Playing For Keeps (19 page)

It should have been painfully obvious
to everyone in the room how he felt about Haley. He made no secret
that she was his world, not that anyone believed him. Why was it so
hard to believe that he'd straightened out for Haley? He didn't
think there was anything difficult about it. Even if he wasn't
constantly hugging her, putting his arm around her, holding her
hand or trying to kiss her he told them, but had that stopped any
of those bastards from trying to make a move on her?

"Your family probably thought you
brought Haley there as a decoy to get your mother to stop harassing
the hell out of you about settling down and to use her as an excuse
to avoid those women," Mitch pointed out.

Jason crushed his empty beer can and
tossed it into the bucket in the corner of his deck. It should be
obvious to everyone that he'd changed. Hell, a year ago he would
have had Mitch toss that beer can up in the air so he could shoot
it with his paintball gun. Didn't it strike any of his friends as
odd that not only did he toss it into a bucket but his deck and
patio furniture were also cleaned and repaired, his lawn freshly
mowed and the inside of his house was clean? Those were big goddamn
changes in his book.

"That's what I was thinking," Brad
said, tossing his can at the bucket and missing. It landed on
Jason's freshly cut lawn. Jason gestured angrily for him to pick it
up. With an eye roll Brad did just that.

"Whatever. This is really boring
sitting around here talking about relationships like we're a bunch
of women," Mitch said. "Let's get the hell out of here." He stood
up, waiting for the other two men to follow.

Brad and Jason shared a look, shrugged
and got to their feet. What the hell, it wasn't like they had
anything better to do since Jill was off with a client and Haley
was off hitting yard sales.

"Great, let's go hit the strip clubs,"
Mitch said merrily.

"Whoa there, Skippy," Jason said,
coming to a sudden halt. "That shit isn't happening."

"What the hell do you mean?" Mitch
asked, sounding like a petulant child. "I want to go stare at hot
chicks getting naked."

"I'm out as well," Brad announced, not
that it was really necessary. The man hadn't been to a strip club
since he met Jill.

"Come on, it's Tuesday. It's all you
can eat hot wings at the Hot Bunny Club. We can go there, fill up,
and get a few lap dances. We can hook up with Candy and Mandy
afterwards. What's more fun than stripper sex?"

Jason could only look at his friend
dumbly for a moment. Mitch was serious, really serious.

"Have you forgotten about something?"
Jason asked calmly, more calmly than he felt.

Mitch looked truly confused when he
asked, "What?"

"I have a girlfriend!" Jason snapped,
quickly losing patience. "Why in the hell would I want to pay some
woman to show me something I'm not interested in when I'm dating
Haley? And why in the hell would you think I wanted to cheat on my
girlfriend?"

If humanly possible Mitch looked even
more confused. "How is it cheating if you're not
married?"

Brad and Jason just stared at Mitch.
What the hell was he supposed to say to that? Actually, it worried
him that not a year ago he would have been on Mitch's side of this
argument. That was truly frightening.

Hell, he would have been the one
starting that argument before Haley. Wow....wow..... It wasn't
exactly the best feeling in the world to discover how big an
asshole he once was. He'd really changed since getting to know
Haley and shockingly for the better. Surprisingly he didn't feel
pissed off or scared that she'd been able to bring out these
changes in him.

"Come on, man! Come with me. It'll be
fun," Mitch pleaded.

Jason grabbed a fresh beer and dropped
back into his chair.

"What the hell, Jason?" Mitch
whined.

Shrugging, Jason took a long sip of
his beer.

Mitch folded his arms stubbornly over
his chest while he scowled at Jason. "I never thought this day
would come," Mitch said with obvious disgust.

"Oh, what day is that exactly?" Jason
asked as he leaned his head back to catch some sun. Anything was
better than watching a grown man pouting.

"The day Jason Bradford became pussy
whipped," Mitch announced, earning a chuckle from Brad.

Jason threw Brad a killing glare, but
the man ignored him. He focused his attention on the little bastard
who was obviously drunk or possibly high, probably both.

He snorted. "I'm not pussy
whipped," he said. Since he'd done everything
but
slide into that little piece of
heaven he didn't think the term applied to him. The things they'd
done together made him stifle back a groan. He loved what they did
and at the same time he absolutely hated it.

Having Haley but not having her was
difficult as hell. For any other woman he would have simply
shrugged at the "no actual sex" rule and walked away. But for Haley
there wasn't anything he wouldn't do. She was the love of his life,
his future and the woman he planned on spending the rest of his
life with.

So for now he'd grit his teeth and
fight against the urge to jump her every time he saw her. His
little grasshopper wanted to stick with foreplay so that's exactly
what he was going to do. As long as she kept doing that unbelieving
erotic thing with her tongue and teeth along the ridge of
his-

"I'm surprised he's not panting after
her right now," Mitch said, yanking Jason away from his thoughts of
Haley, naked, bending over.... He shifted uncomfortably in his seat
as discretely as possible.

"We don't spend every minute of the
day together," Jason shot back.

Mitch shrugged. "Pretty
much."

"Well, I'm not with her right now, am
I?" Jason snapped back.

"Probably because she didn't want you
with her," Mitch said, snagging another beer. "She's probably
getting sick of you."

Jason snorted. Then for good measure
he snorted again. His little grasshopper wasn't getting sick of
him. He was damn sure of that. She absolutely adored him, loved
him. He knew it even if the stubborn woman hadn't said it yet, but
she would. Then he'd tell her how much he loved her, but only after
she told him because he really didn't want to feel like an idiot
saying it first. He'd never said it before and had absolutely no
idea how to go about doing it now. So, the safe plan was to wait
until Haley said it. He had absolutely no doubt that she'd say it
soon since there was no doubt in his mind that she loved
him.

No, the reason he was hanging out with
the guys today wasn't because she was getting sick of him. It was
quite simple. He was banned from going yard sale hopping with her
for one year. Not that he cared, he didn't. It did seem a little
unfair to him that's all. It's not like he intentionally went out
of his way to embarrass Haley. Those things just seemed to happen
to those around him. Most accepted that little fact of life, but
that hadn't stopped Haley from banning him.

You tell one or six people that the
stuff they were trying to hawk on their front lawns was crap and
all of a sudden he's banned. Well, that and the box of antique
dishes that he broke might have had something to do with it. He
didn't know why the guy was pissed. He gave him the fifty bucks for
it. He should be the one that was mad after all he was the one who
was out fifty bucks for a set of broken girly dishes.

"I bet Haley's off with another guy
right now-Ow! What the hell?" Mitch whined as he rubbed the nasty
looking red spot on his forehead that would no doubt be a
noticeable bump by morning.

Brad sighed as he picked up Jason's
half empty can of beer that rolled to a stop by his feet. He poured
the rest of the beer onto the lawn as he shook his head in
disbelief. "You knew better," he told a sulking Mitch.

"I was just kidding!"

Brad shrugged.

"That's fucked up!"

"Don't talk about my little
grasshopper," Jason simply said. The man should be happy that all
he did was throw his beer at him.

Mitch grabbed a handful of ice from
the bucket and pressed it against his forehead. "She's not even
that beautiful," he muttered quietly to himself.

Jason was out of his chair and lunging
for the little bastard before the last syllable left his mouth.
Brad being Brad, dropped his beer and jumped between the two men
seconds before Jason would have slammed into him. All three men
went tumbling off the deck to the ground with Brad doing his best
to keep a very pissed off Jason from killing Mitch.

"Get him off me!" Mitch screamed like
a girl as he tried frantically to crawl away. With Brad on his back
trying his best to hold him back, Jason lunged and managed to grab
Mitch's leg and proceeded to drag the man to him so he could beat
the shit out of him.

"For fuck sake, take it back!" Brad
yelled as he struggled to restrain Jason.

"Aaah!" Mitch screamed as he was
dragged inch by inch towards a future in a body cast. He tried to
dig his nails into the lawn to no avail.

"I didn't mean it like
that! She's hot! Insanely beautiful! I just meant that you've dated
really beautiful women before and you've never acted like this
before! Oh my god, don't kill me!"
The
words rush out of Mitch's mouth, ending on a squeal as Jason
dragged him beneath him and flipped him over with a fist raised and
ready.

Mitch held his hands out palms out
trying to get Jason to stop. "I swear to god I didn't mean it! I
love her!" At Jason's growl of anger Mitch rushed to continue. "Not
like that! I love her like a friend! I think she's great! I swear I
didn't mean it!"

"I told you not to tease him about
her," Brad groaned as he tried to pull Jason off the man, but Jason
outweighed him by a good thirty pounds of muscle. He watched his
friend through narrowed slits as he fought back the urge to beat
the shit out of him. This was one of his oldest friends and part of
him knew the man was only giving him shit, but he didn't allow
anyone to talk about or treat his little grasshopper with anything
but respect.

With barely controlled rage Jason took
a deep breath before he spoke. "Let's clear this up once and for
all." At Mitch's enthusiastic nod, probably because if Jason was
talking it meant he wasn't beating the crap out of him, he
continued. "Haley is my world," he said, ignoring Mitch's eyes
bugging out at that announcement. "Because we've been friends since
we were five I'm going to overlook this little act of stupidity."
Mitch noticeably relaxed at that announcement. "As long as you stop
ogling my girlfriend's ass."

Mitch pursed his lips, thinking over
the ultimatum. After a minute he dropped his arms to his side and
sighed, "I'd rather get my ass kicked."

Chapter 18

"Baby, stop!" Haley said,
giggling.

Jason hugged her waist tighter,
keeping her from walking away. "Stay home with me. I missed you,"
he said, giving her his best pout.

She gently ran her fingers through his
hair the way he liked it. "I'm sorry, sweetie, but I can't back out
again. I promised Amy and the girls that I was definitely coming
tonight."

There was no way she was allowing
herself to stay home tonight. Over the past week she'd come so
close to wrecking the surprise by telling him. She knew that if she
stayed home tonight that the excitement would get to her and she'd
blurt it out and everything she'd gone through over the past month
to plan this would be wrecked.

Of course none of this would have been
possible without her grandmother's help. A few times Haley
considered giving up when money and location became an issue, but
then Grandma offered to help her out. Grandma found her the perfect
place at more than half the cost of every place Haley had looked
into.

It was the first time Haley had ever
accepted her grandmother's help. It had always been important for
her to make it on her own without her family's money and influence.
For Jason she'd sucked up her pride and asked Grandma to help her
find the perfect cabin to rent. Everything was going to be
perfect.

"Does it not matter that I'm on my
knees begging you? You're really going to be able to leave someone
this pathetic?" he demanded in a sulky tone.

Haley rolled her eyes as she gently
pried his arms from around her waist. "It's just for a couple of
hours. You won't even know I'm gone," she promised him.

He sat back on his haunches doing his
best to look pathetic.

She did her best not to roll her eyes,
again. It was just so damn cute and sweet that he didn't want to
spend even one night without her. This was something she never
expected from Jason Bradford, one of many things actually. He was
so sweet and attentive.

"What if I promise to make you a batch
of brownies tomorrow?" she asked, deciding to use his love of baked
goods against him.

He snorted in disbelief as he got to
his feet. "I'm not some whore you can buy with a pan of yummy baked
goods, woman. How dare you insult me?" he said on a sniff as he
folded his arms over his chest and did his best to look put
out.