How to Score (28 page)

“Well, then, that’s half the ballgame. You have to keep your eye on the goal if you want to score.” Chase put the rag back in his shoe-shine kit and pulled out a brush. “Here’s your assignment for next time: I want you to go furniture shopping for that apartment.”

“But—but… ”

“You don’t have to buy anything; just pick out what you
would
buy if you were moving into it, according to your budget and tastes.”

“It’s just a fantasy, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, okay. I can do that.” He paused a moment. “It’s kind of fun, living out these fantasies.”

“Good. That’s the whole idea.” Chase buffed his shoe. “Now… do you have another rap for me?”

“Yeah, I do.” He cleared his throat, then made some beatbox noises.

I got a new crib and it looks real fine.

It makes the Playboy Mansion look like Toddler Time.

Hot chicks in bikinis like to tan by the pool

So I sidled up to one and I acted real cool.

I said, ‘Hey honey, don’t think I’m leching,

But you wanna come up and see my etchings?’

Chase exploded in laughter.

“I’m not done yet,” Horace whined.

“Sorry. Please continue.”

Horace cleared his throat, then resumed his rapper voice.

She said, ‘Why, sure; you’re a stone-cold hunk.

‘A fine man like you shouldn’t live like a monk.’

Bazoom, chocca-locca-locca. Zoom, chocca-locca-locca.

Zoom! Chocca-locca-locca. Zoom!

He paused dramatically. “So what do you think?”

“I think you’re awesome, dude. The only thing that could make it better is hearing you play the accordion with it.”

“Really? Okay. Next time I’m gonna do that. It might be hard to sneak the accordion out of the house past Mother, but I’ll figure out a way.”

Anything that got Horace to defy Mommy Dearest was a step in the right direction. “Great. I’ll be looking forward to that.”

Chase hung up and grinned. Horace was really making strides. Now if he could just make some, as well.

Drawing a deep breath, he worked the brush back and forth across the insteps of his shoes until they gleamed. Sammi would be calling next, and the thought of talking to her tangled his stomach into a knot of anticipation and guilt. He carefully packed up his shoe-polishing kit, threw away the newspaper covering his dining table, and put his shoes and the kit back in his closet.

The situation really sucked, he thought as he strode back into the kitchen. On the one hand, he was helping her. On the other, he felt like a dishonest heel. And he was afraid that both he and Sammi were in over their heads, attraction-wise.

He knew he was. He opened the fridge and pulled out a beer. The idea of seeing her one more time, then never again, made him miserable. Popping the top on the can, he picked up his notepad and stared at the list of options he’d written out last night.

Option one: Continue as her coach.
He’d see her one more time, and never again. He’d need to talk to her a few times afterward to help her sort out her job and living situation, and probably guide her to the beginning of another relationship. The thought twisted his gut into a pretzel.

Option two: Resign as her coach.
That was the simplest, cleanest way out of the situation. But it meant he couldn’t date her, because he refused to start off a relationship based on lies.

Which led to
Option three: Tell her the truth and hope that she’d forgive him
. But this option came with an inherent danger: What if it made her trust men less than ever? What if, instead of helping her, he set her back?

Chase raked both hands through his hair. That was unthinkable. He couldn’t leave her in worse shape than she’d been in when she first came to him.

The options weren’t workable. He’d have to combine all three. He’d date her one more time, prove to her she was over her fear, and resign as her coach. Then, after some time had passed, he’d tell her the truth.

Right on cue, the phone rang. Chase took a fortifying swig of beer and answered it.

“You’ll never guess what happened,” Sammi said in a rush.

“What?”

“Well, Chase asked me to help babysit his partner’s little boy, and we took him out for pizza, and… ” She went through the whole chain of events.

“Chase was amazing,” she said. “And at the end of the evening, he kissed me, and… ” Her voice trailed off.

“And?” he prompted.

She gave a dreamy sigh. “It was incredible. And I think he thought so, too.”

“I’m, uh, sure he did.”

“I’m actually beginning to believe that maybe you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.” He paused a moment. “About what?”

She laughed. “That my ex was the one with the problem. That maybe I’m not so boring, after all.”

“I can’t imagine a man ever getting bored with you.”

Too late, Chase realized that it was an odd thing for a man who’d never met her to say. The whole tone of this conversation was too intimate for Sammi to be having with another man, anyway.

Hell. Was he jealous—of
himself?
This was all too weird and complicated. He rose and paced his living room. “Did you hurt him?”

“No! I didn’t hurt him at all. I didn’t even hurt myself.”

“Wow, that’s two in a row.”

“Actually, just one.”

“Two,” Chase said firmly. “Your dog’s actions don’t count. So one time more makes three, and after three dates without inflicting injuries, you’ll officially be over this whole thing. And then you’ll be ready to move on.”

“Oh, I don’t intend to move on. I’m crazy about this guy.”

A totally inappropriate rush of pleasure pulsed through Chase.

“But—what about him being FBI?”

“Well, I’ve changed my mind about that. You should have seen him in action. It’s like he has a sixth sense or something—like he has a gift, like it’s what he’s meant to do. I think being an agent isn’t just his job; it’s his calling.”

Chase swallowed, his throat suddenly tight.

“That whole incident made me realize that there are risks everywhere. I mean, that little girl and her mom just went out for a pizza, and look what happened. Talking to Melanie and her friends helped me put things in perspective, too. Sure, officers and agents are in more danger than most people, but you have to weigh the risk against the reward.”

“The reward being… ”

“Being with the right man.” She hesitated. “And… Chase might just be him.”

Chase’s heart pounded hard and fast in his chest. “You still don’t know him very well.”

“I know him well enough to know I don’t want to date anyone else.”

“What if you don’t know him as well as you think?”

“What do you mean?” He could hear the frown in her voice.

“Well, what if you discovered that he’s lied to you?”

She was silent for a moment. “You think there’s a possibility he’s seeing someone else?”

“No! I don’t think anything of the kind. This is strictly an exercise in ‘what if.’ ”

“Well, Chase wouldn’t lie.” Her voice was firm, her tone certain. “He’s a stand-up guy, and I trust him.”

Chase looked up at his ceiling and closed his eyes. He was in big trouble here. Big, big trouble.

“In fact, I’m ready to take it to the next level,” she said.

“That level being…?”

“Physical.”

Chase swallowed hard. He was in a heap o’ hurt, all right—because until he leveled with Sammi, physical involvement was off the table.

“You’re veering from your original purpose here,” he told her. “In order to score in the game of life, you have to play by the rules. And the rules here are, you’re supposed to go out with this guy three times and prove to yourself that you can date a man without wounding him. You need to complete your third date before you even think about ratcheting up the romance.”

“Why?”

“Because those are the rules of the game,” he said firmly.

“I thought the point of the game was to score.”

“Not like that.”

Sammi laughed. “Okay. I’ll finish the third date. But after that, all bets are off.”

Sammi walked through the beaded curtain that led to the back room of the Dragon Ink Tattoo Parlor three nights later and found Chloe leaning over a pale, shirtless man stretched out on a sheet-draped table. His long gray hair spilled out from under a red do-rag, and his stomach rose like a giant uncooked dinner roll. His chest was covered with a thicket of gray hair, except for a shaved three-by-three-inch square above his pierced left nipple, where Chloe was tattooing what looked like the head of a Lhasa apso.

The man waved a tattooed hand. “Hey.”

Chloe looked up, a contraption in her hand that looked like a dental drill with a blue plastic bag over it. “Hi, Sammi. What’s up?”

Sammi took a step back out the door. “I, uh, didn’t know you were with a customer. The manager told me it was okay to come back here.”

“Oh, sure, it’s fine,” Chloe said blithely. “Judd doesn’t mind. Do you, Judd?”

“Nah. The more, the merrier.”

Sammi had been in the tattoo parlor before, but she’d never actually watched her sister at work. The sight was somewhat unnerving. “I was, uh, dropping off the supplies for the signs.”

“Oh, good. Tuesdays are usually pretty slow, so I should have time to work on them tonight.”

Judd’s leathery face turned toward her. “What kind of signs are you makin’?”

“Sammi’s organizing a protest.” Chloe held the electric needle against his skin and stepped on the pedal on the floor. Judd closed his eyes and grimaced as the machine buzzed.

“It’s more of a rally, actually,” Sammi corrected.

Chloe lifted her foot. “She’s trying to convince the Preservation Commission to keep her landlord from tearing down a historic house.”

“Cool,” Judd said. “When’s it going down?”

“Thursday morning at ten,” Chloe informed him, stepping on the pedal and making the needle whine. “Sammi’s calling the media and hopes to turn it into a big event.”

“Awesome,” Judd said through gritted teeth. He looked at Sammi over Chloe’s head. “Need some help?”

“She needs all the help she can get,” Chloe cut in before Sammi could even open her mouth. “The more people, the bigger the story.”

“I can get a group together,” Judd offered. “Just tell me when and where, and we’ll be there on our hogs.”

Sammi frowned. “Hogs?”

“Motorcycles,” Chloe translated. She grinned up at Sammi. “He doesn’t mean women.”

Judd lifted his head from the table. “Why would she think I meant women?”

Chloe dismissively waved the hand not holding the electric needle. “Oh, she knows this guy who calls them hogs.”

“What a jerk.” Judd gave his head a disgusted shake. “That’s downright disrespectful.”

There was probably no point in explaining the context. She winced as Chloe fired up the needle again.

Chloe raised her voice to be heard over the machine’s buzz. “Speaking of Chase, have you heard from him?”

Sammi nodded. “He called this evening.”

“He actually picked up a phone? Praise be and glory hallelujah.”

It had been a brief call, and the connection had been awful, but at least he’d phoned. It was ridiculous how happy that call had made her.

“He’s in Washington for a weeklong seminar,” Sammi volunteered.

“So he’ll miss the rally?”

“Afraid so. But he’ll be back for the weekend. He’s taking me on a mystery date on Saturday.”

“A mystery date?”

“Yeah. He won’t tell me where we’re going; he just said to dress super casual, and he’d pick me up at four.”

“I took my girlfriend on a surprise date once,” Judd offered.

“Oh, yeah?” Chloe moved the needle to another spot.

“Yeah. I blindfolded her and put her on the back of my Harley, then took her to the rattlesnake hunt in Okemah. Afterward, we got matching snake tattoos on our butts.”

“Wow.” Sammi grinned at Chloe. “I bet that’s a memory that will live forever.”

“Yeah. Want to see? The snake looks like it’s crawling into… ” He started to unbuckle his studded belt.

Sammi raised her hand. “No, no. That’s quite okay.”

Chloe shot her a teasing grin. “Maybe that’s what Chase has in mind.”

Sammi shook her head. “I don’t think he’s planned anything quite that exciting.”

“Well, ya never know,” Judd said. “You might get lucky.”

Chloe’s eyes glittered with amusement.

Sammi placed the poster board and paints on the counter, then headed for the beaded entryway. “I’ll try to hold a good thought.”