Jacked Up (3 page)

“Well, let’s go then.”

When they approached the ticket booth, he said, “Two please.”

And Eve corrected him. “Just one. I’m paying for my own.”

He turned from the ticket clerk to Eve. “Why? I invited you. It’s my treat.”

“But then I’m indebted to you.” She was pulling her wallet out of her bag, which was across her body like a satchel.

“For a five-dollar ticket? That doesn’t make any sense. It’s not like I offered you a kidney.”

“But then we have to do everything your way and on your schedule.”

Nolan went ahead and paid for the two tickets. “Two,” he told the clerk firmly. Then he told Eve, “You don’t have a very high opinion of me. I think I would appreciate it if you got to know me a little bit before you put that kind of attitude on me.” He wasn’t annoyed. He just found it a little sad that such a small gesture had her back up. He thought maybe she thought too much.

That seemed to stymie her. She just shoved her wallet back into her bag and said, “Thanks. And it wasn’t personal. It’s just I know people. All I do is deal with people.”

“Doesn’t everybody?” he asked mildly, handing her a ticket.

She made a face at him. She made a lot of faces. Clearly he was going through some kind of phase because for some reason he thought the expressions she pulled were adorable.

It wasn’t like he didn’t date. He did. He’d been doing an online dating service and he’d had a handful of women he’d met over the last year, one lasting several months before petering out. Yet none had given him that feeling he was looking for. That kicked in the gut intensity. That wanting to grin every split second he was with a woman.

Not that he expected that would be the outcome of any time spent with Eve, but she did amuse him. It made no sense, but she did.

“If I had my way, I’d live on my own private island.” Eve handed her ticket to the gate clerk and pushed through the turnstile. “Just me, myself, and I.”

“Then you’d miss Oktoberfest.” He followed her through the turnstile. “And that would be a damn shame.”

She snorted, but she did reward him with a smile. “You’re Suzy Sunshine, aren’t you?”

“Nope. I don’t look good in yellow. But sure, I like to look on the bright side. Makes life much more enjoyable.” It was a simple philosophy and one that had always worked for him. He had a family he loved, a job that was a dream come true, and enough money to have some fun now and again. A little less now that he had to pay a fine for showing his backside, but enough to get by.

The only thing he was missing was a good woman. And he figured the right one would come along when she was supposed to.

For now, he was getting a beer with Eve Monroe. How was that for an interesting turn of events?

“I’d wear head-to-toe yellow every day if it made my life more enjoyable. But for now I’ll settle for funnel cake.”

“What’s so unenjoyable about your life?” From his perspective, her life seemed just fine to him. She had a close-knit family. A job that he imagined paid the bills and then some. A hot body. Maybe she had hemorrhoids and that’s why she was so tense.

The thought made him smile before he could stop himself. It was hard to imagine Eve had any physical imperfections under those concealing clothes she always wore.

“That makes you smile? Thinking my life is not enjoyable?” She held her hand out. “Give me ten bucks.”

That caught him off guard, but he automatically dug into his back pocket. “For what?”

“A funnel cake. I changed my mind about you paying. If you’re going to laugh at me, I’m going to eat lard on your dime.”

He laughed. “I’m not laughing at you.”

“You look like you’re laughing to me. And I don’t think you want to laugh at me. Just ask my brothers.”

He didn’t need to ask her brothers. He could well imagine. Not to mention, he came from a big family so he had seen his share of sibling squabbles. “You know what would be nice?” he asked her, slapping a ten-dollar bill into her hand. “Would be if you laughed with me.”

“Are you going to tell a joke?”

“No.”

“Then why would I laugh?”

The kicker was she was serious. Nolan just looked into her brown eyes for a minute, trying to puzzle her out. She stared back. He stared. She didn’t blink. He didn’t blink. There were no answers in those eyes. There was just a competitive gleam sparking as he realized they were suddenly locked into an unintentional no-blinking contest.

“What are we doing?” he murmured. It was hard to talk when you were trying not to blink.

“I don’t know.” She was muttering, too.

Her eyes got wider, and he was amazed at how at ease she seemed. None of her facial muscles moved. She looked like she could pull a ten-minute stint in this spontaneous staring contest.

But his nose was itchy and he wanted to pull the plug. He knew the perfect way to get her. “I’m going to kiss you.” He wasn’t really going to, but he knew she would react.

Though he would really like to kiss her.

She squawked and drew back away from him. Then almost immediately, she realized her mistake. “Oh, you’re a rat.”

“Maybe. But you have my ten bucks.”

Her mouth moved. Her nose wrinkled.

“You know you want to laugh. Come on,” he teased. “Everybody’s doing it.”

“You’re a dork.” She pressed her lips together hard and didn’t give in.

“Apparently a dorky rat. Now will you go get a damn funnel cake and quit worrying about
everything
.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She spun on her heel, tossing her hair back in his face.

It was tempting to smack her on the ass, but he didn’t know her well enough to do that. So he just watched her ass, nicely curved in those jeans.

That would do for now.

* * *

EVE
closed her fist around the ten-dollar bill Nolan had given her and fought the urge to sigh. She was being a bit bitchy. She could feel it. He was trying to be nice, encouraging her to have fun. Whatever reason he had invited her, obviously he wanted to hang out and have a good time. Yet she could feel the tension in her, like she felt the majority of her time lately. It felt like hands reaching out and squeezing her, so that she tightened all her muscles and gritted her teeth.

She hadn’t always been like this.

But every year that went by, she got a little more rigid. She wanted to stop it, wanted to reverse it, and enjoy her life.

But she worried.

She couldn’t be the only person who worried.

She worried a lot. About losing sponsors. About her brothers losing points in the chase for the Cup. About losing money. About losing face. About choking alone in her condo and dying. About the cellulite she’d just found on her left ass cheek. About the migration of her body hair past the bikini line and onto her thighs. About not being married. Or even dating anyone. About not having children. About wanting to have children and not knowing if she could or not. About the risk of cancer from using her cell phone. About her parents dying.

She worried.

It wasn’t good.

But she didn’t know how to stop it.

Maybe Nolan was right. Maybe she just needed to laugh a little.

Or have sex. She had been shocked at her ridiculous reaction to his threat to kiss her. If she were even remotely spontaneous, she would have let him. But she had been so freaked out by the thought she did want him to kiss her, she had recoiled in a total overreaction.

“A funnel cake, please.” Eve glanced at the price. Three bucks. “Actually make that two.” It seemed only nice to order one for Nolan. If he didn’t want it, she’d eat it. It was that kind of night.

When she turned, two paper plates in her hand, he was right behind her. “Ack!” She jumped and powdered sugar flew up in her face. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“You scare easily.” He smiled and took the plates from her. “Let me carry these. You want to sit for a spell? There’s a band playing in the gazebo.”

“Sure.” She eyed the band, which seemed to involve large men in tiny shorts with tubas, but she wasn’t going to worry about it.

That was her new motto. If it wasn’t work, she wasn’t going to worry about it. Work or if it was about anyone’s health. Plus cellulite. Those three she could fear and rightly so. But other than that, she wasn’t going to worry.

Nolan found them a seat at a picnic table and he straddled it, one leg on either side, so he was facing her. Eve sat correctly, unwilling to spread her legs like that just a foot away from him. The band was playing a rousing song that sounded to her untrained ear like it fit right in at Oktoberfest.

He tore a piece off his funnel cake and chewed it. “I need a beer,” he said, powdered sugar puffing out of his lips.

Damn, he was cute. Tuesday had been right, too. He was wearing a long sleeve Henley shirt, but that didn’t prevent her from seeing all that rippled muscle he had. “Is that your way of asking me to go get you one?”

Nolan frowned. “No. Why would I expect you to go get it? It was just an observation that I would like a beer. Which I was about to follow up with ‘I’m going to get one, do you want one, too?’”

“Oh.” Why had she assumed that? “Sure. Thank you.”

As he got up to hit the beer stand, Eve shoved a piece of her funnel cake in her mouth. Why was he even here with her? She didn’t even want to be around herself so why the hell would he?

Don’t worry.

Have fun.

She could do this.

Taking a deep breath, she watched the band. They were having fun. They were older men wearing bad outfits, and yet they were bouncing around, tapping their feet to their music, smiling at the fairly sparse crowd. One of them, who looked about ninety and like his tuba weighed more than he did, caught her eye and winked. Amused, Eve smiled back at him and waved.

“Flirting with the band?” Nolan asked, setting a gigantic beer down in front of her.

“Yep.” She stuck her finger on her plate and got the pad covered in powdered sugar, then popped it into her mouth and sucked. Her eyes drifted shut. “Man, that’s good shit.”

He laughed. “Take it easy there. We don’t want you to have to detox tomorrow.”

“Why does sugar taste so good?” It was a rhetorical question, one she didn’t expect him to have an answer to. But she would have thought he’d say something along the lines of, “To torture us,” because that would be her answer.

“To make life pleasurable.”

Eve paused with her finger halfway back to the plate. Wow. It really was a mind-set. He was a glass half full kind of person and she was . . . what? The glass is going to break before you can even pour kind of person.

Yikes. That wasn’t how she wanted to be.

“I am getting a lot of pleasure from this right now.” She licked her finger again, slowly, savoring.

His eyes darkened and his smile relaxed. “I can see that,” he said, his voice husky.

Eve froze, recognizing that look, that tone of voice. Uh-oh. She had turned him on. It was the finger licking. Most men found that hot. It was probably an oral envy thing. She wasn’t sure how to react.

Her body seemed to be sure. Her nipples had instantly hardened and she felt a growing warmth between her legs.

But the rest of her didn’t know how to handle it. So she carefully removed her finger like she wasn’t aware of any sudden flood of pheromones into the air around them. “So, you’ve been a jackman with Evan for three years. You like it?”

It was a stupid, generic question, but it was the first thing that popped into her head.

He didn’t answer for a second, just took a long swallow of his beer, eyeing her. She couldn’t read his expression.

“I love it. It’s the only job I can imagine doing. I consider myself very lucky to be on a team. We’re working some kinks out this season, getting back on track. Pun intended.”

She was going to ignore the pun. “Yeah, it’s definitely been a rough ride.” She could just pun him right back. “But our deodorant sponsor is sticking around for the long haul, and Evan’s driving better than he has in a while. You guys on the crew are doing a great job, too.”

“Thanks.” He raised his beer. “Here’s to a big finish.”

She could drink to that. “God, I hope so.” Eve lifted her glass and took a big sip. Over the season, Evan had been steadily climbing the ranks, but his poor start had hurt him. Eve wanted him to crack the top 15 to keep his sponsors happy and to prevent him from retiring. He’d been making noises that maybe it was time for him to step away from the wheel, and that was the last thing Eve wanted. She knew he would regret it, and she knew that she would feel like she had failed. Before the decade was done, she wanted one or both of her brothers to win a championship title.

“You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?” she asked.

“Wrinkling your forehead. Frowning. You do that whenever you talk about your job.”

God, she was. She wanted to deny it, but there was no point. “It’s a habit.”

“So you don’t love your job? Or it just stresses you out?”

“Both.” Eve crammed another piece of funnel cake in her mouth, chewing hard. “I actually kind of hate it.”

“So why do you do it then?”

Because her family was counting on her. Because it was important not to fail. Because what else was she going to do?

“Everyone has to have a job.”

“But you don’t have to do one you hate. You have an education. A family that supports you. Why don’t you do something else?”

Well, he made it sound easy. It wasn’t that simple. And he had a lot of nerve just dismissing all of that other stuff, which he knew nothing about, and just casually saying, yeah, just change careers.

Pfft. Eve opened her mouth to blast him.

Instead, the tuba blared out a resounding note that had her jumping on the bench. “Holy crap.”

Nolan laughed. But then he said, “Hey, don’t get upset. I’m not trying to tell you your business. But it just seems a shame to me that you’re not happy. Don’t you think you deserve to be doing a job you can enjoy?”

Eve wanted to stay angry, but Nolan made it hard. He was . . . reasonable. She didn’t deal with reasonable people very often. She dealt with egos and money and stubbornness.