Free Agent Page 6

  I racked my brain, trying to remember everything I could about that night, that meal. We’d been having a good time, laughing and joking. Bea had seemed to get my sense of humor, and I’d enjoyed hers.

  Hell, I’d enjoyed everything about her. She’d had the most engaging laugh that brightened her eyes and warmed me up from the inside out.

  It’d all been going great when I’d noticed another couple in the restaurant. And, me being me, I’d said the first thing that had popped into my head.

  “Well, do you?” she demanded.

  “Would you give me a second?” I half shouted back at her, trying to figure out what had been so bad about my observation. The chick had been paying so much attention to her date that she’d spilled her dinner all over her shirt.

  “You do remember it,” Bea said. “I can see it all over your face.”

  “You seriously decided to hate me for the rest of eternity because I made a comment about how some stranger couldn’t eat without staining her fucking clothes?” I shot back.

  “Yes, I— Wait, what?” Now, apparently, it was Bea’s turn for confusion. “You said he wouldn’t take her on another date now that he’d seen how she eats.”

  “Yeah, I did, but I don’t see what the big deal is. She was sloppy as hell. Her food was all down the front of her shirt, and it was like she didn’t even realize it. My grandma would’ve ripped me a new asshole if I’d made a mess of myself like that in public—and that guy was some big corporate bigwig. He needs a society wife, someone he can take to client dinners and fundraising galas without worrying that she’ll spill her shrimp cocktail down the front of her evening gown and then try to fish the shrimp out in front of people…”

  Bea gawked at me. There wasn’t any other way to describe her expression.

  “What?” I demanded.

  She blinked, still silent.

  “What?” I nearly snarled. “What the hell did I do now? You’ve got to explain shit to me, in case you haven’t caught on yet. Because I don’t get it. I don’t have a clue—”

  “I thought you were judging her for what she was eating. Not that judging her for spilling her food is much better, but…”

  I quirked up a brow in question. “But it’s better?” Meaning maybe I wasn’t in deep shit with her right now?

  Granted, I was bound to do something else to piss her off soon enough. I was still me, after all. But if I had somehow climbed out of her pit of doom…

  “It’s better for me,” Bea finally said. She reached into the guinea pigs’ cage and picked up the white one, and then she held him out to me. “Wanna meet him?”

  I still didn’t know what the hell had just happened, but I took the guinea pig from her hands and held him out in front of my face. He squeaked at me. A lot. Especially when I brushed a single finger down his back.

  “He might kinda like you,” she said.

  I kinda liked him, too.

  For that matter, I might even kinda like her. At least when she wasn’t mad at me for no fucking good reason.

  DON’T ASK ME how we ended up in a craft store, but that’s exactly where Bea decided to take me. Someplace I’d never stepped foot in before called Michael’s, to be precise—which, judging from the items dotting their sidewalk out front, seemed like an oversized warehouse full of bright, colorful things I had no clue how to use or even what they should be used for.

  Plastic flowers? Seriously? Although now that I thought about it, my grandma would probably like a lot of things in here…

  “You do realize that I’ve probably never stepped foot inside a craft store before in my entire life, right?” I asked in a semi-daze, unfolding my legs to climb out of the vehicle while the bright-red backlit sign filled my eyes.

  Bea barely spared me a glance over her shoulder, because she was already bustling toward the doors. “Perfect reason for you to come in one now.”

  “I don’t do crafts.”

  “Well, maybe you didn’t before, but that’s going to change if you want my help, like you say you do. You just need to figure out which kind of crafting is right for you.”

  “But I don’t want—”

  “There are tons of options in here,” she said, effectively cutting me off before the thought had even finished forming.

  Crafts. Seriously? I hadn’t done anything like this since I was a kid at summer camp, and I hated it then. So I would sure as shit hate it now. What the hell did she think this would accomplish?

  Still, I matched my strides to hers and headed into the store—mainly because I wanted to spend more time with her, even though I knew she wasn’t so fond of spending time with me. I couldn’t change her initial impression of me, but maybe, with time, I could change the way she saw me now.

  It was like an explosion of colors as soon as we were inside the front doors. To my left, thousands of silk flowers and ribbons in every style imaginable were spilling over into the aisles in a cacophony of color that would give Grandma heart palpitations. To the right, there were rows and rows of canvases, brushes, and paints. Straight ahead, I could see what appeared to be various types of wall art and decorative pots and other things to scatter throughout a room and make it look homey.

  There was no telling what we’d find the deeper we went into the store…and I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out. The only thing I felt certain of was that the bright, noisy colors everywhere would be imprinted on the backs of my eyelids and were sure to haunt my sleeping hours.

  No doubt, I’d wake up in the middle of the night tonight (if I even managed to get to sleep in the first place) with visions of plastic flowers exploding like confetti all over me. Just the thought of it was enough to make me want to gag in revulsion.

  Already, my legs were itching to book it out those doors again—but I’d made the mistake of letting Bea drive me here, so I couldn’t leave until she was good and ready to go. I was stuck.

  Stuck in my own personal version of hell.

  I had to fight back the urge to shudder. It wouldn’t be enough to dislodge me from my predicament, so there was no point.

  She set her purse in the kiddie seat of a smallish shopping cart and headed toward the back of the store, as if she knew exactly where she was headed and what she’d find there once she arrived. I got the sense that she spent a decent amount of time in this store on a regular basis.

  Probably shouldn’t surprise me, since she had artsy-crafty things up all over her classroom. She might get her supplies here, and maybe some of her ideas, too.

  “Maybe I should just get a pet,” I said in the hope that I could convince her we should leave this place, and sooner rather than later. “I could get a guinea pig like you’ve got.”

  “Have you ever had a pet before?” she asked, slowing down to scan down an aisle filled with tubes of paints in more colors than I realized existed.

  “Nope.”

  “Maybe you should start with a plant. If it’s still alive after six months, you could move up to a fish. And if they’re both still alive after another six months, then you could possibly graduate to something like a guinea pig. We could get you an ivy. Ivies are hard to kill.”

  I scowled, not that she could see it with her back to me. But damn. Talk about wounding my pride. “Maybe I should start with a pet rock if I’m really that bad,” I grumbled. “I can’t exactly kill one of those.”

  “Hmm,” she murmured in a tone that suggested she agreed with me. “So if you haven’t lost your rock after six months, then you could move up to getting an ivy or something…”

  The sound that left my mouth must have told her exactly how much that stung, because she finally slowed down and looked over her shoulder at me. “I’m teasing you,” she said. “I don’t really think you’re that awful.”

  “Teasing? Meaning we’re good, you and me?” I had to ask because of the whole difficulty-with-understanding-basic-human-interactions thing I had going on. But I was almost positive she understood at least that much about me, which shoul
d help both of us.

  Shouldn’t it?

  “I don’t know that I’d say we’re good,” she said. “But we’re getting better. Okay?”

  I groaned. But at least it was a start. “Fine.”

  Bea gave me a curt nod, and then she turned down another aisle. This one was filled with markers, colored pencils, crayons, and all sorts of coloring books. Halfway down the aisle, she came to a stop in front of a section of books filled with complex mandala designs, complicated animal portraits, and even a few scenic views of nature with so many components I couldn’t imagine how to color them properly.

  Really? This was what she brought me here for? I shook my head in disbelief. “Coloring books…”

  “They’re an option,” she said, ignoring my dismay. “It works great for most of my students who have ADHD. And if we get you a book or two full of intricate designs, they could possibly provide enough stimulation for your mind to keep you…”

  “Out of trouble,” I finished for her.

  She gave me a sheepish grin while shrugging.

  “I’m not taking Scooby Doo coloring books and crayons on road trips to keep me occupied on the team plane.”

  “No one’s suggesting that. These are adult coloring books. They’re a lot more interesting than Scooby Doo, not to mention they’re more complicated, so they’ll challenge you. They’ll engage your creative brain better, anyway. And you can get colored pencils, art markers…whatever floats your boat.”

  Without really looking at them, I grabbed three random books off the shelf and tossed them into the cart. Then a little farther down the aisle, I selected a case of art markers with thirty-six colors and added them to the basket, as well. “All right, so is that all we’re here for?” Because the sooner I got out of here, the sooner my skin would stop crawling.

  “Nope.” Bea pushed the cart down the aisle and turned to the left again, heading deeper into the store.

  I didn’t really have much choice but to follow her.

  She power-walked through the aisles, the same way she did at her school. More than that, it seemed she knew exactly where she was headed and what she’d find when she got there. Yeah, she definitely spent a lot of time in this store.

  After a few twists and turns I’d never be able to replicate without her leading me, she came to a stop in an aisle filled with puzzles of all sorts—traditional jigsaw puzzles of famous artwork, puzzles with large pieces and famous cartoon characters, 3D puzzles of intricate buildings like Notre Dame in Paris and the White House, and so many others I didn’t even recognize.

  She moved toward the really complicated ones—a thousand pieces or more with elaborate designs—and pointed. “Pick a couple of puzzles.”

  “I don’t want to pick puzzles.”

  “Tough. You asked for my help. This is how I’m helping.”

  “I don’t see what puzzles and coloring books are supposed to do for me,” I complained.

  “They’re supposed to help you focus your thoughts. Maybe coloring won’t work but puzzles will. Maybe neither will help and you’ll need to keep trying other hobbies until we find the right thing. But the point is that you’ve got to try out a few of these hobbies to see what sticks.”

  I scowled at her.

  She put her hands on her hips and raised a brow in a move that mimicked the school’s secretary.

  Even though I didn’t want to, I grabbed a couple of puzzles off the shelf. One was of a Harley Davidson. If nothing else, I could send it to Grandma. She’d get a kick out of it. The other was a gorgeous white snow leopard or something—to be honest, I wasn’t sure what animal was on the design, but I liked the looks of it.

  I’d barely tossed the boxes into the cart before Bea had taken off again, wending her way through the aisles. The next time she stopped, we were surrounded by… Hell, I didn’t even know what this shit was.

  “Ever try counted cross-stitch?” Bea asked me, scanning the packages hanging from the shelves.

  “Never even heard of it.”

  “Well, you’re going to try it.” She found one that had an image of a couple of kittens crawling over stacks of books and shoved it toward me. “Here. Instead of getting a pet, you can learn to cross-stitch a pet. You can’t kill these cats, even if you forget to feed them. This is a much safer way of going about it. Granted, you could stick yourself with the needle…hmm. On second thought, maybe you shouldn’t try cross-stitch, after all.”

  “You’ve seriously lost your fucking mind, haven’t you?”

  In lieu of answering, she shrugged and tossed the package into the shopping cart and took off again. “No skin off my teeth if you stick yourself with a needle, now that I think about it.”

  “I don’t want to do this shit,” I called after her, cursing some more beneath my breath as I trailed her.

  A couple of gray-haired ladies heading the other way passed annoyed looks in my direction. Apparently, I shouldn’t curse while shopping for shit at Michael’s.

  The only good thing about this shopping trip so far was that I got to stare at Bea’s ass a lot since she was constantly about two to five feet in front of me.

  “I don’t care what you do or don’t want to do,” she said, not bothering to slow down.

  That much was obvious.

  “You asked me for help,” she said when I had almost caught up to her. “I’m helping.” Then she stopped so suddenly that I almost barreled into her.

  Hell, maybe I should have. Then I could have steadied myself by putting my hands on her. It’d probably be the only way she’d ever allow me to touch her.

  I needed to get all thoughts of that sort out of my head, and for good, because that wasn’t what this was about.

  This time, we were surrounded by yarn, knitting needles, and books filled with designs.

  “Oh, hell no. Not even my grandma knits. I’d never hear the end of it if the guys found out I’m knitting baby blankets or some other shit like that.”

  “They don’t have to know,” she said, eyeing the shelves shrewdly. “You can do it in the privacy of your own home. But I don’t know how to knit, anyway—I crochet. So that’s what I can teach you, or you can find some online videos to help you learn to knit if you’d prefer it.”

  “I’d prefer to get the hell out of this store before this shit becomes permanently affixed to my retinas and I see it all in my sleep.”

  She laughed and shook her head, but she was still scanning the shelves. Then she reached for a book called Simple Crocheted Afghans for the Beginner. After a couple of minutes of flipping through the pages, she stopped on a page with a cozy-looking green blanket wrapped around the shoulders of someone’s mom. She studied the page opposite the picture for a moment and then nodded with a soft, humming sound coming from her lips. “You could absolutely make this one. It’d be a good design to start with. Nice and simple.” Then she grabbed a metal thing with a hook on one end from a nearby shelf and headed for another aisle.

  I followed, almost bumping into her again when she stopped in front of a bunch of yarn.

  “Pick a color,” she said.

  “I don’t see the right green from the picture.”

  “You don’t have to use the color in the book. You can do whatever color you want. What colors do you have in your house?”

  “Everything’s brown…beige. Neutral.”

  “Smart,” she said, still scanning the shelves full of yarn.

  “Smart?” I repeated.

  “A lot of colors can be distracting if you’ve got ADHD. Keeping everything neutral will help calm your mind.” Then she reached for a cream-colored yarn and held it up for me. “You like this?”

  “Sure?” To be honest, I didn’t like anything about being in here, so I’d agree to whatever she wanted, just as long as we could get the hell out of this store as soon as possible.

  She glanced back at the book, then at the label on the yarn, and she tossed five of the balls of cream yarn into the shopping cart.

 
“Can we please get out of here now?” I begged.

  Finally, she looked up at me, and then a hint of understanding flooded her expression. “Yeah, we can go. I’m sure a place like this is overwhelming for you, but you won’t have to come back often. Just when you need more supplies for whatever activities end up helping you settle your thoughts.”

  Fat chance of that happening. Even if I found something that helped me out of all of these projects, I could surely find a way to order more supplies online. That was bound to be easier—at least for me—than being swamped by the insanity of a place like this.

  We headed for the front and stood in line to check out. I could barely hold still while we waited for our turn. Finally, the cashier got to us and started ringing up my purchases.

  “That’ll be two hundred forty-two dollars and twenty-seven cents,” she said.

  Two hundred fifty bucks for a bunch of art projects I doubted I’d ever touch? Damn, this shit was expensive.

  But I forked over my credit card and paid, and then we carried three large shopping bags out to Bea’s SUV.

  “That wasn’t too painful, was it?” she said, climbing inside.

  Not too painful? Ha. My eyes would likely be burning for days after all of that.

  I glared in response, which made her laugh.

  Damn, but I did love her laugh, though. Even if she was laughing at me.

  DANI BENT HER head low over the bowl of ice cream I’d brought her, sniffing it suspiciously. “Is this some of that fake shit you eat all the time? Are you trying to poison me with something? I want oodles of fat and sugar and salt and all the other garbage that makes food taste good.”

  She didn’t need to know that it was Halo Top ice cream—much lower in calories and sugars, and much higher in protein and fiber, and therefore much better for her. So in lieu of answering her, I arched up a brow and said, “Are you going to eat it or not? Because Cody isn’t going to give in and bring you anything even remotely resembling ice cream, so you’d better make do with what you can get your hands on.”