Playing For Keeps (5 page)

“So, what is it that you don’t want me
to know, my little grasshopper?” he asked, stirring his coffee. The
last date she had was a loser in his opinion at least and really
wasn’t that all that mattered? The loser was not worthy of all his
work. They’d work on that until she dated guys that he approved of.
Someone cool with a cabin in New Hampshire for fishing trips or a
house down in Florida would make him very happy. He really could go
for some deep sea fishing in the winter.

“Stop calling me that!” Haley hissed
softly. “For the hundredth time I am not the Daniel-son to your Mr.
Miyagi.”

He simply shrugged. “If that’s what
you want to believe…”

“It is and I do.”

“If I could get everyone’s attention
before you head off to homeroom?” Jenkins said, holding up his
clipboard to get everyone’s attention in the teacher’s break room.
“We need one more volunteer for tonight’s dance,” he said, throwing
a hopeful glance Haley’s way.

“Wax on…..wax off….” Jason whispered,
earning a rather indelicate snort form Haley.

“Did you say something, Miss. Blaine?”
Jenkins asked Haley, drawing everyone’s attention to
her.

Jason leaned back in his seat and
watched Haley as the blush crept up her cute little face. She
nervously pushed her glasses up her nose. Ah, seems his protégé
still hated drawing attention to herself. Well, she’d have to get
used to that if they were going to be friends since he had a rather
nasty habit of drawing attention to himself pretty much everywhere
he went.

“Yes, Miss. Blaine, did you have
something to say?” Jason asked in an amused tone.

She shot him a narrowed glare before
turning to look at Jenkins. The glare was gone only to be replaced
by a rather sweet and innocent smile. He was so focused on her
smile that he almost missed what she said.

“No, Mr. Jenkins, that wasn’t me. Mr.
Bradford was volunteering to chaperone tonight,” she said
cheerfully.

“What?” he said, too late.

Jenkins grinned at him. “Well, that’s
excellent! Very good. Make sure you’re here by seven o’clock and it
goes until eleven. Thank you, Mr. Bradford.” Jenkins said. It
didn’t escape Jason’s notice that the man didn’t bother double
checking with him and that he practically ran out of the room
before Jason could refuse.

His attention immediately turned to
the little traitor. “You betraying bitch,” he gasped.

Her smile went from innocent to wicked
in less than a second. “Have fun at the dance.” She stood up and
placed her hands together in front of her as if she were praying
and bowed.

Smartass.

She betrayed him. Damn that hurt. He
couldn’t help but grin. She really was coming along rather
nicely.

*************

“Oh my god, I love him!” the girl,
Cindy or something, wailed loudly, making Jason shift nervously.
He’d never dealt well with emotions, especially female emotions. He
looked around nervously and damn near sighed with relief when he
spotted a small group of girls descend on the girl.

“He’s such a jerk!” one of them
said.

“Don’t say that! I love him!” Cindy
cried.

“Oh, I know you do. He’s not good
enough for you,” a slightly chubby girl said as she put her arm
around the girl.

Good. Everything was fine. He could go
back to chaperoning a bunch of hormone driven teenagers to god
awful music. Yup, he was truly going to kill Haley. He stepped
away.

“Mr. Bradford, why would he do this to
me?” the girl demanded.

He froze mid-step and looked around
nervously, hoping another Mr. Bradford was standing close by and
willing to handle this. No such luck.

He cleared his throat. “Do what
exactly?”

She scoffed at him with a look of
utter disbelief that told him she thought he should be very aware
of everything in her life. Considering he’d never paid much
attention to any woman’s life she was in for a hell of a rude
awakening. Thankfully one of her friends took pity on
him.

“Marc Griswold. They ate at
the same table two times in the last two weeks, he talked to her
during study hall, and asked to borrow her notes. Now he’s here
with
her
,” she
said with such distaste that he couldn’t help but follow her
glare.

He spotted Marc dancing with a very
pretty brunette. Her name he remembered, Janie. She was a smart
girl and funny as hell. If memory served him correctly Marc had
been in love with the girl for the last two years. The poor guy who
was normally so sure of himself and easy going turned to a
stuttering fool when the girl was around. He’d been wondering when
the kid was going to work up the courage to finally ask her
out.

“Hmmm, good for him,” he mumbled,
earning a collective gasp of outrage.

“How could you, Mr. Bradford?” the
girl wailed even louder, making him cringe.

Oh, he really was going to kill Haley
for this shit.

************

“I had a really nice time,” Jonathan
said, probably for the tenth time.

Haley forced herself to smile and of
course lie. “I did, too,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t ask her to
elaborate on what she found nice, because she would really be hard
pressed to find something nice about this evening, except of course
that it was nice that it was ending.

This was absolutely the very last time
she went on a date with any man Mary, one of her oldest and dearest
friends, suggested. One would think after Mary set her up with the
taxidermist who crossed dressed she would have learned her lesson,
apparently not because somehow she agreed to go out with this
loser.

It didn’t start off badly. In fact, he
was on time and she thought he was rather cute in a nerdish way. He
was tall, a bit thin, but still, he looked nice. His clothes were
clean and he smelled good. The first clue that something just
wasn’t right occurred when they made it to the
restaurant.

That’s when his mother called for the
first time. Yes, first time as in there was more than one call from
his mother. In fact, during their four hour date, it lasted that
long because he took so long to eat, she called a total of
twenty-three times. Yes, she was very sure it was his mother since
he sat at the table when he took the calls and the speaker on his
phone was rather loud.

The reasons for the calls
ranged from, she missed him, wanted to know if he’d rather come
home and eat what she cooked, reminded him to clean his room
tomorrow, and her personal favorite, she wanted to know if he was
still with
“her”
.
Judging by her tone and the amount of calls, his mommy was not a
happy camper about her little boy dating. Granted her little boy
was thirty-five years old and according to him has never lived on
his own. Why would he when he lived with his best friend? Meaning,
mommy dearest. Of course he did spend a good time complaining about
how unfair his mother could be. Who knew a thirty-five year old man
could still be grounded for not picking up his dirty socks? She
certainly hadn’t.

She could not wait to get inside her
house and change into a pair of jeans and a tee shirt and have a
good laugh about this with Jason. That is of course only if Jason
had forgiven her for her little jest earlier. Hence the large piece
of chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting in the doggy
container she was currently holding. Jason was a big baby, but a
big baby that could be bought with food.

“Well, here we are,” she said brightly
as they pulled into her driveway. “It’s been fun. Thank you again,”
she said quickly as she practically ran from the car.

“This is a really nice house,” he said
close, too close. Haley looked back and bit back the curse that
threatened to leave her lips. The man was following her to the
door. She wanted to cry, really, she did. When would this nightmare
end?

She walked up to her door and
plastered another fake smile on her face. “Well, thanks
again.”

“You’re welcome.” He gave her a shy
smile before he leaned in to kiss her. Thankfully she saw that one
coming and turned her head in time to receive a rather wet kiss on
her cheek. Ew….

She barely stopped herself from wiping
her face. She’d scrub that off in a matter of minutes in a scolding
hot shower.

“Oops. Sorry,” he mumbled as he leaned
in to give her another kiss.

Faster than even she thought was
possible, she had the front door unlocked and opened. She stumbled
back saving herself from more slobber.

“Well, it’s been nice but-“

“Can I come in for a cup of
coffee?” he asked eagerly and then of course had to add, “I can
stay out as late as I want tonight.” Oh, she knew he was lying.
Someone was going to be in so much trouble when he got home. She
mentally
tsked
him.

She opened her mouth to politely
refuse when the yelling began.

“Help me!”

Haley jumped. What the hell? It
sounded like Jason was right in her house.

“Help me, please! Somebody please help
me! Why won’t somebody help me?”

“What’s that?” Jonathan asked
nervously.

Haley didn’t stop to answer. She was
already running towards the direction of the screaming. Her room?
She threw the door open and nearly tripped as she came to a halt
five feet into the room which put her right in front of her
bed.

“What the hell….” Jonathan stopped
behind her.

“Oh, thank god you’re here, Haley!”
Jason said, sounding happy for someone who was tied to her bed,
wearing only a pair of boxers. “I know you said it turns you on
knowing I’m tied to your bed waiting for you, but I really need to
use the bathroom and stretch my legs before we begin….,” his voice
trailed off when he caught sight of Jonathan.

Jason sighed dramatically. “I thought
we agreed that you would tell me ahead of time before you added
someone to our bed.” With a roll of his eyes he said, “It’s fine
this time. Lucky for you I think we have plenty of lube.” He looked
thoughtfully at Jonathan who was still staring at Jason dumbly. “I
hope you’re not a screamer. The last guy screamed his head off
every time I-“

“You’re sick!” Jonathan cried, cutting
Jason off. “Stay away from me and don’t try to call me either. I’m
telling my mother about you!”

Haley didn’t spare Jonathan a glance
as she glared at the man with the huge shit eating grin tied to her
bed. She was vaguely aware of her front door slamming shut and the
sound of tires peeling out of her driveway.

“Is that for me?” Jason asked, looking
pointedly at the styrofoam container in her hands.

“Mmmhmm,” she said as she walked
around the bed and placed the container on his chest and opened it.
She didn’t miss his eyes widening in pleasure.

“Is that-“

“Peanut butter frosting, yup,” she
finished for him.

He licked his lips as he stared at the
huge dessert. “You are the best, ever. Untie me so I can dig in,”
he said absently as he continued to stare at the cake, probably
trying to decide which end he was going to attack first.

“You can’t get free?”

“Nope.”

“You did this yourself?”

“Yup. Now cake, woman.”

“Uh huh…..” She stepped away from the
bed and headed for the bathroom.

“Wait, where are you
going?”

“I’m just getting something to untie
you with.”

“Hurry.”

“Sure thing,” she said, glad he
couldn’t see her shit eating grin.

Chapter 5

“I said shut up!” Jason snapped as he
stole the ball from Brad, his oldest friend, and tossed the
basketball into the hoop.

Brad wiped the tears off his cheeks as
he struggled to stop laughing. He failed miserably and fell to his
knees when he was no longer able to stand.

“Shut up!”

“I can’t….I
can’t….believe….she….shaved….your legs!” Brad said between gasps
and laughter. The bastard. Thankfully he was wearing a shirt to
cover up his now hairless chest and arm pits. Oh, she was going to
pay for this.

“She ate my cake, too!” Jason said,
which in his mind was the more serious betrayal. She wouldn’t even
let him lick the spoon clean and he had asked, several times. Damn
tease. That cake had smelled so good. His stomach rumbled just from
thinking about it.

“Man, for someone so obsessed with
food you’re lucky you’re not fat,” Brad said as he continued to
struggle with his laughter. Thankfully he was now able to stand so
Jason could kick his ass in this game.

“It’s not luck. I have a high
metabolism and I work out,” he said, taking another
shot.

“How long did she keep you tied up
for?”

Jason shot a glare at the man. “I
don’t know why you find this so funny. You’re supposed to be my
best friend. This should outrage you that someone would take
advantage of me like that. Where’s your loyalty?”