Muffin Top (Page 52)

As if all of the nonverbals she was sending him weren’t enough to make the back of his neck itchy with dread, the fact that she’d mentioned her mother sure was. The tightness around her eyes and the way tension filled her voice whenever she talked about her mom was more than enough to let him know that the comparison wasn’t a good one.

“What assumption was that?”

“That it was possible to change other people.” She let out a tortured sigh and pivoted her gaze from the sailboats in the harbor to him. A red spot had bloomed at the base of her throat. “The truth of it is that you can only change yourself—for good or for bad.”

And that’s what it came down to for him. Would he be able to change what seemed pre-ordained? Could he avoid being the man who seemed so straightforward on the surface but cheated on his wife when no one was looking? For Lucy, he wanted to. Nothing else was good enough for her. He wouldn’t be good enough for her. The French toast that had tasted so delicious a half hour ago turned into a lead weight in his gut.

“So what happened with your parents?”

She pushed what was left of her breakfast around on her plate with her fork. “Long story.”

“I’ve got time.” He had forever when it came to Lucy—at least he hoped he did.

She laid her fork down on her plate and dropped her hands to her lap, clutching them together as if she needed to hold onto something. “They met young, and there was this whole opposites-attract thing. He was the nerdy psychiatrist, and she was the sexy underwear model. Total freak meeting on a cross-country train trip. They started in Harbor City and by the time they got to Los Angeles, they were in love. They got married in Vegas.”

She inhaled a deep breath and let in out in a slow, controlled breath.

“It was a total whirlwind—one that probably never had a chance at a happily ever after. By the time I started grade school, they were basically living different lives, with him operating his practice and her flying off to Harbor City and Paris for modeling jobs. All that separation didn’t help things, nor did having a chubby kid, which was anathema to my mom’s world.

“That seemed to be what really broke things up, at least according to what I overheard my mom telling her friends during one of my very rare trips to visit her in Harbor City. It’s why she always kept her distance, why when I did visit we never went anywhere but her apartment, and why the only photos she had of me were always cropped so you never saw all of me beyond my face shot from an upward angle to slim me down a bit. Could you imagine having a child you were that ashamed of?”

His gut clenched as he watched her chin tremble. Then she quickly turned her face away from him and began to blink away the moisture in her eyes that she hadn’t been fast enough to hide. Frankie knew it wasn’t right to think ill of the dead, but Lucy’s mom was a right royal bitch for ever putting that thought in an impressionable girl’s head. He was up before he thought about it, standing next to her and drawing her up.

“Their divorce wasn’t your fault,” he said, pulling her into his arms.

She laid her head on his shoulder, and a small sigh escaped. “But I didn’t help.”

“People’s actions and reactions are on them, not on you,” he said, pulling her in close and holding her tight for all the times her mom should have but didn’t. “Your dad was right. You can’t change other people, only yourself.”

They stayed that way long enough for it to turn from comforting to something else as her nimble fingers snuck under the hem of his shirt and started to explore his lower back. “Smart and sexy, you’re a double threat, Frankie Hartigan.”

“Correction,” he said, picking her up and carrying her inside. “I’m a triple threat—and the fact that you failed to mention that means I need to give you a reminder course in the bedroom so you don’t forget again.”

And they almost made it all of the way there before they’d lost all their clothes.

…

After their breakfast, which had left her kitchen a disaster, and her day-long lesson in orgasms, flirty text exchanges were pretty much the highlight of her days at work. On the nights he wasn’t on shift, the texting usually ended with Frankie knocking on her door, armed with dinner or his Netflix password. They never seemed to make it out of her apartment, but considering how quickly they usually got naked, she didn’t give it much thought.

She’d had to cancel tonight, though, after Zach Blackburn, got arrested for punching out a fan—well, not one of his, obviously—and Lucy had to go earn the big bucks. Well, medium-sized bucks. Peon bucks compared to the millions Zach was bringing home if she could get him out of his latest snafu—which put her at odds with Frankie’s schedule, since he was still taking a few extra shifts to cover for the guy who’d gotten injured.

Frankie: Still on that bed with your legs wide?

Lucy: I wish. I’m still in the office. It’s gonna be a really late and professionally frustrating Friday night. Sorry.

Frankie: They never should have signed that jackass.

Lucy: Don’t you start, I need someone in my corner.

Frankie: I’m always there.

Lucy: xo

Frankie: See you at Gina’s and Ford’s party Saturday?

Lucy: With bells on.

Frankie: That gives me some new ideas to curl up with while I’m missing you.

Lucy: Got a lot of those?

Frankie: So many I had to start a list. Hope you have the next few months open.

Lucy: Perfect motivation to get Zach back on Harbor City’s good side.

Frankie: Good luck with that.

Lucy: My six-pack of Mountain Dew just got here. Armed and ready to go do battle.

Frankie: Kick their asses and leave them scared.

Lucy: Always.

Okay, not always, but her track record was solid.

“One of your media sources send you good news?” Zach asked from his spot in what he called the naughty chair in the corner of her office farthest away from her desk.

“No, why do you ask?” she asked, checking the messages on her phone again in hopes of a silver lining to this shit cloud.

“Because you usually only look that happy when you’ve fixed whatever I fucked up.”

Lucy focused her attention on the tatted-up, bearded player who, despite what the tabloids said about him, was actually a big teddy bear—one with a mean right hook and an even worse temper. Okay, so maybe teddy bear was the wrong description. Maybe grizzly bear napping? Very cute until someone woke it up, then a fucking nightmare.

“Maybe, Zachary Elliot Blackburn,” she said, using his full name, which always managed to stop even her most pain-in-the-ass clients in their tracks, “if you stop being such a jackhole, you wouldn’t be needing my services so much.”

He stuffed almost the entire white cheddar rice cake into his mouth. “Can I just buy you season tickets instead?” he asked, the words coming out barely understandable.

“Instead?” She chuckled, guffawed, threw back her head and laughed, playing it up to really let the defenseman know how annoyed she was with his antics. “You’re funny. Zach, you’re paying my full fee and getting me season tickets, too. Be warned, I have a large group of friends, so you’re gonna need to set me up with at least eight tickets.”

“And people say I’m the shark,” he said, shaking his head.

“Only on the ice, my friend.” Her phone buzzed with an incoming message from one of the reporters at the Harbor City Post, who’d agreed to do a humanizing profile now as long as he got an exclusive at a later date that was more than a sit-down, but really gave new insights into the most hated man in town. “I own the rest of the ocean.”