Time Out

“Watch the towel, man, these are leather seats.”

Mark flipped him off.

“Aw,” Rick said with a tsk. “Rough day already?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Ever.”

“I bet.” Rick drove off with lots of grinning and the occasional snicker, which Mark ignored.

They went to the motel so Mark could get clothes, and then to the construction site, where he spent the next few hours compartmentalizing. Swinging a hammer, wielding his phone for Mammoth business, and…thinking about Rainey dumping his sorry ass.

Don’t go there…

Late afternoon he left the construction site and headed to the rec center for the car wash. Casey and James helped staff members set up but there was a lot of chaos, and for that Mark was glad because it gave him something to do other than think too hard. His softball team straggled in one by one, dropped off by parents or riding in with friends who had a license, and for a minute, Mark’s spirits rose. The girls would annoy him in no time flat, taking his attention away from himself.

They weren’t in their uniforms today. Nope, they’d come dressed as they pleased, which was hardly dressed at all. Bikinis, low-riding shorts, tight yoga pants…the combination made his head spin. “Okay, no,” he said. “Go add layers. Lots of them.”

When he turned around, Rick was standing there, holding two sodas. “You do realize that they’re not your million-dollar guys, being paid to be bossed by you, right?”

“You brought me here to clean up their act and make players out of them.”

“No, I brought you here so your players could clean up their act.”

Oh, yeah. Right. “Well, we’ll kill two birds with one stone.”

Rick shook his head and offered him one of the sodas. “You look like hell, man. So how did you end up the one dumped? And has that ever even happened before?”

“What part of I don’t want to talk about it don’t you get?” He let out a breath when Rainey came out of the building wearing denim shorts and a tee, and…

Mark’s ball cap.

She was finally wearing his ball cap. Ignoring the pain in his chest, he looked her over as indifferently as he could manage. A ponytail stuck out the back of the hat, her beat-up sneakers were sans socks, and she looked every bit as young as his softball team. Across the parking lot, their gazes met. Hers was wary, uncertain, vulnerable, and… hell.

Sad.

He imagined his was more of the same, minus the vulnerable part. He didn’t do vulnerable.

“Want my advice?” Rick asked.

“No.”

His brother clapped a hand on Mark’s shoulder. “Gonna give it to you anyway. Whatever it is, whatever stupid ass thing you’ve done, suck it up and apologize. Even if you weren’t wrong. Works every time, and as a bonus, you get make-up sex.”

“That’s your advice?” Mark asked. “To grovel?”

“You got anything better?”

“No.”

Rick laughed and walked off, heading for Lena, who greeted him with a sweet smile and a kiss.

Rainey was still looking at Mark. Raising her chin slightly, she headed right for him, and his heart, abused all damn morning, kicked hard. For the first time in his entire life, he actually had to fight a flight response but he forced himself to hold his ground as more cars pulled in.

Guys. Teenage guys. The ones James and Casey were working with. They piled out of their cars with greetings for Rainey and his girls, who were coming back outside, only slightly more covered than they’d been when they arrived.

“Mark.”

Sharee hadn’t changed out of her short shorts and she was sauntering up to Todd, who had his eyes locked on her body.

“Mark,” Rainey repeated.

“What the hell are they wearing?”

“Who?”

“The girls. Look at them, do you call that a swimsuit?” he asked. “Because I call it floss.”

She made a choked reply, and he turned to look at her. She was laughing at him. This morning she’d walked away from him and now she was laughing at him. “How is this funny?” he demanded.

“You’re micromanaging. Listen, Coach, all you have to do this afternoon is stand around and look pretty.”

“What?” he asked incredulously, but then he was distracted by Todd, who was running a finger over Sharee’s shoulder. What the hell?

Rainey moved in front of Mark and waited until he tore his attention away from the teens. “It’s a car wash, Mark. A summer car wash for the teenagers’ sports program. We do this biweekly. They’re having fun, as they should.”

He tried to look over her head but she merely went up on her tiptoes and held eye contact. “You going to tell me what happened this morning?”

“We…” He refused to say they broke up. One, they hadn’t had that kind of a relationship, and two, even if they had, he sure as hell didn’t want to admit it was over. “Had a difference of opinion.”

She blinked, then took a step back. “I meant about you getting locked out on my porch naked.”

Shit. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Nice,” she said, nodding. “And I can see how you manage to fool people with that voice. It’s absolutely authoritative.” She pulled out her phone, brought up a picture, and showed it to him.

It was him. Bare ass. On her porch.

“It’s a little blurry,” she said, staring at it. “Because Stacy-my neighbor-was extremely nervous. She was also impressed. It was chilly this morning.”

His jaw set. “She sent this to you?”

“Yes. She was worried about the naked guy trying to break into my place.” Mercifully she put her phone away. “Now, about that ‘difference of opinion’.”

Oh, hell. He braced himself. “You walked away from me.”

“Yes, because I had to go to work.” She paused again, her eyes on his. “And…you thought I walked away from you.” She waited a beat. “You actually thought I’d-” Now she shook her head. “It was an argument, Mark. And I’m guessing by your reaction that you don’t have many of them. Of course not.” She smacked her own forehead. “Because in your world, you’re the dictator. Well, Mark, welcome to the real world. Where I get to be right some of the time, and that means you have to be wrong occasionally.”

“Wrong,” he repeated slowly.

“Yeah, wrong,” she said on a mirthless laugh. “Even the word sounds foreign coming off your tongue.” She was hands on hips, pissed off. “So is that what usually happens? You just write off anyone who disagrees with you?”

Actually, very few people ever disagreed with him. He was paid the big bucks to be in charge, in control, and to make small decisions, and he was good at those things. He didn’t have much of a margin of error, and frankly, he’d surrounded himself with people who knew this and were either always in line with his way of thinking, or they kept their opinions to themselves.

“Wow, you are so spoiled.” Her smile had vanished, and now she just looked disappointed in him. That was new too.

New and entirely uncomfortable. “Rainey-”

“Tell me this. You came here this morning thinking what, that we were totally over?” She stared at him, obviously catching the answer in his eyes. “I see,” she said slowly. “How convenient that must have been for you.”

“It didn’t feel convenient,” he said. “It felt like a knife in my chest.”

She absorbed that silently, without any hint of how she felt about it. Fair enough, he supposed, since he’d kept