I let him win, but only because I had a call come in from an employee who needed to take an emergency sick day because her daughter was diagnosed with appendicitis.
And also because I know he didn’t forget the deal he offered, whereby he’d get to see my doodle pad.
“I’m not that hot,” I tell him when he stops beside me.
“Just dead sexy hot,” he replies.
Heat funnels to my core, and I try to stutter out a response, but before I can, he bends and tosses me over his shoulder.
I gasp in surprise.
“That hurt?” he asks quietly.
“No,” I answer honestly, half-surprised.
“Good. Tell me if it does. And don’t be a stubborn ass.” He turns, and adds, “Tucker, I’ll be right over there if you need me, okay?”
“Okay, Dad.”
He marches across the field, me hanging on with my monkey butt in the air, and while I get the occasional twinge in my leg, it doesn’t hurt.
I can’t see Tillie Jean’s face when Wyatt marches us into the Crusty Nut, but I can hear her. “Table for two?”
“By the window if you can,” he tells her.
“How about the balcony, sugar?”
“Is it out of the sun?”
“You bet.”
“Sounds great.”
“Sorry about my butt, Tillie Jean,” I offer.
“Cutest pirate monkey butt we’ve had come in so far this morning,” she replies. “C’mon. I got a table with an umbrella and a great view of the treasure hunt.”
“You got clothes on under that?” Wyatt asks while he carries me up the stairs.
I’d argue about this, but I’m tired of arguing with him. “Enough that I can unzip,” I confirm.
“Hot dog, it’s my lucky day.”
I shouldn’t be amused, but once again, Wyatt made a joke, and now I’m laughing.
He finally puts me down next to a wrought iron patio table and lets me take my own seat under the umbrella Tillie Jean cranks up for us. After standing at the railing a minute, he waves at Tucker across the street, and then takes his own seat.
“Did Monica just set us up on a date?” I ask him. “I mean, not that she doesn’t believe we’re dating, but…like on a real date. Alone. Is that what this is supposed to be?”
“That depends. Who’s paying?”
I toss a sugar packet at him. “Very funny.”
He smiles at me, and hello, gooey insides. Wyatt Morgan is not supposed to turn me all mushy and sappy.
But he’s doing an excellent job of it.
I wave a hand at my hot face, then belatedly realize I can unzip my monkey costume. I pull my arms out, and breathe a sigh of relief when the light summer breeze touches my bare skin.
Wyatt swallows a smile and glances at the menu Tillie Jean left.
“Has Beck called you today?” I ask him, because Beck’s a safe topic.
Kind of.
He shakes his head.
“Does that make you nervous?” I ask.
He frowns slightly, like he’s puzzled, then shakes his head again. “I think he’s trying to set us up.”
“Look, we can be friends, and it’s nice of you to humor me with claiming to be my boyfriend this week, but we seriously cannot be anything more.”
He leans back in his chair and watches me while our server delivers water glasses and asks if we need another minute.
“Yes,” he says at the same time I ask for a basket of gold nuggets—aka fried pickles—and a banana pudding.
“Hush,” I say to his raised eyebrows. “Patrick’s parents make me nervous, okay?”
“Make it two, please,” he tells the server, and she scuttles away with a smile.
Like she, too, thinks we’re on a date, and she, too, thinks we’re cute.
Not good.
Because even if Wyatt was relationship material, I’m not.
Seventeen
Wyatt
When our server leaves, Ellie leans into the table. “Why would Beck be trying to set us up?” she half-whispers. She doesn’t look annoyed.
More like anxious.
“He’s worried about you,” I tell her.
“Did you…tell him?” she asks.
She doesn’t say what, but she doesn’t have to. I shake my head. “You?”
“It was none of his fucking business.” She huffs. “That didn’t come out right.”
I start to smile, but she chews on her bottom lip, which simultaneously sends blood flowing straight to my cock and puts my pulse on high alert, because the Ellie I’ve always known would’ve rolled her eyes and said she was fine.
“Can I tell you something?” she asks.
“Why me?”
“Because if you tell anyone else, I can deny it because of our history.”
That’s the Ellie I know, and for the first time in my life, I’m finding her huffiness utterly adorable. “Then absolutely.”
“I don’t know what I want to do with my life.”
“I recommend not marrying your ex-boyfriend.”
She kicks me under the table, and I feel marginally better about myself for that smart-ass comment just popping off my tongue.
“When I graduated high school, I told myself I’d have a master’s degree in five years, a husband in eight, and kids in ten,” she tells me, which isn’t a surprise in the least. “And that I’d work my ass off to earn every promotion I got with my parents, because I know they’ll leave me the company one day, but I don’t want it just because I’m their daughter. I want to fucking earn it. I’ve been saving up to buy them out five years before they think they want to retire because Beck’s right, they’re workaholics and they don’t realize how old they’re getting.”
“You should probably not use the word old when you approach them.” Fuck, I’m terrible at this. “I mean—”
She cuts me off with a flutter of her hand. “I have two years to practice. I’ll get this.”
“Of course you will.”
“See? That’s the thing. I can tell you what I want professionally. But I don’t have a clue what I want in my personal life anymore.”
“You don’t want a family anymore?”
“I don’t know if I…if I can.” The words come out like they’re physically painful, and the sudden understanding hits me like a sock to the gut that pushes it into my chest to suffocate my heart.
I never wanted to have kids, and then Tucker happened, and I can’t imagine my life without him. We talk every night during the school year—I got him a phone over Lydia’s objections, and because he’s seven, he doesn’t know yet he can push limits—and it’s the best part of every day.
Ellie’s always wanted kids. Always.
Life’s not fucking fair.
I swallow hard. “The accident?”
“I haven’t been…regular…since. And my doctor…doesn’t know yet. She says I need more time to heal, but the best way to find out is to…try. And I don’t fucking have anyone to try with, and I’m not in any position to do it all by myself, or even ready at this point, and I never wanted to do it by myself anyway. But I just—” She looks away and cuts herself off with a shake of her head.
“Does your family know?”
“Of course not. They’ve barely gotten over the trauma of the phone call. I’m not putting this on them.”
“Ellie. They’re your family.”
“And they can’t fix it.”
I rub a hand over my face, wincing when I accidentally hit my sore eye, and stifle a sigh. “I don’t know what all’s going on inside your head right now, but I know your mother, and I know she’s always been the best listener, with the best advice, and she might not be able to solve anything, but she can sure as hell make anyone feel better.”
“I didn’t say I feel bad about anything.”
“But you don’t know what you want out of your personal life,” I point out. Helpfully.
“Never mind. Forget I said anything.”
“You know your worth as a person is more than just whether you can have kids and walk without a limp.”
The edges of her pursed lips go white as she glares over the railing at the park.
“If anyone can beat this,” I say, “you can.”
She doesn’t answer.
“Fuck, Ellie, Beck said the doctors weren’t sure you’d ever walk again, and look at you, being a dumbass and pushing your limits and giving them the double bird while you dance on tables.”
I get a reluctant grin.
“And scientists have made huge advancements in anatomically correct, realistic looking robots, so there’s even a chance you’ll be able to at least look like you’re married before you’re fifty,” I add.
She spins in her chair and lunges for the ketchup, and before I know what’s happening, I’m staring down a squeeze bottle. “That wasn’t very nice,” she says primly.
Her eyes are dancing behind the bruises, and dammit, she’s pretty when she smiles.
And when she threatens me with a ketchup bottle.
“You can try it,” I tell her, “but I’m a quick draw with the mustard.”
Her gaze darts to the yellow squirt bottle on the table, then back to me. “You think so?”
“I could definitely sword fight you with it.”
“If you want to get stabbed in the heart with a ketchup spout.”
“You’d go for my heart?”
“I’m ruthless, Morgan. Ruthless.”
“But have you studied the art of war?”
“I’ve studied the art of not getting trampled by my dear brother, which is the same thing.”
“Is not.”
“Oh, please. It is—hey!”
I snag the mustard bottle and point it at her while she’s distracted with arguing.