Playing For Keeps (6 page)

Brad abruptly stopped laughing and
arched a brow. “You hired two strippers at my bachelor party to
give me a Brazilian bikini wax when I was passed out.”

Jason chuckled. Oh, that had been a
very good night indeed. In fact, he was pretty sure that he had the
pictures around somewhere in his house. During the entire ceremony
Brad fidgeted at the altar while he tried to discretely scratch
himself. From what he heard his wife loved it so much she’d been
after him to have it done again. To say Brad was reluctant to allow
hot wax near his goods again was an understatement.

“Nothing you can bitch about will be
any worse than what you’ve done to everyone else over the years. In
fact, I believe Haley is now my hero.”

“She’s dead to me,” he said with a
sniff.

“Uh huh,” Brad said, stealing the ball
and making a rather shitty shot.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jason
demanded, taking the ball back.

Brad shrugged. “It just seems that you
like her.”

“I do like her,” he said easily before
adding, “When she’s not betraying me she’s my buddy.”

“She’s a very hot buddy in a very cute
way I would say,” Brad added.

“There is that, too,” Jason said,
dribbling the ball. “It’s nice to have eye candy around for my
enjoyment.” He looked Brad over. “It wouldn’t kill you to pretty
yourself up if you’re going to be in my presence.”

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that,” Brad
said wryly.

“See that you do.”

After a few minutes of playing, Brad
asked, “So, is there anything going on between you and
Haley?”

Jason just barely held back a laugh.
“Come on! She’s my buddy. I don’t see her that way!”

“Uh huh.”

“I don’t.”

“Sure.”

Jason shoved the ball at Brad. “What
the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Brad shrugged as he took another shot.
“Nothing. Just noticed how you watch her sometimes.”

“Oh? Enlighten me. How do I watch
her?”

Brad looked down at the ball as he
bounced it once, twice, and then looked up. “Like you want to
devour her from top to bottom and you’d kill anyone who got in your
way.”

Jason snorted. Then for good measure
he snorted again. “No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“It’s all in your head.”

“Whatever you say,” Brad said easily,
pissing Jason off more.

He didn’t want Haley. He didn’t look
at her in any special way. She was his friend, his buddy, his amigo
and he saw her as that not some tasty morsel he wanted to devour.
Okay, so yeah she was hot and those glasses made her look utterly
adorable and he noticed that she had really nice legs and big
breasts that he was sure would cradle his head very nicely, but who
wouldn’t notice that? She was also short which made him protective
of her, and he liked putting his arm around her because she felt
good against his side and fit perfectly under his arm. So what? It
didn’t mean anything more than friendship.

“Oh, here comes the object of your
desire now,” Brad said, chuckling.

“Shut up!” Jason snapped before he
turned his attention to Haley who was in a new green silk blouse
and a dark skirt. It looked like she was going to work, not hanging
out on a Sunday. She held a foil covered plate in front of
her.

“You look nice. Where are you off to?”
Brad asked.

Haley sighed, “Barbeque.”

Both men gaped as they looked her
over. “You’re going to a barbeque like that?” Brad asked. Who went
to a barbeque like that? What happened to jeans and a tee shirt or
a tank top? Clearly they still had much to work on.

“
Family barbeque, don’t
ask,” she said before turning her attention to him. “Are you still
mad at me?”

He grunted before walking
off.

“Oh, come on! I eventually let you
go!” He flipped her off without looking back. “Come on! That cake
wasn’t half as yummy as it looked. It left me uncomfortably full!”
she yelled, earning a laugh from Brad and a second one finger
salute from Jason.

“What do you have there?” Brad
asked.

Haley sighed as she pulled back the
foil, revealing large chocolate chunk cookies. “I made these for
the big baby so he would stop his little tantrum.”

“Wow, those look really good! Can I
have one?”

She shrugged. “Sure, since the baby
doesn’t want one.”

Brad picked up a cookie and brought it
up to his mouth. It was inches away when a large tan hand grabbed
it. Jason snatched the plate from her before sending Brad a killing
glare.

“How dare you touch my cookies, you
bastard!” Jason said in utter disgust before popping the cookie
into his mouth and heading back to his house.

“Damn those looked good, too,” Brad
grumbled.

Haley sighed. “Don’t worry I have a
second plate on my counter.” The words were barely out of her mouth
when Jason abruptly changed course and headed towards her
house.

“Well, there was,” she said, watching
Jason walk into her house like he owned it. A minute later he
walked out of her house, carrying both plates and the gallon of
milk she had in her fridge. He headed back to his house, but not
before he glared at Brad. “You cookie thieving bastard,” they heard
him mutter.

Brad rolled his eyes, chuckling. “And
people wonder how I lost weight rooming with him in
college.”

Haley just laughed as she locked up
her house and headed for her car. For a moment there she forgot the
hell that awaited her.

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

She ignored the glare of the parking
attendant as she pulled around her parent’s mansion and parked her
own car. She tried not to roll her eyes, but she just couldn’t stop
herself. Leave it up to her parents to go overboard for a family
barbeque.

Why they bothered she would never
know. It wasn’t like the rest of their family didn’t know they were
rich. It also wasn’t like the rest of the family wasn’t also rich.
They were always trying to prove they were the best and richest.
Kind of pathetic if you asked her, no one did of course. She was
just expected to show up at family functions, act perfect and bite
her tongue. Yup, this was going to be so much fun.

For the next four hours, and that was
the time her mother told her she absolutely had to stay or she’d
throw a fit to end all fits, Haley was going to have to endure
looks of pity over her marital status, childless state, job, and
looks. Yup, this was going to be great. Just great.

Why couldn’t her damn reliable car
have stalled on the way over here or better yet run out of gas
leaving her stranded at the mercy of the wildlife that would maul
her and save her from this hell? Was it really too much to ask
for?

She ran a hand over her shirt to
smooth it down as she approached the front door. Before she could
knock the door was opened. Jameson, their snotty butler of ten
years, looked distastefully down his nose at her.

“Your mother expected you a half an
hour ago, Miss. Blaine,” he said with a sniff. It hadn’t escaped
her notice that he called her sisters by their first names and even
smiled when he did it.

She wasn’t about to stand here and
argue with the man. “Where is she?”

Another sniff. “Madam is in the back
yard. She’s very exhausted. She’s been working day and night on
this barbeque. She was up at the crack of dawn and hasn’t rested
since!”

“Uh huh,” Haley said absently as she
walked past a lot of people she didn’t know. Funny how family
barbeques in her family really meant bringing everyone they wanted
to impress or schmooze. It seemed she was the only one that hadn't
brought an entourage. She had friends she really cared about and
could have brought, but well, it was because she cared about them
that she couldn’t inflict this upon them.

“Haley, so nice to see you!” her
cousin Jacob said. “You should come to the Vineyard this summer and
stay at my new cottage. It’s fabulous, you’ll love it!” he said
loud enough to draw attention to himself. She had no doubt that it
was the for the benefit of the crowd around him considering he
absolutely hated her. It might have something to do with her
putting Nair in his shampoo when they were kids. Ah,
whatever.

She simply gave that fake smile her
mother drilled into her head and made her way to the backyard where
she found her mother working hard at sipping a Martini and
gossiping with her sisters, a few aunts, and her Grandmother
snoozing in a wheelchair a few feet away under her own
umbrella.

Her father, brother-in-laws and
several Uncles, cousins and men she didn’t recognize sat on the
opposite end of the large brick patio that spanned the entire
length of the mansion. On the lawn, professional caterers were
barbequing on huge gas grills while others set up food on tables
and chairs around tables that now covered a small portion of the
ten acre backyard.

It didn’t surprise her that there were
no kids at the family barbeque and to suggest bringing a child here
would send her mother into a snit. A social queen her mother
definitely was, a mother and grandmother? Not even a little bit.
She was hardly there for their childhood. Why do it when she could
pay someone else was her mother's motto. Nannies and maids raised
her and her siblings until the age of ten when they each in turn
went to a private year round boarding school. From then on it was
obvious they were only guests in this house.

Some might think it was a pathetic
upbringing and to a point she would agree. Since they only saw
children as an accessory they really had no business having them.
It would have been a horrible childhood if her grandparents hadn’t
bought a house close to her school the first week and took Haley to
live with them. Thanks to her grandparents she had a wonderful
childhood. She loved the life her grandparents had given her, which
is one of the reasons at eighteen she took over her life and
decided to pursue her own dreams instead of following in her
family's footsteps.

“Oh, Haley! There you are, dear!” her
mother said cheerfully. Was she trying to smile? Yup, it appeared
she had Botox done once again. Her whole face looked completely
frozen.

“Hello, mother,” she said, giving her
mother a barely there kiss on the cheek as her mother gave her
one.

“Have a seat, dear!” Her mother
gestured to the seat next to her. Her sisters Martha and Rose gave
her smirks as they picked up glasses or fluffed back their hair in
attempts to show off whatever new trinket their husbands, more
likely husbands’ secretaries, bought them.

“It’s so nice to see you, Haley,” Rose
said with a cool smile as she jiggled her diamond
bracelet.

“It’s nice to see you too, Rose. How
are your children?” Haley asked.

Rose gave her a rather bland look.
“How would I know?”

Haley opened her mouth to point out
that they were in fact her children, but decided not to.

Martha leaned in trying to look
discreet. The fact that she raised her voice kind of wrecked the
effect. “You poor thing! I see the diet didn’t work.” She pouted.
“Did you get dumped again?” She shook her head as if it was no
consequence and pulled out a business card that she probably had
ready for this moment. “Here’s the name of a good doctor who does
wonders with removing fat and cosmetic surgery.”

Still smiling, Haley accepted the
card. Since she’d lost a few pounds in the last couple of weeks and
didn’t consider herself fat, especially since her stomach was flat,
she knew her sister was delicately as ever pointing out that Haley
was not stick thin like the rest of them. Flat breasts and looking
skeletal was in apparently. Since she would never look like them or
want to, she simply left the business card on the table.

She had no problem with how she
looked. She was comfortable with her curves. In factm she had the
same body type as her grandmother had when she was younger. The
same one out cold in her wheelchair and the one that everyone here,
but her, feared to piss off. She could be a little hellion to deal
with. They all looked down on her for her middleclass ways
forgetting that it was her hard work and sacrifices that made the
family what it is today.

“You know they can reduce those things
these days,” Rose said distastefully, pulling Haley from her
thoughts.

“What things?” Haley asked, distracted
by one of her cousins eying their grandmother like a vulture. She
had no doubt he was counting her breaths. Hell, the little prick
was mouthing the words. These people were pathetic.

“Your breasts, dear.
They’re….well….they’re so lower class. They make you look like a
waitress or something,” her aunt said sympathetically.

“I think you would look great with
less….curves,” Rose added.

Smile. “I’ll keep it in mind, thank
you. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

“Oh, wait, dear!” her mother said,
holding up her hand. “I wanted to ask you how your little hobby was
going.”