Boyfriend Bargain Read online

  I don’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t get in.

  “Oh, that’s so kind.” I fiddle with the zipper on my coat. “You didn’t have to do that. I liked helping you.”

  “But it would have taken me days. You went to town hall and figured it out, and now my donut truck is raking in the money.” He laughs, setting the tray down in front of me. “I call these Ding Dong Donuts in your honor. They have a heavy cream filling.”

  I huff out a laugh, fighting a sudden urge to let tears fall. Dammit, I will not cry! He’s so nice and I should be thankful and not upset that it’s reminding me I really don’t have a law school to go to in the fall.

  He gives me a big pleased smile, and I go around the counter to give him and his wife, Anna, who’s come out of the kitchen, a big hug.

  A few minutes later, I’m past the pain—hello, sugar—and sitting in my truck cramming the donut in my mouth and sighing in ecstasy when a muscular body jogs past the front of my vehicle. He’s a big dude, dressed in Hawthorne colors with a black knit hat and blond hair sticking out—

  My lovely donut goes flying straight to the floorboard. Zack.

  Immediately I duck down in my seat, mostly because it’s automatic and I’m still unsure about last night. I mean, we had hot sex, and I turned him down for a repeat, and now things are…weird.

  I ease back up from hunkering down, peeking over in his direction. Dayum. I sigh, taking in the tall body with a trim waist that tapers to muscled legs.

  He leans over, breathing in great gulps of air, and I wonder how long he’s been running. Campus is quite a ways away from here, at least five or six miles, though that’s probably nothing to an athlete like him.

  He yanks off his hat and shakes out his hair, running a large hand through the strands. A gust of cold air stirs through the morning air and he leans back against the brick of the storefront, his head tilting up to the sky. He drags a hand over his face, and I suck in a breath at the vulnerability that flashes over his features.

  What’s he thinking about?

  With a deep inhalation, he throws his hat and gloves down on a bench outside the Quickie-Mart and pushes his way inside. The movement is done without thought or worry, as if he’s put them there a hundred times and knows nothing will happen to them. He comes here a lot, I think.

  I need to get on the road—I have classes today—but I don’t start my car.

  I’m on the second donut when he bursts back out of the door with a pack of Marlboros.

  Well, well, well. Mr. Athlete smokes? He doesn’t seem like the type, but then what do I know?

  “You only had sex with him,” I mutter under my breath.

  With a long stride, he heads to the alley of the building, which I have full view of. Propping himself back up against the brick, he twists the pack open, pulls out a cig, and lights it with a lighter from his jacket.

  I study his face, surprised he doesn’t feel me looking, because the man seriously has a sixth sense.

  He holds the cigarette with taut fingers and takes a drag, blowing the smoke up in the air. He closes his eyes and rubs at his forehead, lines etched on the skin there and around his mouth.

  I swallow, frowning, feeling a tug toward him, an answering call of sadness, perhaps. My chest rises, and part of me wants to get out of the car and go to him—but I think he wants to be alone.

  The red light from the cigarette glows as he sucks on it until he stubs it out with his fingers. With a heavy breath out, he puts his hat and gloves back on then jogs over to a trashcan where he tosses the entire pack of cigs. Okaaaay.

  He does a few stretches and then takes off, running out of sight toward the street and, of course, I get out of the car to see where he goes.

  Southern girls are better than the FBI.

  He crosses the street and heads into the entrance of Memorial Park, a large and rather grand cemetery with huge oak trees, a stone entrance, and purple and yellow pansies in the flowerbeds. An interesting place to run, but it does have paths.

  I get back in my car, finish my donut, and crank up the engine. No way am I following him there. As far as I’m concerned, my days of trying to get Zack Morgan to notice me are done.

  “Urgent” by Foreigner rings out from my phone and I snatch it up.

  “Yeah, I’m on my way,” I tell Mara.

  “You’re fine. Don’t rush and drive too fast.” Her voice is dry with a slight Southern drawl that’s been fading for the past twenty years she’s lived here.

  I sigh. “I won’t.”

  “Did you get me a churro?”

  “Two.” I smile, picturing her in her purple velour tracksuit in the back office of the Boobie Bungalow, counting the weekend’s take and preparing a bank deposit. Her dyed blonde hair will be in a softly curled Marilyn Monroe style, and she’ll be wearing bright pink lipstick and lots of eyeliner with fake lashes.

  After my mom died when I was eleven, she was the first person to arrive at my front door in Alabama. Mama’s good friend since high school, she arranged for her memorial, packed up the trailer, and flew me back to Minneapolis with her. My daddy wanted nothing to do with me. Heck, his name wasn’t even on my birth certificate. Sure, Mara and I could have taken him to court, but if there was one thing I knew for sure at that age, it was that I didn’t want anything to do with the man who’d ruined my mama.

  “So what’s up? Did you need something else? I can pop by Costco later if you need cleaning supplies, but if you want more churros, I’m still here.”

  “No, just checking on you.” She pauses, and I picture her settling into her leather seat and propping her tiny feet up on her desk. “You seemed down this week. You okay?”

  “Mostly. There’s nothing to be done.” My tone isn’t optimistic. Very few waitlisted students manage to secure a spot. I have to accept the truth. “I’m a reject.”

  “You’re not a reject.” I hear her rustling papers and imagine she’s looking up at the poster of Clint Eastwood on the wall. Whenever she doesn’t know what to say, she always looks at him for guidance. I smile. She loves that man, swears she ran into him at a bar one night and they had a thing. It’s possible. She’s a beautiful woman.

  “It doesn’t have to be Vanderbilt,” she says, and emotion tugs at me.

  “I know.” My voice is subdued.

  “Fuck a duck with a bowtie. It’s because George went there, isn’t it?”

  I sigh, cringing at my father’s name. “I just want to prove I’m just as good as they are.”

  “You have nothing to prove!” She exhales, obviously pulling out a smoke by the sound of the click of her lighter. “Want me to make you a cake? Or pie? You love that lemon icebox one.”

  A smile ghosts over my face. Mara thinks the cure to all my ailments is sweets. She’s not far off, and I don’t blame her. Mama did the same. I cried a lot when I first moved here, a whole new world for a girl from the trailer parks of a small southern town. Kids made fun of my accent, and even the teachers didn’t know what to make of my sadness. I didn’t fit in here, and even now I sometimes feel like a stranger in a strange land. I chew on my lip. Perhaps that’s a tiny part of the reason I want to head back to the South for law school. Even though I don’t have any family to speak of, it’s still…home. It reminds me of Mama.

  “Sugar? You there?”

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  My brow wrinkles as I recall reading Zack’s bio online last week where he mentioned his favorite things. An idea stirs around and takes hold, and for the first time since I woke up this morning, I’m thinking there might be a way to thank him for returning my coat.

  “Hey, do you have the stuff to make a cherry pie at your place?” She lives with her longtime boyfriend Luis in a small apartment above the club. “And do you happen to have a good recipe for cherry pie?”

  “Not really, honey. Cherry pie is disgusting. It’s just gloopy fruit salad mixed with some dry crust. No thanks.”

  I grin. Mara is firm about her pie
opinions.

  She takes a hit of her cig and I hear her blowing the smoke. “I thought you liked lemon icebox. That’s the one I make better than that Pioneer Woman everyone raves about.”

  “No, I do, but I know someone who likes cherry, and I was thinking maybe I might whip one up. He…I…kind of…we had this thing…and then…” My voice peters out. I can’t exactly tell her how I had hot sex with a potential future fake boyfriend.

  “Bennett?” Her voice has sharpened, and I grimace. She never liked him—although I didn’t know that until we broke up and she confessed to it after a few too many glasses of wine.

  “No.”

  “Hmmm, and since when have you ever made a pie?”

  “Never, but I thought you might want to help?” I put a pleading tone in my voice.

  She sighs. “All right. The club is closed today anyway—but I’m not tasting it. That stuff is gross. Come over after class.”

  I smile. “I love you.”

  9

  Sugar

  Zack waltzes into our poetry class, and my stomach flutters.

  It’s midday and the auditorium is packed with mostly underclassmen and a ton of athletes, probably because it’s an easy elective and interesting if you dig American poets—which I do. Hello, Emily Dickinson.

  He strides in and sweeps his gaze across the crowded lecture hall, moving his eyes up until he finds me, tucked into a corner in the very last seat next to a wall vent, shivering because the heating is shit in this building. My coat is thrown over me like a quilt and he grins when he sees it.

  That smile is…devastating to my ovaries.

  Shut it down, Sugar.

  But then, instead of heading to the open front seats like he usually does, he takes the steep steps up until he reaches my row.

  I wonder if he sees the horror growing on my face. I really, really didn’t want to have to face him until I had a pie in my hand and more makeup on my face.

  He looms there, looking down the aisle for an empty seat, eyes landing on the one next to me.

  “Excuse me,” he says, sliding in to brush past the students already there. He eases past them, uncaring that some of them are having to get up to let him pass. Most of them murmur hellos and “Great game last week, Z!” as he scoots by, and he gives them a brief nod.

  He comes to a halt in front of me and my eyes go up and up, taking in the designer jeans, the way his long-sleeved black and gold HU Lions T-shirt clings to his chest. His hair looks damp and disheveled, the ends curling around his shoulders. He’s just had a shower.

  Red colors my face.

  I had sex with…that…him. My lower body tingles at the memory. My breathing accelerates. He had me pinned against the wall last night. He took me apart and made me come and oh my God—

  “Hi,” he says.

  Dammit.

  Why is his voice warm yet so insinuating…as if instead of hi, he’s really saying, I’m sexy and I know it.

  “Hey, yourself,” I say, sitting up straighter and adjusting my coat over my bosom.

  He watches me, a small smile tugging at his lips.

  The classroom door opens, and one of the TAs rushes in and heads to Professor Goldberg with a stack of papers. They stand and talk among themselves, giving us a little time—which Zack takes full advantage of.

  He glances down at the empty seat with my backpack in it. Without asking, he picks it up, sets it at my feet, and takes the chair. We’re in even closer proximity now that he’s sitting, not to mention his leg is pressed against mine.

  Here’s the thing about lecture hall seats at Hawthorne: they were probably built in the 60s and were made for normal-sized people without any extra room. Zack’s body is definitely not your average man’s build. I watch—with a bit of amusement—as he wedges his six-foot, six-inch frame in the small seat, his knees pressed against the back of the one in front of him, no doubt the pressure being felt by the girl sitting there.

  She looks over her shoulder in annoyance, sees who it is, and immediately smiles. With shoulder-length golden brown hair and a pretty face, she’s wearing a Delta sorority shirt. “Oh, Zack, hey. I didn’t know that was you. Glad you could join us back here.” She invites him to their next party, some shindig they’re having next week.

  A second later, she scribbles on a piece of paper and passes back her number. Her eyes rove over his shoulders. “You know, in case you want to come. Call me.”

  “Right,” he says with a smile as he takes the note. She turns back around and he tucks it in an outside pocket of his backpack.

  I lean over and whisper, “Will she be the one next?”

  “Maybe. I wonder if she likes Kappa parties.”

  “Or bathrooms.”

  “Or anywhere,” he says.

  I arch a brow. “You like having sex in public places?”

  “I’m up for it—with the right person.” His gaze grows hot, his grey eyes darkening, and I feel my chest expanding.

  Shit.

  I clear my throat and tap my pen on the desk. “Word to the wise: phone numbers can be tricky, expectations and all that.”

  “How so?”

  I clear my throat. “I guess it really doesn’t apply to you, but if you had a girlfriend and you took that number and slipped it in your pocket, it’s cheating, even if nothing ever comes of it, because the intent was there. You thought about it and consciously tucked it away.”

  An eyebrow shoots up. “You’ve experienced this type of behavior?”

  I nod. “An ex who put numbers in his jacket all night long and lied every time I called him on it.”

  “Ah.”

  I give him side-eye. “Are you going to call her?”

  “No.”

  “Then why take the number?”

  He leans in, the smell of his woodsy cologne intoxicating. “I tell you what—I’ll give her number back if you give me yours.”

  “Doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”

  His eyes glitter. “Oh, you’ll answer. You and I…we have unfinished business.”

  Before I can whip out a retort, he leans forward and hands the paper back to Sorority Girl. “Hey, I’m never gonna call. Sorry, babe. Here’s your digits back.”

  She huffs and snatches it out of his hand then sends me a glare over her shoulder.

  I bite back a laugh.

  He leans back and shifts those grey eyes back to me. “And your number?”

  “I never said I’d give it to you.”

  He bites that bottom lip—on purpose, I bet—and runs his gaze over me. “You will.”

  “You wish.” Ugh, I like sparring with him.

  “Miss Ryan, if you’re finished conversing with Mr. Morgan, perhaps you’d like to comment on the current question?” Professor Goldberg’s voice booms across the room, and I jerk up, suddenly at attention. Apparently the TA has slipped out and he was lecturing.

  And that’s what sitting next to Zack Morgan does to a person.

  “Um…?” I look up and straighten my glasses.

  Professor Goldberg points to the poetry book in his hand. “We’re discussing the poem you were supposed to have read.”

  My brain has completely melted.

  “You did read the poem?” the professor asks, arching a brow.

  My voice is high. “Yes, quite fascinating this one, actually…”

  Zack nudges me and I look down at his notebook where he’s scribbled something.

  “Yes! ‘Acquainted with the Night’ by Robert Frost, sir. It’s a sonnet, written in strict iambic pentameter. Very lovely.”

  “Continue. I’m sure you have thoughts. I hope you do for your participation points. Who’s the speaker?”

  There’s a rumble of laughter in the room and I grimace. I did read the damn thing. “The speaker is a lonely man who only walks at night,” I say.

  “Why does he do that?” the professor asks, casting his eyes across the room. “Any takers?”

  Zack’s leg brushes against mine as he stra
ightens and speaks. “He doesn’t think anyone will understand him. Darkness is his home, where he belongs.”

  He points at Zack with a long finger. “Elaborate.”

  Zack rubs at his jawline, and I think I see color rising on his cheeks, but that can’t be right because nothing seems to ruffle him. “He’s at the end of his rope, and it gets to the point where he can’t even make eye contact with people. There’s a blackness inside him.” He taps his pen on his leg. “At the end of the poem, he looks up at the moon in the sky and acknowledges that time has no meaning for him because his isolation is unending. He hates himself. He doesn’t deserve anything.”

  Shit. The narrator hates himself? I didn’t get all that, but I can see it…

  “Buzzkill,” murmurs someone in front of us, and I glare at the offender.

  “He’s completely alone,” Zack adds, and part of me wants to pick at those words, at the weight I hear in his voice.

  And…

  Don’t I know how lonely feels?

  I have three people in my life I can count on for anything—Mara and my besties Taylor and Poppy—but besides them, nada. No family, and now no Bennett. Even when Mama was alive, she was always somewhere else in her head, thinking about my father, wishing she were with him.

  Professor Goldberg is complimentary of Zack’s analysis and class continues as we move on to discuss each line. I take notes on my small laptop, keenly aware of him as he shifts in his seat beside me.

  “Good job,” the professor says to us as the bell rings out in the hall. “Next up is Edgar Allan Poe. Get ready to delve into the supernatural.”

  I smile. After my upper level law classes, this is one I can just…enjoy.

  Because we’re in the last two seats, we sit and wait for the row to empty out. Neither of us speaks, and Zack’s brow is furrowed as he gathers up his backpack and sticks his notebook inside.

  “You okay?” I ask, pushing my glasses up.

  “Yeah.” He rakes a hand through his hair and gives me a broad smile, the same one he gave Sorority Girl.

  I frown. “You don’t have to pretend with me.”

  He blinks. “What do you mean?”