Sleeping With Her Enemy(22)

And then Dax was there, sinking into the seat next to her, handing her a perfect container of fries that smelled like heaven. Her skin tingled where his arm brushed against hers, and her core tightened.

There had also never been…this.

She wasn’t kidding herself. Dax was still a world-class jerk. But she was willing to concede that he had his uses. He had shown her something. Something about attraction—okay, lust even. He’d shown her that these things were real, that she could feel alive. That she could expect more. It wasn’t that expecting a man to be kind and thoughtful and to share common interests was wrong. It was more that now she wanted that and…this. Whatever this was. And that guy was out there somewhere. When she was ready, when she had healed, she would find him.

In the meantime, an idea was forming. Why the heck not? She was young and single, and, unlike her wedding night, stone-cold sober. She shifted in her seat a little in Dax’s direction. Damn, the man smelled good. It was like sunscreen but something else, too.

“Hey,” he said, nudging her. “Look at that.”

She followed his gaze down twenty or so rows, to the bottom of the section they were sitting in. A woman was marching up the stairs, screaming something only partially comprehensible—something about making a mistake. As she passed them on her way out, she said, “Your phone ceases to be your private property once you’re using it to sext other women, Jason!”

“Yeah, well, what about you?” the guy yelled as he followed her. “What about all those evening work meetings? Do you think I was born yesterday?”

Dax let loose a low whistle of disbelief as he—and everyone else around them—watched the pair storm out. Amy didn’t know whether to join in their laughter or to cry. Did anyone live happily aver after anymore?

“Hey.” More nudging. “They had great seats. Let’s go grab them.”

Sure enough, the unhappy couple had been sitting in the front row of the 200 section, affording them a perfect view of the field. Too bad. “I don’t do that.”

“What do you mean? Don’t do what?”

“I don’t like to sit in seats that aren’t mine.” Wow. That sounded amazingly prissy, even to her own ears. “Half the time when you try it, the people show up, and then it’s awkward and you miss part of the game, and—”

Dax stood up, and he seemed to be taking her with him, as evidenced by the fact that he’d grabbed her elbow. “Come on. Live on the edge for once.”

Oh, what the hell. She was supposed to be turning over a new leaf, right? Maybe a life of crime would turn out to be just the thing to snap her out of her funk.

“How’d you become such a big fan?” Dax asked as they settled into their new seats.

The question startled her—she’d been looking around, expecting an usher or some other person with authority to come and arrest them. “I guess, initially, it was because my older brother was. Our parents were…” She stopped herself. But then, looking out at the rich colors of the game, remembering that she’d been thinking earlier about embracing this transitional phase of life, she unstopped herself. What did she care what Dax thought of her family? “Our parents were kind of mediocre.”

He laughed. “Mediocre? That’s a funny word to use.”

“Yeah, they weren’t abusive or anything, they were just kind of…self-absorbed. But not, like, together—each of them in their own ways. Still are.” She had never said a bad word about her family to anyone. Once she started, though, it was actually strangely enjoyable. Telling the truth felt good. “My mother, for example, is obsessed with appearances. You know the phrase ‘keeping up with the Joneses’?” He nodded. “That’s my mother. Nothing is ever enough. In my more charitable moments, I actually feel sorry for her. It must be hard to go through life so paralyzed by what other people think of you.”

“And your dad?”

“Alcoholic. Functional, mind you—holds down his fancy bank exec job, but all the same, he was always…busy drinking.” Amy warmed to her story. “So anyway, my brother is three years older, and he sort of looked out for me. We stuck together. I’m making things sound more miserable than they were—we had lots of fun, actually. I used to beg him to take me to games with his friends.” She pointed up and to the side. “We used to sit in the nosebleed seats, too. You could see a game for ten bucks or something back then.”

He was looking at her kind of strangely, head cocked slightly. Probably he was about to say something insulting, so she lobbed her own question out before he could talk. “What about your family?”