“It was great. Wish you could have had dinner with us.”
“That would have been nice,” she says with a soft sigh.
“Maybe someday,” I say with hope.
“Yeah?” Her pitch rises too.
I’m this close to sayingI’m falling for you. But with her starting to fade, now isn’t the time. “I should let you sleep.”
“Night, Drew,” she says.
“Night, Brooke,” I say.
But when I end the call, I’m not tired. I’m amped up with thoughts of her, and us, and our deal.
The deal I need to make good on. I pace in front of the window, staring at the dark sky, thinking.
What makes Brooke tick in bed? Dirty words. They’re guaranteed to get her out of her head.
That gives me an idea.
What I need is a sex hack.
17
THE PROOF IS IN THE WHAC-A-MOLE
Drew
Silas taunts me ferociously on Tuesday at the High Score Arcade in Santa Monica. “Prepare to lose once again, Drew!”
The seventh grade baseball player I’ve been battling in Whac-A-Mole is a tough competitor.
“Don’t count me out yet.” I lift the mallet and send a wooden mole into oblivion.
“Nope. You can’t catch up,” Silas says fiercely as I chase the vicious little moles in the game.
The tenacious kid has soundly whipped my ass in every game of Whac-A-Mole tonight. His baseball team was a rag tag bunch of middle schoolers with old equipment playing on overgrown fields until theMercenaries helped out through Every Kid, an organization that helps fund sports for underprivileged youth.
As my round ends in another loss, I lift my hand. “Silas, you are the king of Whac-A-Mole,” I say, knocking fists with the young warrior. “Feel free to brag to all your teammates that you kicked my butt at Whac-A-Mole. Can you do that, my man?”
He beams. “I can do that. Can you win again this weekend against the San Francisco Hawks?”
I laugh, then clap him on the shoulder. “I’ll do my best.”
He heads off to join his buddies, and I return to the arcade game for a quick solo round.
As I clobber a mole, someone says in a pretty and familiar voice, “Careful. I hear we might ban Whac-A-Mole next.”
Slamming the padded hammer down on the wooden weasel, I answer with a grin. “The GM runs a tight ship,” I say as the next mole submits to my speed with the hammer.
“But Skee-Ball is still safe,” Brooke says.
“Whew. I was worried,” I say, then sneak a glance at her.
Damn. Brooke is so pretty. Her tight red dress hits above her knees, and she looks good enough to eat.
All I want to do is kiss her. Go home with her. Take her out to breakfast and make her mine.