Читать книгу No Strings Attached - Alison Kent - Страница 9

CHLOE ZUNIGA STEPPED inside the doorway to Haydon’s Half Time and flinched at the unholy blast of noise. What was it about team sports that turned a civilized gathering into a loutish milieu, complete with the roars, growls, honks and snorts of a teeming jungle habitat?

The primitive racket ricocheting off the sports bar’s walls had her longing for earplugs or cotton balls. Protective headgear, even. And she’d trade two gRAFFITI gEAR luxury spa packs for a can of air freshener right about now.

Fanning at a plume of cigar smoke with one hand, squinting into the gaudy neon glare, Chloe searched the raucous crowd for a pair of shoulders worthy of Tarzan.

If Eric Haydon wasn’t here, she was going to kill him.

The man had some nerve, refusing to return her phone calls, forcing her to resort to this ridiculous extreme. It was April, a gorgeous Saturday afternoon. So what if it was—as spelled out on the parking lot marquee—the Houston Astros Season Opener, and Haydon’s Half Time was Houston’s Richmond Drive’s hot spot.

She had better things to do with her time than dodge rabid fans, and certainly better places to put her feet than a floor littered with spent peanut shells and cork beer coasters and whatever that sticky stuff was gumming the soles of her shoes to the glossy concrete.

Uncouth. That’s what it was. Ill-mannered and crude. What was wrong with these people?

The fact that their enthusiastic word of mouth had put Haydon’s Half Time on the map, that their patronage provided Eric’s bread and butter, hardly gave them carte blanche to act like they were raised in a barn. Team sports. Ugh. Chloe gave an affected shudder and blew out a loud puff of breath.

The very idea of all that sweaty grabbing and pawing, that tackling and blocking and sliding into base! The silly pants, the silly nicknames, the silly sports drinks colored like kiddie crayons. What a ridiculous waste of spirit, not to mention entertainment dollars.

Men. Honestly. They could be such children, she thought, even as a feminine shriek of excitement cut through the din.

Okay. So the place was coed.

The women were one thing, standing by their men, rooting for his team or often their own alma mater. And, yes. There were women who did the team sports thing for no other reason than the love of the game. The women didn’t factor into Chloe’s aversion for athletic fanaticism.

The women didn’t stir memories of being sidelined for no other reason than being a girl, a girl who in a heartbeat would’ve traded her secret baseball card collection for the chance to strap on shin guards and play a game with the neighborhood boys.

The women didn’t bring back memories of petticoats and patent leather and the punishing discomfort of the cold metal bleachers where she’d sat primly at her father’s side—Daddy’s little girl, pink-cheeked and petite, come to watch her brothers compete on the field.

The women didn’t leave her heart hopelessly hollow, her body crazy-hungry for heat, as did the incredibly clueless males of the species who, in Chloe’s wide world of experience, preferred their women to remain on a pedestal, between the sheets, or three paces behind.

The entire concept of love and romance was going to hell in a handbasket.

“Hey, sexy lady. Wanna beer?” The slurred voice interrupted her thoughts.

Chloe sighed and looked to her left. Ex-jock. Muscles gone to fat. Gaze flicking to three grinning buddies at a nearby table. “I think I’ll pass,” she replied.

“Pass? On a beer? Then how ’bout I give you the best night of your life?”

Puh-leez. “Not interested.”

“Aww, c’mon, baby.” He leered his way down the front of her new football jersey. “If I could see you naked, I’d die a happy man.”

“Yeah, sugar. But if I saw you naked—” she reached out and poked his beer belly “—I’d probably die laughing. Thanks, but no thanks.”

Turning her back on the whoops and sympathetic groans, she headed in search of some breathing room away from the cluster of tables.

Men. All so predictable. At the first sight of breasts, they turned into boobs. Keeping an eye out for Eric, she moved away from the common room back toward the entryway, and searched the bar from that vantage point.

It was obvious that what the modern world needed was another Cary Grant. A real ladies’ man. A true romantic.

Chloe might be only twenty-six years old, but she’d spent years devouring the favorite movies of the mother she’d never known, the mother who’d died before her first birthday.

And Chloe was not too young, too jaded or too cynical to envy Ingrid Bergman those heated looks shared in Indiscreet, Deborah Kerr the courtship of An Affair to Remember, Grace Kelly that spectacular kiss in To Catch a Thief.

Chloe couldn’t help but wonder if her mother, too, had been compelled by those cinematic glimpses into human nature, intriguing snapshots of what love could be. If she had longed for that broader experience, that deeper well.

Was that why she’d so adored romance classics? Or had she simply been a film buff, watching for no other reason than the love of a good story? How Chloe wished she could ask. And listen.

And learn the truth of the relationship her mother had shared with her father, the man who’d enshrined her memory and held her up as an example of the type of woman Chloe would do well to emulate.

Maybe if she better understood what had made her parents’ marriage the heavenly match her father had avowed—a match of the type so often idealized on screen—she wouldn’t feel so driven to find a man who filled her own movie bill.

A man who knew how to make a woman feel as if no woman had existed before her, knew how to make her believe that if he didn’t have her now—right now, here, this moment—he wouldn’t be able to breathe. A man who shared her own intoxication in impatient, restless sex. Sex unplanned and uncontainable, in the moment, on the edge.

Sex Chloe knew about. Sex was easy. Sex was power. It was that crazy little thing called love that she wasn’t certain she’d ever recognize.

“Hey, sweet thing. What’s your name?”

Chloe turned to face her newest accoster. A squat muscle-bound man stood much too close, his frog-eyed gaze aimed straight at her chest.

“Ice Princess,” she said coldly.

The toad only laughed, then moved closer. “So, what do you do for a living? Besides play hard to get, that is.”

“I’m a female impersonator.” Before he could respond, she brushed by him, leaving the bar’s entryway and walking briskly toward the rest rooms.

Men. Duds and bores. Her patience with them had grown Calista Flockhart thin.

Was it so much to ask? To be utterly, completely understood by a man? Had her idea of relationship reality been warped by her movie fantasies as well as by those of her mother? Was it truly impossible to be so attuned to another person that one could finish a sentence the other began?

Because that was what Chloe wanted. That connection, that completion, that bond. That, and the sex.

She paused near the door marked Jocks, shifted direction and entered the door marked Jills. Small, but spotless, she noted with approval, though she wasn’t the least bit surprised the room resembled a mini locker room in design.

Nodding at a tanned, short-haired woman washing her hands, Chloe proceeded to do the same at a second sink. What was she doing here? Tonight, in this bar? What did she hope to accomplish, really? There was no prince waiting out there, ready to fight for her honor, slay her dragons, no questions asked.

What had she been thinking, turning to a man when she had five girlfriends standing by, women who understood her and who she could call on day or night for comfort, career counseling and chocolate?

Men. Who needed ’em, anyway?

“Nice jersey,” a startlingly low voice said.

Chloe’s gaze jerked to the other woman’s, which seemed to be admiring more than the new Houston Texans logo. It was a sad state of affairs when a girl could no longer find refuge in the ladies’ room.

Muttering her thanks, Chloe returned to the bar, where a sudden loud burst of applause and an exuberant apelike, fist-driven echo of “Whup, whup, whup!” reiterated beautifully the reason she was here, and renewed her determination.

He might not be a prince riding to her rescue, but, for all his boisterous behavior and cocky top jock attitude, Eric Haydon often conveyed a hint—admittedly, the barest, the most infinitesimal, the tiniest microscopic hint—of suave sophistication, a sort of cultured finesse that kept her Cary Grant hopes up.

And that played nicely into her plans.

Abandoning what she could of the smoke and the noise, Chloe wove her way through the common room and up three short steps onto the glossy hardwood floor of the bar’s more intimate pub. The place was softly lit by glowing brass lanterns. The rich wood toppers of the red and green padded booths gave her cover to sneak up and blindside her quarry.

Fortunately for Eric and his well-being, Chloe knew she’d find him here. The black Ford Mustang GT she’d seen in the bar’s back lot was his; the personalized plates that read HALF TIME were hard to miss. It was a hotshot car, an extension of his male ego. A show-stopping, attention-grabbing, top-of-the-line boy toy that had accomplished its objective.

Her attention had been grabbed.

With proof of his whereabouts, and a firm resolve, she was not about to let him blow her off in person the way he’d blown off her phone calls. Just let him try and hide out in the kitchen, or ignore her while working behind the bar.

She would not be deterred from her mission. Like it or not, she needed a man.

And even if he was a living, breathing, sleeping, eating, twenty-four–seven sports nut, Eric Haydon was the man she wanted. She would deal with his obsessive nature. She’d done it before, while partnered with him for the month-long scavenger hunt designed by Chloe’s business partner, gIRL-gEAR editor Macy Webb, for her monthly gIRL gAMES column.

Reaching the far end of the pub, Chloe sidestepped the waitress wearing old-fashioned baseball flannels, and looked up in time to catch sight of her victim behind the bar. A brief glimpse only, as Eric moved quickly out of range.

A smile touched Chloe’s mouth, and it was hard to deny the rush of a schoolgirl thrill tumbling through her empty belly, hungry as she was for food and his company.

During the month they’d spent on the scavenger hunt, they’d shared dinners, drinks and dirty jokes, not to mention one incredibly intense deep-throated kiss. She’d been banking on that making them friends.

And friends didn’t let friends drive their careers into the ground.

Chloe took a deep breath and headed for the bar. Eric turned then, walking toward her as she approached. The gray jersey T-shirt he wore snugged tightly over his shoulders and pecs, hung loosely to his hips.

The man’s body was a piece of work, hard and fit and deserving of a calendar spread. Chloe boosted herself onto a padded red stool, propped her elbows on the shiny black bar and settled her chin into the cup of her palms.

He really was drool-worthy with those shoulders and that butt and the wide white smile that dimpled both of his cheeks. He’d cut his dark blond hair recently, so it was shorter than usual, barely long enough to need a brush. And then there were his blue eyes, and his…

…oh, so loud mouth!

Chloe grimaced as Eric shouted and whistled at whatever sports thing was going on across the room on the big screen TV. Macy had been right when she’d called him a Tarzan. Chloe could just see him, muscles bunching, swinging from a vine, beating on his chest, wearing nothing but a skimpy loincloth….

“Well, if it isn’t Chloe Zuniga, Miss Pretty in Pink in the flesh.” Eric slapped both palms on the bar, jarring Chloe’s elbows.

At his reference to her wardrobe’s usual color scheme, Chloe smiled sweetly while trying to recall her well-rehearsed, extremely witty opening.

Having forgotten everything now that she was here and he was so close and so incredibly—and annoyingly—cute, she held both arms out to the side and swiveled back and forth on the bar stool. “Not a speck of pink, visible or otherwise.”

Eric stepped onto the bar’s low storage ledge and leaned forward, peering as far as he could over the counter. Chloe helped him out by lifting a foot to show off her socks, her cross-trainers and her long denim shorts.

Looking impressed, Eric stepped down and then grinned. “I feel like it’s St. Patrick’s Day and I’m searching for any speck of green I can find.”

“Nope. Not on this girl. No green and no pink.” Chloe wanted to stomp a foot in frustration. He hadn’t said a word about her cross-trainers.

Or about her Texans jersey, which was the hottest thing going, according to the teenage salesclerk who’d watched, tongue lolling, while Chloe had shimmied the jersey down over the midthigh hem of her skirt when she’d tried it on in the middle of the store.

Eric studied her face closely, snapped his fingers. “Your eye shadow. Definitely pink.”

“Definitely not. This is gRAFFITI gIRL’s Mosh Pit Bruise.” She closed her eyes and ran a fingertip over the lighter color just beneath her brow. “And this is Strobe Light White.”

Eric frowned in earnest this time, as if seeing something that didn’t quite click. And then both brows lifted in disbelief as it hit him.

“Chloe. Don’t look now, but you’re wearing a football jersey. And I think I saw athletic shoes on your feet. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were up to no good.”

Chloe pressed her lips together, waiting for him to put the two of her phone calls he’d avoided together with her laughably out of character ensemble. It didn’t take him long to do the math.

He backed a short step away, yanked the green towel printed with a red Haydon ‘H’ from his shoulder and wiped both of his hands. “The answer is no.”

She’d never thought this was going to be easy. She just hadn’t counted on coming up on a dead end so soon. “Now, sugar. How can you tell me no when you don’t even know the question?”

“I’ve got news for you, princess.” His head continued to shake from side to side. “You’re in enemy territory. You start trying to bust my chops and the uproar’s liable to bring down the roof on your head.”

Chloe did her best to look demure and damaged. “I’m crushed to know that’s what you think of me. Enemy indeed.”

His attempt to remain firm dissolved into a chuckle under his breath. “I spent a month as your scavenger hunt partner. Don’t think that poor pitiful me act is going to cut any of my mustard. Now, I have customers to see to.”

Just like that? He was blowing her off just like that? “Excuse me, but I am sitting at your bar and I have yet to see any service.”

The towel went back to Eric’s shoulder. His hands went to his hips. His expression went from bemused to businesslike. “What can I get you then?”

This wasn’t going at all like she’d planned, and she had only herself to blame. Had she really thought dressing like a car pool mom would fool Eric into thinking she was anyone other than who she was?

He’d spent a month in her company, and no pair of shoes or sports jersey would make him forget her tendency to be a bit aggressive at times, assertive at others—a personality blip that held top honors on her list of self-improvements to make.

Her potty mouth was another issue.

Right beneath her bad girl reputation.

Which she needed Eric to save.

She couldn’t afford not to play this his way. She pulled a glossy menu card from the stack pushed against the wall at the end of the bar. “What’s good here?”

He shoved a basket of peanuts in her direction, then a basket of pretzels. “Take a look at the menu. I have twenty-five beers on tap. Or one of the bartenders can mix up whatever tickles your fancy.”

She pretended to pout. “I think my feelings are hurt. We spent an inseparable month and you have to ask?”

“A hazard of the job. Jason,” Eric called over his shoulder, his eyes never leaving Chloe’s. “Bring the princess here a cosmopolitan.”

Eric knew it was too early in the afternoon for Chloe’s favorite party drink. But she wasn’t about to call him on it because she knew that’s what he was waiting for. For her to tell him he’d gotten it wrong, that he knew better, that he should use his head and stop acting like a brain-dead jock. But not one of those comebacks crossed her mind as a serious option.

Her days of busting his chops had to come to an end, or she would never get him to agree to her proactive, career-saving strategy. And since Eric played a major role in her plan, she took a small sip of the bright pink drink when it arrived, and smiled as a peace offering.

Eric had been standing back, watching her. And when she actually went to sip more of a drink he knew she didn’t want, he pulled the glass from her hand. “What are you up to, Chloe? The answer is still no, but I’m curious what you’re doing here.”

She picked up a pretzel, snapped it in half. Eric was cute when he was so…discombobulated. “I’m not sure I want to tell you. Not when you think such ugly things about me.”

“I knew it. You are up to something.” Eric whipped the towel over the bar, which was already clean as a whistle.

“Well, yes. I am female.”

“Exactly.” He jabbed a finger toward her. “Which means that whatever you’re up to, whatever you want, is going to benefit you and leave me out in the cold.”

She fingered the stem of the glass she’d retrieved. “That’s not necessarily true. I seem to remember sharing a tequila kiss that warmed you up plenty.”

“We were both just this side of drunk—” he held his thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart “—and you know it.”

“Just think what might have happened if we’d been rip-roaring.” A thought that had often crossed her mind.

Eric, obviously, didn’t share her curiosity. “Think what might’ve happened if we hadn’t been drinking at all.”

“You tell me.” And she truly wanted to know.

For all their mutual flirtation, there were times when she felt he was only humoring her. And, perversely, she wanted to explore that feeling further. She had no desire to be any man’s comic relief.

“Give me a break.” Eric was back to rearranging the bar, moving the pretzels this way, the peanuts the other. “I’m not your type and we both know it. At least we know it when we’re sober.”

She pushed the cosmopolitan away and thought about leaving. Surely she had no face left to lose. “Could you have Jason bring me a diet soda?”

Hands shoulder-width apart on the bar, Eric hung his head. “Ah, Chloe. Don’t do this to me.”

“Don’t do what, sugar?” She really did want to hear his reservations, his doubts, his reasons why joining forces was out of the question. She needed to know the dimensions of the wall she’d be butting her head against.

“Don’t pretend you want something from me that you can’t get from any other man.” His head came up sharply then, and he gestured beyond her, toward the common room and the pub. “In fact, I’ll prove it to you. Ask a favor of any man here and I’ll guarantee you a resounding yes.”

Chloe raised a brow. “As opposed to your no.”

“You got it.”

“Eric, sugar. I’ve been here twenty minutes and there hasn’t been another man who’s said a word to me.” White lies had their uses.

“Only because I’ve been monopolizing your time.”

“You’ve also been giving me your undivided attention and ignoring the other customers sitting at the bar. And neither one of us is the least bit tipsy.” As if to punctuate her statement, Jason arrived with her glass of ice and diet soda. Chloe thanked him and stared at Eric while she sipped.

All he could do was shake his head. “You know, Chloe, I enjoy you too much for my own good. And you know me too well for mine.”

“I suppose you can blame it on Macy. Her scavenger hunt ended up having repercussions I don’t think she ever imagined.”

“Yeah.” He lifted a hand in greeting as a patron took a seat farther down the bar. “I heard about Anton splitting from Lauren.”

“You mean Lauren splitting from Anton.”

“Go ahead. Believe your bogus female facts.” Eric turned back to face her, his expression cocky, smug, totally male. “I’ll stick to the real man’s telling of the story.”

Chloe looked at him for a long, intimidating minute. The noise of the bar continued to burst like balloons over their heads. Glasses clinked and televisions blared and the doors to the kitchen swung inward and out. She toyed with the straw in her diet soda, ran her finger around the rim of the glass, dunked a persistent ice cube each time it resurfaced.

She’d grown up the only female in a household of five males. Eric Haydon could do his best to stare her down, but there wasn’t a question in her mind that she would win the battle of wills. He’d admitted to his curiosity already. All she had to do was keep from revealing too much too soon.

She knew that about men. When they wanted something, wanted it badly enough and had to wait for a woman to decide whether or not they were worthy, men were putty in a female’s hands.

And because that idea was so entertaining, she drove the final nail into his coffin. She looked up, over his head, at the television mounted above the bar. “Who’s winning?”

“Huh?”

“The Astros’ game. Without looking. Who’s winning?”

Eric blinked, then blinked again, as if working to jar loose the subliminally recorded score. “Okay, I admit it. You’ve distracted me. Happy now?”

“I’d be happy with an unqualified admission of your curiosity about what I’m doing here and what I want.”

“I said I was curious.”

“You qualified it by saying the answer is no.”

“C’mon, princess. You can’t expect me to give you an unqualified yes. For all I know, your request involves torture or public humiliation.”

Chloe glanced beyond his shoulder toward two men at the bar. They were cheering on a third, who was working to down a draft beer without stopping to take a breath. The drink dribbled out both corners of his mouth and down his chin, soaking a line down the center of his T-shirt to the crotch of his jeans.

“I don’t think you need me to provide public humiliation.” Shuddering, she tipped her head toward the threesome as proof.

“What do I need you for, Chloe?”

Chloe pretended to consider Eric’s question while inwardly, her mind raced. She really hated the thought of having to turn on her helpless-female bullshit meter.

But over the years she’d honed her shtick to a true science. And this situation, more than any other one she’d been in, merited experimenting with her skills.

She continued to toy with her straw, but now she averted her gaze from Eric’s, keeping her lashes lowered, her pout humble and subdued.

“You’re probably right,” she cooed, and sighed. “I don’t have anything that you need. But you have something that would really help me out a lot.”

“A favor? That’s it? You need a favor?” Wearily, he rubbed a hand down his face. “I thought you were going to want me to jump through seven kinds of hoops or something.”

She wouldn’t yet rule out hoops or tricks. Not until she’d convinced him that he’d be doing this favor of his own free will. Maybe if she played her cards right, she’d even convince him the entire idea, from conception to completion, had been his own.

“Where should I start?”

He peeked at her from between spread fingers. “The beginning is always a good place.”

The beginning was one place to which she preferred not to return. Look at the trouble she was in now because of where she’d begun. “I’m not sure my, uh, situation has a beginning as much as a sudden realization by others that it exists.”

“English, Chloe. Plain English.”

“It’s about work and my reputation for savoring a good expletive.”

Eric let out a loud whoop. “I knew it was bound to happen. You’ve been called on the carpet for your potty mouth, haven’t you?”

“And that’s another thing,” she responded, rising to the debate. “Why is it a potty mouth for a woman and straight business vernacular for a man? Another totally unfair double standard.” It was one of her pet peeves.

Eric was scarcely able to keep a straight face. “I’d think it would be hard to be one of the guys when you work for a company called gIRL-gEAR.”

“It’s perfectly acceptable for me to be one of the guys when it’s a partners-only situation. When we have late night meetings or when we do our thing at Macy’s loft. Make that Lauren’s loft, since Macy is in the throes of cozy domestic bliss with Leo.” Chloe went back to toying with her straw, dunking her ice cube. “It’s when I…forget myself at the office that Sydney tends to get bent out of shape.”

“It’s hard to imagine Sydney Ford getting bent out of shape over anything.”

“She takes the business seriously. And that includes how each of the partners’ actions and reputations reflect back on gIRL-gEAR.”

“So, you’ve been busted.”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

“Sounds like it was your manner of speaking.”

This was where she needed to tread carefully—and where she most needed his help. She held up her own thumb and index finger. “There’s a little bit more.”

“More?” Eric braced both forearms on the bar edge and leaned into her space, as if he couldn’t stand not knowing what other trouble she’d gotten herself into.

Funny how she wanted his interest on the one hand, but hated that he showed it on the other. She wished she was here for any other reason.

Now that the time had arrived, she hated that she’d had to come here at all. That she couldn’t get herself out of this ridiculous mess on her own.

She drew long and hard on her straw, swallowed and, before she could think twice, blurted out, “It’s my dating habits.”

“You mean, the men you go through like diet soda?” he asked, spinning her now empty glass on the bar. “The first sip satisfies, but then the ice melts and the fizz is gone?”

She narrowed her eyes. “That’s not one hundred percent accurate.”

“What is accurate, Chloe? Because no matter how hard I try, I can’t find enough fingers and toes to count the number of men I’ve seen you with this year. And it’s only April.”

Was it really over twenty? She’d obviously lost count. “I like men. I like dating. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out immediate incompatibility.”

“Wait a minute. Let me get this straight.” Eric shook his head, signaled a time-out. “Every time you go out with a new guy, you give him a compatibility test? You don’t try for friendship first? Or for just plain fun?”

“Fun and friendship also require compatibility, sugar.”

All girls had their expectations and fantasies, didn’t they? So what if hers were nonnegotiable. She knew she’d heard at least one song about a woman bemoaning the absence of her own John Wayne.

Chloe’s preference just happened to be Cary Grant.

“And you and me?” Eric asked. “You think we’re compatible?”

They had fun together. She counted him as a friend. It was a start, wasn’t it? “We spent a month digging through one another’s baggage and I’m still here, aren’t I?”

Eric seemed momentarily at a loss for words. But his thought processes seemed equally stunned, judging from the sudden blank look on his face. But then he caught her off guard, retorting, “Didn’t we just determine that you’re here because you need a favor? Not because of any compatibility issue.”

“I do need a favor. I need an escort.” She stated it flat out, hoping the shock value would knock him off balance and into capitulation.

“You want me to take a poll? See which of my customers meet your criteria?” Eric cast a sweeping glance around the bar, then narrowed his gaze on her. “Or you want I should call in a favor from a buddy you haven’t met yet? Press one of the high-profile athletes I know into service?”

As if! “No. I want you.”

He frowned, backed a safe step away and crossed his arms. “What do you mean, you want me?”

She placed both hands, palm side up, on the bar. “I want you to be my escort.”

“So you can bust my chops all the way to next Tuesday?”

The first uncomfortable twinges of failure stung the backs of her eyes. “You’re jumping to unfounded conclusions, sugar.”

“Unfounded conclusions and unqualified no’s. Yep. I can see why that would make me the man you want.”

She wasn’t so sure any longer. Not this way. Not with this bitterness she’d never seen coming. She reached for her red leather mini knapsack and her wallet inside, intending to settle up for the cosmopolitan and the diet soda.

Men. Never again.

With a hand placed gently over hers, Eric stopped her from paying and from leaving. His expression had softened, as had his voice when he said, “C’mon. Let’s go talk in my office.”