Page 102 of The Nanny and the Beefcake
No.
Can chakras be teensy-tiny?
Not really.
They’re energy centers, but she couldn’t help herself from getting in a little dig. She still wasn’t a fan of fighting, but if there was ever a man who sounded like he deserved to be punched square in the jaw, it was that snake of a boxer.
And what should she do about Briggs’s comment—the after the nannying and spiritual advisor stint ends business? A lump formed in her throat, but she had to shelve her emotions. Could she imagine life without Sebastian? She glanced at her barefoot partner in crime. No, she couldn’t. Could she imagine life without her beefcake? She couldn’t go there either. On that sticky matter, her head and her heart weren’t in agreement.
“It can’t be Scott’s people,” Raz countered. “There’s no way they could have anticipated what Libby would say. And it’s too soon. He won’t want to take away from the weigh-in.”
“The weigh-in?” she repeated.
“It’s when the boxers meet in front of the media to juice up the publicity and weigh-in on the official scale to qualify for the fight,” Raz explained. “They’re choreographed events. The press wants to see the tension between the fighters. It’s too soon for that. Silas Scott is a snake, that’s for sure, but he knows how to use the media for maximum exposure.”
“All right, so he’s probably a curious local. I’ll take care of this. I thought of something brilliant,” Briggs said and cleared his throat. “Sir, you with the hat and the dirty truck, about the word beefcake.”
“Yeah?” the man shot back, eyeing the agent.
Briggs puffed up. “If that’s what you thought you heard on the viral video, which was a piece of the eclectic training regimen Mr. Cress is following, you’re mistaken. Libby didn’t say that. She was counseling Erasmus Cress not toeat cake.Beefcake.Eat cake,” the man continued enunciating each syllable, then scanned the swath of media, watching them gobble up his explanation like hungry vultures. “Do you see how they have a similar ring to them?” the agent finished.
“Eat cake?” she whispered as Raz cocked his head to the side and stared at the sports agent.
“Did you get hit on the head with a rock?” the old man asked Briggs. “You gotta watch out for those in these parts. Why do you think this town is called Rickety Rock?”
Briggs gasped and stared up into the cloudy sky as if he anticipated an onslaught of incoming boulders.
“I said rocks, not meteors,” the bearded man corrected.
Flustered, Briggs smoothed his sport coat as he studied the ground. “No, I haven’t been hit in the head with a rock.”
“Are you sure? You’re not making any sense, and I need to know what’s going on with Beefcake and Plum,” the old-timer repeated.
“Do you think we’re Beefcake and Plum?” she asked, gesturing to herself and Raz as her pulse skyrocketed.
She caught Raz’s eye and gave him a look that saidthat old cowboy can’t know about our nicknames, can he?
Raz’s eyeballs replied withbloody hell, who knows! This place is bonkers.
Her beefcake wasn’t wrong. Everything about this day had been bonkers.
The old man slapped his hat against his leg and broke out into a full belly laugh. He was a tall man, fit for his age, but he did have a bit of a tummy on him. His entire body, from his beard to his rounded abdomen, jiggled as he cackled with amusement. “Are you asking me if you two are a pair of asses?” he got out through another cascade of laughter.
What was so funny? This had to be a hallucination.
She turned to Raz. “Is this happening?”
Everything about the last hour could have been a scene in a crazy dream. Maybe she’d been hit in the head with a rock. She could have gotten out of the car andwham—an actual runaway rickety rock, straight to the noggin.
“I was wondering the same thing,” Raz replied.
“Bob,” a woman in a cowboy hat exclaimed, exiting the passenger side of the truck.
And hello, second Western movie extra.
Libby gasped. She hadn’t even noticed there was someone else in the vehicle.
“Don’t go joking with these poor folks—especially when they have company,” the lady cowgirl chided gently, gesturing to the throng of media when a high-pitched bray followed by a jarring hee-haw cut through the air.
