excited.” She hitches her thumb toward Blake, who is starting to nod off in his chair.

He’s one enormous man, over six foot tall with dark skin pulled taut over the perfect amount of muscles. Not too buff like Matt and not too scrawny like, well, not anyone at this party. All of the men here are in great shape.

“Sure, but only one more and I need to get back to the hotel.”

“You got it.” Bridgette takes my cup and sashays over to the keg to get me a refill, and I take a better look around.

Most of the men are paired up with women who I assume are their wives or girlfriends. A few younger men are sitting around the fire flirting with girls who have fire hoses and firehouse poles in their eyes.

I chuckle at a girl who walks her fingers up a guy’s bicep and ends the nauseating sugary sweet display by tweaking him on the nose. God, that’s not sexy.

When I scan the group again, my eyes are drawn to the negative energy of one angry, jilted firefighter. Matt is sitting in a chair away from the others with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes scowling at me.

I quickly avert my eyes.

“Here ya go. Sorry, the keg was tapped out, but I had some bottles in a cooler.”

“Oh, thanks.” I accept the beer and take a long draw, downing half the bottle.

“You okay?”

“Sure, why?”

“You look a little flustered.”

“Your friend Matt is giving me the stink eye over there.”

She looks over my shoulder at Matt, and I watch her eyes narrow in an unspoken warning.

Leave her the fuck alone.

“I don’t think he’ll bother you anymore. I’m pretty sure he’s all bark and no bite.”

I let the rest of the beer in my bottle slide down my throat. I don’t like the way he was looking at me. I don’t like it at all. I have to walk down this long beach back to Hotel Murder alone. I don’t want any trouble from an oversized, angry firefighter.

“Hope so. I don’t want to run into him on my way home.”

“Nah, I’ll drive you. Not because of him, though,” she says, shooting him a couple more Queen B daggers. “Where are you staying?”

I look away. I don’t want to admit I’m bunking up in a room multiple people may have died in three weeks ago.

“You got another beer in that cooler?” I ask.

She reaches out and places her finger on my jaw and turns my face back to hers.

“What are you trying to hide? I may not have seen you for a couple years, but I’ve known you your whole life, what’s up?”

Busted. “I’m staying at The Madison. There, now you know.”

“Oh my God, people die up in there Téa, what the hell?”

“I didn’t know that until Nick told me. The magazine makes all the arrangements for my jobs. It didn’t seem so bad, I mean it’s clean.” I shrug my shoulder and scrunch up my top lip.

“Yeah, I’ll bet it’s clean. They have real good people who come in and clean up crime scenes. You need to pack up your shit and stay with us. We aren’t too far from here, and I have an extra bedroom you can use.”

“No, I’m fine. Really, it’s been quiet, and I’m working most of the time anyway. I just go there to shower and sleep.”

“Okay, but it’s an open invitation. If you hear gunshots, throw your bag out the window and grab a cab to our house.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

She nods and looks down at Blake, who’s snoring in his chair.

“I better get him home. If you wanna stay, I can come back and get you when I get his big ass into bed.”

I check the time on my phone - it’s eleven-thirty. “No, I should get going too, early morning’ you know.”

“Yours will be a lot better than mine. I’ll be nursing that big lug back to life while you’re prancing around on the beach with a hot pro football player.”

I tip my head to the side and frown. “Sorry.”

“I’m messing with you, girl. Come on, let’s wake him up so we can take you home.” She says home like it’s a dirty word.

The two of us together weigh as much as Blake, but we manage to get him on his feet. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my new public enemy #1 Matt watching us struggle.

I love meeting new people. I make friends wherever I go, but not that man. That man makes my skin crawl more than the thought of bed bugs in my hotel.

Back in my room, I lock the door with both locks and check the windows for good measure.

I have a funny feeling about that guy Matt, and now that I’m aware of this hotel’s reputation, I’m feeling the need to be more careful.

I strip my clothes off and slip in between the sheets, snuggling down and allowing the alcohol to do its thing. I’ve drunk just enough to help me sleep and not so much that I'll be sick.

It feels like seconds later when I am awakened by a sound near my door.

I snap my eyes open and lay still, hoping it was just a dream until I hear it again.

Carefully, so no one knows I’m awake, I reach out to get my phone off the night table next to the bed. It’s three thirty in the morning.

The doorknob jiggles like someone is trying to get in, and my heart picks up the pace, transporting adrenaline through my veins at lightning speed.

I scroll through my contacts in my phone to the number for the front desk of the hotel and press call. While I’m waiting for what feels like forever for someone from the hotel to answer, I hear it jiggle again, harder this time.

Shit, please, God, let it be some drunk who’s trying to get into the wrong room.