Playing for Keeps Read online

  “Well crazy does attract crazy.”

  He slung an arm around her neck. “Don’t I know it.”

  They stepped outside together and Sadie’s heart started to pound as she realized her moment was almost here, the one she’d been looking so forward to all night. She dropped her towel and got into the hot water, turning so she didn’t miss the show.

  Caleb was in navy blue board shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt. He did that very male move of reaching over his shoulder and yanking his shirt off, leaving him in just the board shorts, slung low on his lean hips. Sadie’s gaze went to the way they were cut with muscles that tended to make women stupid, but she knew where everyone else’s gazes went.

  To his tattoos.

  As she watched her parents take in his ink and suck in a judgmental breath, she waited for the amusement to hit her. After all, this was why she’d brought him tonight, right? For the shock value. The entertainment. She’d known he’d charm the socks off her parents, that they would fall for him even more quickly than she had, and that they’d consider him everything they’d ever wanted for her. And she knew it would all be based off the superficial knowledge they had of him and his appearance.

  And now she could say gotcha. He wasn’t what he appeared to be. He was, in fact, better than he appeared.

  But the joy of the moment never hit.

  Instead, she felt something turn over in her gut and it made her feel a little sick. Here she’d been thinking that ever since Wes, she’d started over. That she’d actually gotten somewhere, that maybe she wasn’t as damaged and screwed up as she’d once been.

  But apparently, she hadn’t come as far as she’d thought. Because her mom reacted predictably. She sucked in a hard breath and then met Sadie’s gaze, and in them was the usual disappointment.

  It was what she’d come for, so why then did she feel no sense of accomplishment or satisfaction at all?

  Just shame.

  Chapter 26

  #MacAndCheese

  When they left for the night, Caleb walked with Sadie out to his car, holding his tongue. It wasn’t easy. He was good and pissed off. Sadie had brought him here, not to introduce her family to her boyfriend, but to parade him around as another bad choice.

  Which reminded him, he was a complete idiot for giving her that power in the first place. He’d actually believed that she’d wanted to show off the man in her life.

  Joke was on him.

  Worse, what she’d done tonight spoke volumes about her level of investment in him.

  He held her passenger door open while she clicked her seatbelt into place. She tilted her face up, her eyes revealing her guilt. She opened her mouth to say something, but he shut the door on her cute nose.

  Drawing a deep breath, he walked around the back of the car instead of the front, using the ten seconds to school his features into a blank expression, the one he often took with him into the boardroom when he didn’t want to show his hand.

  He also used it on poker nights with Kel, and he only lost when Kel was counting cards, which he did just to piss Caleb off. Hard to beat a cheater, but Sadie had done it effortlessly tonight. And yeah, she’d cheated. She’d cheated by not warning him ahead of time what tonight had been about. If she’d done that, they might have actually walked into her family home as partners.

  But she hadn’t wanted that. She’d wanted to throw him in her mom’s face, and the minute he’d realized it, he’d also realized something else—this thing between them wasn’t going work, not like this anyway.

  “Caleb,” she said quietly. “I’m—”

  “Don’t.” He didn’t want to hear an apology for something she’d done so purposefully.

  She gave him a long unreadable look. “I get that when you say ‘don’t’ like that, in your very serious, very authoritative voice at work, people probably shut up. But in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a bit of an authority problem.”

  He snorted at the truth of that statement and she turned in her seat to face him, putting her hand over his before he could start the car. “And second,” she said. “I really am sorry.”

  “For?” he asked politely.

  “For using you tonight. I don’t know why I did it.”

  He gave her a get real look and she sighed.

  “Okay, fine. I do know,” she said. “I wanted my mom and dad to fall in love with you and think you were their dream come true, and then when they saw your tats, they’d assume I was on the same old track to Loser Town.”

  “Why would you want them to think that?”

  “Because they’re going to think it no matter what.” She shook her head. “But I realized that I made a tactical error. I should have done it the other way around. If they’d seen you in just those board shorts first, and if I hadn’t told them your name, they’d have instantly judged you. And not in a good way. Then when they’d gotten to know you, they’d realize how judgmental they are.”

  He just stared at her. “Wow.”

  She leaned back and closed her eyes. “I know. I heard it when I listened to myself. And now you know just how crazy I really am.”

  “Actually, I already knew that part.”

  She opened her eyes and met his and found a very small amount of amusement in them that gave her some hope. “Well you are smarter than the average bear,” she murmured.

  “Tell me why I watched you take the crazy to a whole new level tonight. Why do you care so much what they think?”

  “Because they’re my family.”

  He stared at her and realized something new—tonight hadn’t been about her trying to stick it to her parents at all. Instead, it’d been her way of saying, see, I’m okay, even someone like Caleb Parker thinks so, and when he looked at it like that, she broke his heart. Letting out a breath, he took her hand in his and brought it up to his mouth, nipping the meaty part of her palm until she looked at him again.

  “For future reference,” he said, “when you’re in a relationship, you have each other’s back. Meaning if we go into a situation where one of us is being driven mad by our admittedly equally mad families, the other can be used as armor. It’s a freebie. A perk.”

  She seemed boggled at this. “So you’re saying if we were in a relationship, tonight would’ve been a freebie and you wouldn’t be mad at me?”

  “Correct. And Sadie?”

  “Yeah?” she asked warily.

  “We are in a relationship, at least by my definition.”

  “And what’s your definition?”

  “Several mornings this week alone, I’ve woken up to a pair of your panties on my floor.”

  “Panties on your floor constitutes a relationship?”

  “If it happens more than once, yeah.”

  “But you’re still mad. Doesn’t that make the relationship null and void?”

  “I imagine we’re going to make each other good and mad often,” he said. “But no, that doesn’t null and void the relationship. It’s called Real Life, Sadie. Shit happens. I’ll piss you off. You’ll piss me off. We’ll talk. We’ll work through it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because that’s what people who are into each other do.”

  She appeared to chew on that for a moment. “So what are the rules of this so-called relationship?”

  She’d asked the question lightly, but her expression spelled worried. “Simple,” he said. “We stay in it for as long as it feels good.”

  She stared at him for a long beat. “I really am sorry for tonight.”

  “I know.”

  “I should never have”—she closed her eyes—“I’m just really sorry. I—”

  He leaned in and kissed her. “I know,” he repeated softly. “And thank you. But I’m not like your mom. You don’t have to say it again.” He started the car and got them on the road, feeling grateful and humbled to have the family he had and just a little heartbroken for Sadie that she didn’t feel the same level of support and unconditional love. “W