The front door opened. Nicole stood in front of him, her face streaked with tears. “Sure it is. The alpha male of the pack always has to fight for his spot. It’s the circle of life.”
She looked both beautiful and miserable and he regretted that he’d made her cry. “Do you wish he’d kicked my ass?”
“Yes.” She sniffed. “Big-time.”
“I’m sorry,” he said and pulled her close. “I’m so sorry. I suck at this relationship thing. The last time I had to get to know a girl, I was fifteen. It was easier not to screw up.”
He hugged her and kissed her. “Nicole, I’m really sorry.”
She swallowed, then nodded. “I know you were just reacting. Besides, this isn’t a real relationship. We have a deal, remember?”
He stared into her blue eyes. A deal? Sure, that’s how things had started, but now?
“I’m not in it for the deal,” he said. “I’m in it for you.”
She sniffed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, and I have fifty kids waiting for me at the pizza place.”
“Oh, sure. Say something like that and take off. Typical guy.” But she didn’t sound mad anymore.
“Come with me?”
She stepped back. “I can’t. I look terrible.”
“You look fine. Streaky, but women know how to fix that sort of thing with a little, I don’t know, powder or something.”
She smiled. “Okay. Give me five minutes.”
“I’ll wait.”
She turned away.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her against him, then kissed her again. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, his mouth against hers.
“I got that.”
She looked into his eyes and smiled.
It was a soft I-forgive-you smile that made his breath hitch and the world go silent. Because in that moment, there was nothing he wanted more.
NICOLE BENT OVER the textbook. “I don’t like any math problem that starts with two cars traveling toward each other. Why does it have to be cars?”
“Sometimes it’s trains,” Raoul said.
She rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t make it better. Okay, two cars driving toward each other. Car A is going thirty miles per hour. Car B is going forty miles per hour. They begin a mile apart. Where on the one-mile track will they meet and what is the time, assuming it is now 2:00 p.m.?”
Nicole looked at him. “Is this a joke?”
“No.”
“I was afraid of that.”
She picked up the book and flipped back a couple of chapters, hoping to get a hint of how to work the problem. She kept turning back the pages until she reached the front cover.
“Do you want my book from last year?” he asked, grinning at her. “Or my books from middle school?”
“Do you want my help?”
“Maybe not.”
She handed him his textbook. “This is not my thing. I’m sorry, but I was a business major in college. We had a special calculus class. Dummy calculus, according to our instructor. We were mocked by the real calculus students, but I learned to live with that.” She stared at the problem again.
“You’re going to have to convert the miles to feet. And I guess convert the miles per hour to feet per minute. Then write an equation with maybe distance as a function of time for each car. Which gives you time in common. You can solve for time. Does that sound right?”
He picked up his pencil. “I’ll let you know.”
“If it’s not, I’ve exhausted all my higher math knowledge. Seriously, after this, we’ll have to discuss the revolutionary war.”
Raoul sighed. “I’d rather work on math than history.”
“Typical guy. What do you want to study in college?”
“You mean aside from football?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I don’t know. I’d like to work in business. Advertising.”
“Excuses to have expensive lunches with clients?”
He grinned. “I’d be good at that.”
“Especially if the clients were women.”
He laughed. The humor faded. “First I have to get into college.”
“Is there any doubt?” She pointed at the textbook on the kitchen table. “This isn’t dummy math, Raoul. You’re taking hard classes and getting good grades.”
“I guess I meant I have to get my ride lined up.”
“Ah, the football scholarship.”
“That’s the only way I’ll make it to a good school.”
Because there wasn’t any money. Of course there were grants and loans but she understood why Raoul would want a scholarship if one were available.
She wanted to say she’d seen him play and he was brilliant. That of course he’d get a football scholarship, but what did she know?
“What does Coach say?”
“That I’ve got a shot. That I should listen to everything they say and then he’ll help me make the right choice if I want.”
“The colleges come to you?”
“Recruiters. They’re contacting me.”
“You meet with them?”
“They want to take me to dinner or to a Sea-hawks game. That kind of stuff.”
Gee, all she’d gotten from the University of Washington was an application and later a letter of acceptance.
“So do they give you gifts?” she asked eagerly.
“They’re not supposed to.”
“If they offer chocolate, say yes.”
He laughed. “They don’t offer chocolate. It’s football.”
“So you’re more likely to, say, get half a cow.”
“Right.”
“I don’t have the freezer space for that.”
“They want to take me to nice places and tell me how great their school is, talk about the program, the perks, that sort of thing.”
“Sounds like fun.”
He picked up his pencil, then put it down. “I guess. I’m kind of nervous.”
“Don’t be. You’re the talent, Raoul. You’re what they’re looking for. You are their reason for living.”
He didn’t smile. Instead he ducked his head and said, “There’s a guy coming in next week. He wants to take me to dinner. Would you come with me? To the dinner?” He glanced at her, then looked away. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be asking, so I thought you could help with that.”
Nicole was stunned and flattered. “Shouldn’t Hawk go with you?”
“He is. But I want you there, too.”
Warmth spread through her. She touched his arm. “I would be honored to help in any way I can.”
NICOLE PARKED in the garage and pulled out her Nordstrom’s bag. She’d had a great afternoon of shopping with Claire. They’d started with brunch at The Cheesecake Factory, then had shopped for a killer dress for the recruiter dinner. Nicole wanted to make Raoul proud and Hawk whimper. While there was now a sizable balance on
