“Yup. Eunice and Shanna said they haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I know.” Bruiser swallowed back the guilt. He sent them money once a month to help pay for the salon expenses rather than visiting them, as if that replaced him. His mother, Eunice, had left five messages on his phone this week. Instead of calling her, he’d sent a text message.
Yeah, he was a crappy son, one who pretended he didn’t have a family, which made him a crappy person too.
Bruiser hated dishonesty for a multitude of reasons. His father had figured truth was useless when you could spin a whole web of lies. And Bruiser’s ex-wife had used lies and guilt in equal doses to get what she wanted. Forget that Bruiser practiced his own brand of deception every waking hour of his day, pretending to be someone he wasn’t, rather than embracing who he was. But at least he was only hurting himself. This thing with keeping his family hidden was another thing altogether.
“Then why don’t you go see them?”
“Why don’t you go see your family?” Bruiser shot back.
Brett almost smiled. “Touché.” He looked down at his watch. “Uh, but that’s not exactly what I’m warning you about.”
“What is it then?”
“You know how you told me your mother and sister like to chat?”
“Uh, yeah.” Brett was the only person he ever talked to about Eunice and Shanna, but even so, he didn’t know everything about him, not the most important thing.
“Well, I told them about Mac and the barbecue. They volunteered to style her hair, do all that beauty stuff, the whole works on the house.”
“Oh, no. No way.”
“She doesn’t have much money. They’d do it for free.” Brett seemed to be trying hard not to smile, the dumb ass.
“No. I don’t want my mother and sister filling her full of embarrassing stories about my childhood.” Or even worse, telling her the entire tragic truth of his childhood, a truth he fought tooth and nail to hide. Embarrassment he could handle; pity and blame he couldn’t.
“You know that’s not what you’re worried about. They embarrass you. You’re a real asshole.”
If Brett only knew. “Yeah, so what?” Bruiser played along. He hated the guilt that burrowed a little deeper into his heart every day, which had a lot to do with why he avoided his family.
“Well, it’s a done deal. I told Zach, and Kelsie set up an appointment for Mac.”
“Ah, fuck. I thought we were friends. My mother’s been trying to marry me off to a nice girl for years. She’ll latch onto Mac like a bur on my ass.”
Brett, the rat bastard, actually grinned a very rare grin. “Good luck with that.” He stood, grabbed his jacket, and chuckled as he went out the door, leaving Bruiser alone with his thoughts.
“Well, shit.” Bruiser spoke out loud. He worked damn hard to keep his personal and professional lives apart, and his buddy just mashed them all up together.
With friends like Brett, who needed enemies?
Bruiser shrugged into his jacket and got the hell out of there.
Mac was kneeling in the flower beds at the front door of the practice facility as he walked out. He hesitated, his gaze dropping to her nicely rounded ass in those tight jeans. A ponytail tangle of dark-blonde hair fell across one shoulder, and a thin sheen of sweat covered the bare skin above the back of her tank top. Bruiser licked his lips. His dick hardened instantly. Odd, since thinking about Chelsea and Sondra didn’t get the slightest rise out of it.
Bruiser held his duffle bag in front of his crotch and plastered his charming smile on his face, a smile he’d never used before on Mac. Why he was using it now, he hadn’t a fucking clue. This was just Mac, tomboy extraordinaire and good buddy to the majority of the team. If he were lucky, she’d say she’d changed her mind, and he’d be off the hook. Oddly enough, that possibility actually disappointed him.
One way or another, he’d convince her to get her hair done elsewhere. His mother and sister talked too much, way too much, and he didn’t need Mac or anyone else knowing his entire sorry past.
“Hey, beautiful.” He came to stop a few feet from her, careful to keep his expensive shoes on the sidewalk and out of the fresh soil.
Mac glanced over her shoulder, dirt smeared under one cheek. She rolled her eyes. “Beautiful? Seriously?” She glanced away and wiped a strand of dull-blonde hair off her forehead with chipped and ragged fingernails. His mother would be appalled at their state, which almost made him smile. Almost.
“Absolutely. In an au naturel sort of way.” Bruiser gave her his sexiest smile, the one that usually had women unzipping his pants. Not so with Mac.
“Are you on drugs?” Mac snorted and sat back on her haunches, stretching the fabric of her jeans tighter around her ass. Bruiser’s throat went dry, and he coughed.
She studied him with narrowed eyes.
Taking a deep breath, Bruiser jumped in the deep end, grateful he could swim with the best of them, and dialed up the charm. “The only drug I need is your smile.”
“Let me get my boots on. It’s getting pretty deep out here.”
Bruiser leaned against the nearby building. “Have I got a deal for you, Mac. I’m going to save you the time of going all the way over to the peninsula to get your hair done. I’m setting you up with my stylist, Armand. The man’s a regular miracle worker.”
Mac frowned. “So you’re saying I need a miracle?”
“Uh, no, no,” Bruiser backtracked—great time for his legendary silver tongue to turn to scrap metal. What an idiot thing to say to a woman. “I’m just thinking you don’t want to spend an hour one way on the Bremerton ferry.”
“Maybe I enjoy a good ferry ride.” She narrowed her eyes in a look that was pure badass Mac.
