Page 12 of Married to the Scottish Player
I stand up and limp to the fridge, then yank the door open with a little more force than necessary. My knee protests. My ego does not.
She can sit there nibbling grapes while I eat the steak and asparagus that were my leftovers from the resort. I ate at the restaurant for dinner yesterday, too lazy to cook for myself.
“Make yourself comfortable while you wait for LakeLand to call.”
“LakeStay.” She corrects me in a patronizing tone.
I grab the container from the top shelf, flip the lid, stab a piece of steak with my fork without warming it first, and pop it into my mouth.
“Delicious,” I groan, chewing loudly and with my mouth open on purpose. “Tastes like priority booking.” So tasty.
“You’re gonna weaponize your dinner now?”
“Did you want some?” I hold the loaded fork in her direction. “You said you went grocery shopping. You will not starve while you’re waiting for your marching orders.”
“My marching papers,” she revises. Meanwhile, she’s still standing barefoot inmykitchen, breathingmyoxygen.
“Yes,” I say, stabbing another cold bite of steak and shoving it into my mouth. “You’ll be honorably discharged the moment LakeStay gets their shit together.”
She rolls her eyes. “You talk like you’ve claimed this house with your testosterone.”
“’Cause I did.”
“We’ll see.”
Did we not already determine that I got the bed and she would suffer on the couch while she waited for a return phone call?
“I’m not giving up the mattress,” I remind her.
“I never said you had to—but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep trying to change your mind.”
Good luck with that, sweetheart.
I’ve won Super Bowls, and you do not get this far in life by being a quitter.
Chapter 3
Annabelle
Of all the names in the universe—of all the possible human options—I had to get stuck in a double-booked rental with a man namedMaverick.
Maverick.
Not Mark. Not Paul. Not Ben or Tyler or something normal. No. I get a shirtless, towel-wrapped linebacker with a name that sounds like he should ride a motorcycle, sell overpriced tequila, or crash fighter jets for a living. His name is written on duct tape and stuck to the duffel next to the kitchen island, as if he were going to summer camp.
The worst part?
It suits him.
He’s massive. Like,disturbinglymassive. The kind of man who probably broke his crib as a toddler by shaking it too hard. Broad shoulders, towering height,abs that need to calm the fuck down, and Lord forgive me, but I’m dying to touch them—for research purposes, of course.
Please don’t get me started on the voice.
Deep. Rumbling. The kind of voice that could probably read the ingredients from a lotion bottle and make it sound hot. No human man needs a voice that sounds like mountain man and spice, who looks like he’s going to come rushing out of the forest with an axe over his shoulder.
A real man like Paul Bunyan.
Way hotter than the men I had to hire for the Fall Festival, Harris Bennett included.
