Читать книгу Defending Hearts - Rebecca Crowley - Страница 7

Chapter 3

“I had a really nice time tonight, Oz.”

“Me too.”

“Let’s do this again soon.”

He hesitated. He didn’t want to mislead her, but the curb in front of her waiting taxi wasn’t exactly the best place to deliver the let’s-just-be-friends speech, either.

Thankfully she had more to say. “Or we could keep going, right now. Do you want to come back to my apartment, meet my dog? She’ll love you, I promise.”

He exhaled in relief. She opened the door. He only had to walk through it.

“I don’t think so,” he said as gently as he could. “I’m not sure this is going anywhere romantically, but I had a lot of fun. Maybe you should come to my box for a Skyline match. Bring some friends, meet my friends, and we can all hang out. What do you think?”

Disappointment shimmered in her eyes, but to her credit she kept her chin up and her smile seemed genuine. “Actually, that would be great. Thanks for being honest.”

“Pick a match and it’ll happen.” He opened the taxi door. “And let me know you got home safely.”

“I will.” She hugged him, briefly but warmly, then slid into the backseat and pulled the door shut behind her.

He waved as the car pulled off into the sparse, Thursday-night traffic. As soon as it was out of sight he spun back toward the restaurant and wiped his hand over his eyes.

What was going on with him lately? This was the third date in as many weeks that was perfect on paper and even better in person, yet he had zero inclination to take any of them further. Jamie was intelligent, hilarious, a medical student at Emory who’d spent two years after college working for an AIDS-prevention charity in Uganda. She was gorgeous, said all the right things, even had a minor interest in soccer. She would absolutely fit into his long-established plan for his post-soccer future—essential criteria for even considering a second date. There was no good reason he shouldn’t want to see her again.

But the thought of another getting-to-know-you dinner with her filled him with dread.

He unlocked his phone and swiped to a taxi-hailing app. His thumb hovered over the Request Car button, then he closed the app and looked up. He wasn’t ready to go home yet.

A neon sign flickered in the window of a rundown, fake-Irish pub three storefronts from the restaurant. Normally he hated dives—the stale-beer smell, the scarred tables, the sing-along-friendly soundtrack of cheesy pop hits—but after his pitch-perfect date he craved a little grime. He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked over.

The interior was slightly less shabby than he expected, and his sneakers barely stuck to the floor as he made his way to the bar. Only a few other people filled the large space. A couple in a booth, two men in work attire at a high table, and another couple playing pool at the far end of the room.

“Evening.” The short, curvy, redheaded bartender was exactly his type. More so when she smiled. “What can I get you?”

He paused, taking stock of his physical response. Any hint of attraction? Anywhere? Even a twinge?

Nothing.

“Whiskey. Neat,” he replied glumly.

She arched a brow, pivoting so he could see the rows of bottles behind her. “Which label?”

He peered past her, pointed to one on the top shelf. “Actually, make it a double.”

She poured the drink and slid it over. “Rough night?”

“You could say that.”

“Should’ve swiped left.”

He shrugged. “Not her fault.”

“No?” She crossed her arms and leaned against the shelf at her back. “I’d swipe right.”

He sighed inwardly. Another beautiful, available, interested woman he couldn’t be less excited about. Was this some cosmic joke? Tomorrow he’d probably fall in love with someone who hated him.

“Hey, can I get another—Oz, hi.”

He turned at the sound of his name, and then his night got even worse.

“Kate. Hello.”

“Sorry, I didn’t see you. Have you been here long?” She flicked her gaze to the bartender, pointing to her empty pint glass.

“Just arrived.”

“He had a bad date,” the bartender quipped, passing Kate a fresh beer.

She looked at him expectantly. He closed his eyes for a second, hoping that when he opened them this might all have been a bad dream.

Kate came back into focus. No, still awake.

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“Bad enough for a double whiskey,” the bartender added. Belatedly he realized the two women knew each other.

“Really,” Kate mused. “But I thought—”

“Alcohol is haram, I know.” He rolled his eyes. “I think we’ve established I’m not the poster boy for devout Islam.”

“I thought professional athletes didn’t drink during the season,” she corrected.

Irritation tightened his jaw. As if she knew anything about his grueling training schedule, the aches and pains and recovery periods, trying to ignore social-media onslaughts from angry fans after a loss while trying to focus and harden for the next match.

“Call my manager if you want to make a complaint,” he retorted icily. “He’ll make sure you get your season ticket refunded.”

“Whoa, don’t take your bad date out on me. I was merely going to suggest a way to work it off.” She raised her palms in innocence, her smile mischievous as she nodded to the pool table. “I seem to recall you had one of these in your study. Can I tempt you?”

Without a second’s hesitation he stood and swept up his glass, briskly nodding for her to follow. “Let’s go.”

Minutes later, as Kate finished racking the balls, he realized how expertly she’d defused him. Even stronger than his tendency toward self-righteous indignation—not his best trait, he’d be the first to admit—was his competitiveness.

He watched her with a mix of admiration and suspicion. How did she know?

She selected her cue. “I’ll let you break since you’re having a bad night.”

He shook his head. “Ladies first.”

“If you insist.” She leaned over and shot, expertly sending two solid balls into pockets. She sank another one before missing her third shot and finally giving him a turn.

“I gather you’ve played before,” he remarked dryly, then lined up his cue and sank his first ball.

“Lots of downtime on deployments. Not much else to do in the desert.”

He sank one, missed one. “You mentioned. Iraq and Afghanistan. Army, right?”

“Combat support services, in a transportation battalion. Not the most action-packed job on the ground but not bad for female enlisted.” Crack, another solid into a pocket.

“And then Saudi Arabia.”

She missed. “And then Saudi Arabia.”

“What was that like?” He squinted, lining up his shot.

“Hell.”

He missed, put off by her frank response, but too interested to care. “Really? Why?”

She considered the layout on the table before positioning her cue. “The money was amazing, but everything else was awful. I did personal security for the wife of an American oil executive. The company had a chemical plant in the middle of nowhere, and all the Americans and their families lived in a compound outside the local town. The houses were big, there was a pool, a community center, a school—sounds great, right? It wasn’t.”

She missed. He picked an angle. “Why not?”

“The whole place was creepy.” He caught her shiver of distaste in the second before he pocketed a ball. “Everyone knew everyone’s business. Half of the husbands were sleeping with the other half’s wives. I spent all my time with this one woman, who was either too smart to say anything about her husband’s blatant cheating or too dumb to notice. Women aren’t allowed to drive there so we were restricted to the compound, and if we left we had to wear hijab.”

She raised her cue to take her turn. “After serving in the Middle East I thought the Sharia stuff wouldn’t bother me, but living like that all the time is a whole other kind of crazy. I don’t know how the women in these Muslim countries—” She stopped, looking up guiltily as she missed her shot. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like—”

“It’s fine,” he said mildly, lining up his cue. “There are over a billion Muslims in the world. We’re not all the same.”

“I know, I didn’t mean to suggest—”

“I have as much in common with a Saudi Arabian Muslim as you do with a Nigerian Christian.” He sank a ball. “If you are Christian, that is.”

“Only by default. I haven’t been to church in about fifteen years.”

He sent his fifth ball into a pocket. “My point is, sharing a basic religious categorization with someone doesn’t make me empathetic to their way of life. I’ve never been to Saudi Arabia, but I can’t imagine anywhere with state-sanctioned beheadings is a particularly nice place to live.”

“It’s not. What’s Sweden like?”

He missed, moved aside for her turn. “It’s amazing. Beautiful, safe, good mix of historic and modern. I’m from Gothenburg, which is a university town, so there’s always something going on. Sweden’s expensive, though.”

“And cold?” She pocketed a ball, moved to aim for another.

“I grew up with the weather so I don’t feel it, but it’s cold compared to Atlanta.”

She missed, straightened. “I grew up in Jasper, about fifty miles north of the city. I can’t remember the last time I saw snow. A Swedish winter would probably kill me.”

“You’d be fine. Couple pints of Falcon, hot plate of reindeer meat and you won’t even notice the weather.”

“I would be so up for eating reindeer meat.” She grinned at him across the table as he took his shot, sinking another ball. She had a pretty smile, and it lit up her face in a way its forced, professional equivalent didn’t.

He gave her a quick onceover before focusing on his last ball. She was too tall for him, too likely to match his height in heels. He liked soft and curvy—she was flat and lean. He dated only super-smart, super-successful women, and he doubted Kate had a college degree.

So why did bright white heat pulse deep within his rib cage every time he looked at her?

He sank his final ball, took aim to hit the eight, then changed his mind.

“Have you ever been to a Skyline match?”

She shook her head, then nodded toward the table. “Your turn.”

“I know.” He propped the cue on the floor. “We’re playing Tucson on Saturday. Want to come?”

“Me? Why?” Surprise brightened her eyes and warmed her expression before she resettled into her typically cool composure. “I mean, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied smoothly, enjoying her momentary bewilderment. “I’ll courier the tickets to your office tomorrow.”

“Tickets?” she echoed, emphasizing the plural.

“Bring a friend.”

Then he angled his cue on the green felt and leaned down, ending the conversation. He looked at the eight ball, squinted at the distance beyond it, but in his mind he saw Kate, eyes crinkled in laughter and then wide with shock.

He didn’t like her. He couldn’t like her. There was nothing about her to like.

Except her laugh. And her smile. And her refusal to take him seriously. And her honesty. And her endearing curiosity about his home country. And, and, and.

And she was being paid to be nice to him, to sweeten him up, to open the door for her employer to provide exclusive security services to Atlanta Skyline.

He would do well to remember that.

He drew his arm back and snapped his shot. The eight ball spun, rolled, and dropped into a corner pocket with a satisfying thunk.

He stood, met her gaze. Didn’t smile.

“I win.”