Game, Set, Match (A Humorous Contemporary Romance) (Love Match) (28 page)

Chapter
Twenty-One

Izzy noticed three things as she snuggled deeper under the covers. It was too bright in her room—had she forgotten to pull the shades? Her sheets felt softer than she remembered. An unfamiliar musky scent enveloped her.

It took her brain several moments to register the scent of male didn’t belong in her bed. What a wonder she remembered the smell, considering her sex drought.

She pealed her right eye open and peeked around for the source of the fragrance. Expecting the usual sunset color of her room, she blinked as stark white walls met her gaze. Slowly, memories of the day before seeped into her consciousness. Coach Tisdale, Jason. The photos of Nick. Her brain snapped into focus. 
Nick
.

She sprung from the bed, hurriedly searching through her overnight bag for bottoms to cover her legs. She called out for him, but no one answered. Bleary-eyed, she checked the clock.
Six-thirty. 
Shit
. She’d overslept. She’d never be able to get Nick to the courts to practice in time.

Unlike most kids his age, he didn’t sleep in, never had.
His one fatal flaw. Kids should sleep in, especially on weekends. Automatically, she grabbed her camera, but since she couldn’t find her shoes, she had no choice but to go down the stone staircase barefoot. She glanced at one of the steps dubiously. Once her feet hit the ice cold surface, she realized going down slowly wasn’t an option.

Downstairs, sunlight washed through the windows and kissed all the furniture with morning light. Izzy searched, but still no Nick or Jason, but she did locate the tennis shoes she’d worn the night before and slipped them on. The French doors to the porch and outer grounds were open. Sounds of the waves crashing against the rocks over the cliff carried over the grounds. She could also hear the
 
thwack
 of racket hitting ball.

At least she didn’t have to drive all the way back to Pasadena so Nick could get some practice in. Padding out to the deck, she watched Nick toss his ball strong and high for a serve and hit it with enough force to elicit a grunt.

Jason gave Nick some instruction. “Good serve. You’re strong. One thing, I want you to work on some forehand volleys at the net. They’ll come in handy against Michon in the exhibition tomorrow.”

Nick’s response didn’t carry, so she started down the stairs to meet them on the court. A few stairs down, she turned back around to grab her camera.

Once at the sidelines, she had a clear shot of Jason and Nick working at the net. Nick said something to make Jason laugh, and Izzy’s libido interrupted the steady 
thud thud
 of her heart.

God, the word handsome didn’t suffice.
All muscle and sinew. She snapped several photos. Checking the digital display, she would swear that these photos were better than any she took for SI.

They still hadn’t seen her yet, so the both of them were natural in the photos. No matter that he’d been the subject of thousands of
photos, Nick always seemed to pose when he knew she had a camera on him.

Nick slammed a forehand volley over the net, and Jason grinned again. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You want to leave your opponent no options.”

Something about Jason’s smile made her stomach clench. This was the man she’d known. A memory of the day before, when Jason held her, flitted into consciousness.

He’d been gentle and caring, had taken care of most everything with the police. He’d held her as if, by sheer will, he could stop her from breaking apart.
His presence so strong that the foremost memory of one of the worst days of her life was not of Coach Tisdale, or the break-in, but of Jason holding her as she cried. Jason taking care of everything, protecting her.

And later that evening, he’d explained to Nick about spending the next few days, through the weekend, at his house. He’d gotten Nick settled then bundled her up in his bed. And he’d held her until she’d fallen asleep.

Jackass bad boys didn’t behave like this. They partied, they drank, they had sex with lots of women. It didn’t match. Who was the real Jason?

Nick waved, and Jason turned. They both smiled and made their way across the court toward her. Jason stood taller, though not by much. Nick was already taller than three quarters of the boys in his class.

Something in their strides made Izzy do a double take. What she usually called lazy plodding by Nick, was a sexy predatory gait in Jason. Their walk, in some measures, the same, only one more matured, neither one of them in a hurry to get anywhere.

Shit.
 She blinked, tying to expel the similarities she saw. 
I’m overreacting
. Plenty of men walked that way, part of the male genetic makeup. Especially athletic men, graceful, fluid, lithe.

As they approached, they smiled similar smiles.
 
It’s impossible
. God couldn’t be that cruel. 
Shit
. She couldn’t believe she’d never put the two together before. Though, she’d never really seen them side by side like this.

The tilt of their heads, and the slow lazy smiles to match their slow lazy walks, were identical. Her heart hammered double time in her chest. She told herself not to freak out. Maybe she needed more sleep. All the stress and strain had taken a toll.

Nick, taking no notice of her mood, started in on her with his usual string of verbal diarrhea. As usual, she caught only mere snippets of the teenager code. “Mom…Jason said…then we did…and did you catch the volley…can’t believe this house. It’s…freaking dope.”

Izzy could only do what she always did—listen closely and wonder where all her youth had gone. There was a time when she’d had the ridiculous teen speak to a science.

Jason smiled at her. “I thought you were going to sleep in. We didn’t want to wake you.”

She looked between the two of them, now noticing the similarities. Nick’s hair, shaggy and unkempt, differed in color from Jason’s. Nick’s hair had the sandy color of youth, from the sun. Jason’s was a darker shade of blond.

Izzy could recognize Sabrina in Nick’s nose and the set of his eyes. There were distinct similarities between the shape of Jason’s and Nick’s jaws and the way they smiled. But she stared into the face she’d seen every day for the past ten years like she saw him for the first time.

Unable to continue staring at the two of them, she sputtered out a response. “I thought I needed to get you to the school for practice.”

“No need with a court here.”

Jason indicated the house. “We should probably get breakfast.”

Feeling bad he’d opened up his home to them and she’d kicked him out of his own room, Izzy thought she should repay him. “You don’t have to go to any trouble, we can help get breakfast together.

Nick interjected. “
Uhm, Mom, I think maybe you should let me—”

She interrupted him before he could finish. “I’m perfectly capable of whipping up some eggs.”

Nick looked at Jason and made no attempt to hide the warning shake of his head.

He had a point about her cooking being more of a death sentence than a repayment of kindness. She sighed. “You know, when I said I could whip up eggs, by I, I meant Nick.”

The rumble of Jason’s laughter as they climbed the stairs into the house, reverberated around them, reminding her of Nick’s laugh.

Sabrina owed her some answers. When Izzy found her, she’d shake the truth out of her.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Izzy leaned over her portable light table as she analyzed the photos from the morning. She searched for something, anything, to disprove her gut. 
Jason is not Nick’s father.
Sabrina might be many things, but a magician she wasn’t. The math was all wrong.

The longer she stared at the photos, the more she wondered if the impossible was, in fact, possible.
 
What if…

“You’re cute when you concentrate.”

As the warm timber of Jason’s voice washed over her, her internal temperature rose. Women all over LA dropped their panties at the sound of his voice. She didn’t want to be one of them. Maybe not 
exactly
 the truth, but she’d stick to her delusions for now.

She glanced at the clock, and her jaw dropped.
 
Past ten
. “Did Nick get to school okay?” In a haste, she attempted to shove the morning’s photos into her project folder.

Jason was too fast for her. “Yeah, he got off fine. Are those from this morning? How did you get prints of these so quick?”

Izzy pointed at her portable printer. “I know they’re digital, but I still love my trusty light table. I don’t have negatives, but I like to get some light behind them.”

“Were you able to get a hold of Sabrina?”

“I tried. All I got was her voicemail. I left her a message about the house. Told her we needed to talk.”

He rocked back on his heels. “Izzy, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Nick’s bruise right away. I should have insisted—”

She put up a hand. “No, you did the best you could. Kids are tough. The right balance between earning their trust and doing what’s best for them isn’t easy.”

Without saying a word, he moved over to her side of the light table and extended his hand. “C’mon, I have a surprise for you.”

Dubious, she inspected his hand for the trap. He waggled his fingers and teased her into acceptance. “I don’t do so well with surprises.”

Jason cocked his head, his smile, equal parts scrutiny and charm. “You used to love surprises. Whatever happened to that
Izzy. I liked her. Let’s bring her back.”

Stifling the girlish urge to giggle, she allowed him to tug her to the back deck. “Nah, she’s gone. I shot her in Reno just to watch her die.”

“Smartass.”

Izzy screwed up her face. “What, you don’t like Johnny Cash?”

He rolled his eyes as he positioned her on the deck. “Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Just close them, woman. Damn, you could drive a man to drink.”

She closed her eyes, making sure to use as much exaggerated reluctance as she could muster. No reason for him to know how thrilled she felt. “What’s your drink? I figure if I’m going to drive you to the act, I might as well provide the alcohol.”

The low rumble of his laughter made her knees wobble. As she stood there, eyes closed, late morning sun on her face, she wondered if he gave any thought to their kiss the other day. She may have said she didn’t want anything to do with him, but her body certainly didn’t agree.

She felt him shift behind her, fully moving into her space. Warmth and a musky, woodsy scent followed him, making her almost beg for him to hold her. Taking hold of her shoulders, he turned her body to an angle.

“Okay, you can open your eyes now.”

She peeled her eyelids open. Her eyes took several seconds to adjust to the onslaught of light. On the chair in front of her lay a racket. The handle wrapped in pink tape.

Izzy swung around to survey him. “I don’t understand.”

“What’s not to get? The racket’s for you.”

She folded her arms across her chest and tried to sidestep him, but he wouldn’t let her pass. “I don’t want a racket. I’m grateful, but I don’t play anymore, Jason.”

“Why?”

“Because…” Izzy shut her eyes in an attempt to escape from his probing gaze. “I don’t. Not anymore.”

“But why,
Iz? You were a star. You loved to play.”

“Jason, you haven’t known me in years. A lot has changed. Tennis isn’t my life anymore.” Frustrated, she ran her hands through her hair. “Not everyone wants to be in the spotlight like you.”

To keep her in position, Jason put his hands on her shoulders. “Izzy, no one’s asking you to suit up to play center court at Wimbledon. I’m just asking you to pick up the racket and have some fun. I saw you as you watched us. You looked like you miss it.”

She removed his hands from her shoulders. “Look, you’ve been great, letting us come to stay here. I appreciate your help and hospitality more than I can say. But I won’t have you pushing me into this.
Why do you care if I play or not?”

Jason shoved his hands in his pockets. “Izzy, I’d give anything to see your face light up again. Yeah sure, I see some of the joyful Izzy when you look at Nick, but when’s the last time you experienced pure bliss and enjoyment for yourself, your pleasure. I only wanted—”

“Enough. God, why does everyone think they know what’s best for me. My mother, Jessica, Simon, shit, even Nick’s in on the game. And now you. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I know what I need. What I want.”

Jason tucked his head and peered at her from under thick, dark blond lashes. “Yeah okay, I understand. You’re pissed. I was presumptive. Thought I knew what would make you happy.” He turned to the sliding glass door. “I’m headed to physical therapy. I’ll leave a set of keys to the Mercedes in the garage in case you want to go anywhere. Since I’ll already be in town, I’ll pick Nick up from school.”