So Toxic(Bad Boy Next Door Book 4)(167)
The park is almost deserted this time of morning. With the exception of a woman sitting on the bench with children playing on the swings and slides adjacent to the tennis courts, Ronnie and I are the only ones here.
I get out of the car, careful to close the door as quietly as possible. Slinking over to the running trail, I find a spot behind a hedge to stretch. I do some jumping jacks and other calisthenics until I work up a light sweat. Don’t want to get too nasty, but I have to make this believable.
Taking off jogging around the end of the hedge, I take the fork in the trail that runs closest to the tennis courts. As I close in, I slow.
Looking straight ahead. Looking ahead. Okay. Now.
“Ronnie? Is that you?” I wave and raise my eyebrows, employing the acting skills I haven’t used in quite some time to act surprised.
She turns and shades her eyes. “Jackson?”
“Good morning, Peaches.” I veer off the path toward the gate to the court. “Odd that we should end up in the same place this morning.”
She props and hand on her hip and cocks her head. “Don’t even try it, Tremaine. You forget that Shay’s my best friend. She told me you called.”
“Damn. I should’ve known.”
“What I don’t get is why you’d bother.” She reaches into her bucket and picks up a ball, tossing it in the air and smacking it with her racket. It flies down the court and bounces off the fence.
“Call it professional curiosity.”
She grabs a second ball from her supply. “Curious about what?”
I shrug. “About what you’ll do to catch him. You know, ensnare him with your loving ways and all the mumbo jumbo in your book.”
She lobs the ball across the court with a hard swing of her racket and turns hard eyes on me. “You said you read the book. You should already know.”
“Actually, I said I read parts of it. The chapter headings, mostly.” I earn a roll of her eyes.
“I’ll treat him with respect. And I’ll make sure to tell him all the things that a woman who’s interested in having a relationship with a man should tell him. I’ll make him confident that he can depend on me to support him when he needs it, but stand back and let him do his thing when he doesn’t.”
“Sounds good, but it’s all theory, right? I mean, have you ever used this technique? You don’t have a guy right now, so…”
This time she takes two balls in one hand—like she held my balls in her hand.
Great, now I’ve sprung a woody. “Shit. Fuck.”
I turn away to hide the fact that I’m a fucking teenager in a man’s body. Two feet from me, two little noses and the four rosy cheeks that belong with them press against the chain link fence. With their tiny fingers clinging to the wire, two kids from the playground stare at me.
The taller of the two turns away. Never letting go of his grip, he screams at the top of his lungs. “Mommy! That bad man said bad words.”
I freeze in place, except, out of sheer self-preservation, my hands cover the tent in the front of my shorts. I whip around to face Ronnie. Better she sees it than two tots, whose mother is running over as I stand here, mortified over the fact that I’ve popped a boner.
It’s the first time I’ve gotten embarrassed over going full salute since I was sixteen. That time, I stood in front of my English class, and Mrs. Clemson bent over to get a book. That tight little ass on the twenty-something teacher was more than my teenage cock could handle. I’d take that experience over this one any day.
Ronnie’s gaze goes to the hands still covering my wilting hard-on. Nothing like a couple of rug rats to kill a ball buzz. Her eyebrows shoot up.
I try to keep the conversation on track. “No guy now? Lately? When did you last have a boyfriend?”
“Not that it’s any of your business; no, as we’ve already established, I don’t have a guy, right now. But that really has nothing to do with whether or not my methods work. I haven’t met anyone I want to date since…” She bites her bottom lip, and her eyes jump to meet mine, darting away almost instantly.
“Since?” Why do I even care? What is it about this girl that makes me curious about all the things I’ve never cared about when it came to any woman?
Her inhalation sounds tired and deep. With a shake of her head, she tosses one of the balls into the air and slams it with more aggression than that ball probably deserved. Why do I get the feeling that she might be imagining it’s one of mine?
“Since I don’t want to talk about it.” She tucks a stray curl back into the bun atop her head.
The children’s mother comes to the fence, dragging them away and chattering on about how people should watch their mouths in public. I give her a little wave. At least she doesn’t know what else happened in public. I’d probably get arrested.