Page 27 of Play to Win
Ethan’s fingers paused over the screen of his phone.
She hadn’t responded to his text messages.
Three of them and no answer.
He was trying not to feel rejected. There were plenty of other numbers stored in his phone that he could dial if he wanted a repeat of last night. Except, he knew it wouldn’t actually be a repeat because it wouldn’t be with Portia. He had a feeling there was never going to be another Portia in his life. He didn’t even know why he was thinking of her in that way. She was only here for another couple of days and then she’d be gone. That worked perfectly because another monogamous relationship was out of the question for him. Once was enough, especially when it ended with him dangerously close to using his training to actually kill someone.
It had been months since he’d thought about the six years he’d spent in D.C. working for the Secret Service. He’d accomplished a goal nobody in this town thought he would, obtaining a college degree and a good government job. He was in the place he’d imagined himself being after the rough childhood he’d endured. And in one afternoon, it had all come crashing down.
With a frown, Ethan tucked the phone into his pocket and got out of his truck. He opened the back-passenger door and pulled out three cases of beer he’d taken from the bar and headed toward the backyard of Camy’s house. It used to be Del and Lance’s home too, until the vandalism incident at the school where neither of the twins would tell who had trashed the boys’ locker room and the gym teachers’ offices. That had been the last straw for their mother and off to the House they went. Ethan had been there for almost a year at that time and had bonded with the twins in a way he’d never done with any of the other residents.
The three of them used to walk by this two-story white house with its black shutters and sprawling front and back lawns on many occasions. In fact, Del and Lance always spent Sunday afternoons here with their mother and Camy. Now, Ethan walked toward the back of the house where the large yard had been freshly landscaped. The grass was cut, the bushes trimmed and fresh mulch was around each of the mature trees. Camy took pride in keeping the house up, inside and out, especially since she was the only one who lived there now.
Del was already standing at one of the two grills set up closest to the house. White tents stood over two picnic tables with benches on each side. There were more chairs positioned around the tents and two big red coolers sitting beside a tree. Ethan moved in that direction to set the cases of beer down beside the coolers. He’d just ripped the paper wrapping off one and was about to start loading the cans into one of the coolers when Lance appeared.
“Guess who’s coming today?” he asked, but Ethan assumed he was talking to Del and didn’t bother to turn around and answer.
“Okay, you don’t want to guess. Well, I’ll tell you because I don’t think you’ll want to be as surprised as you were when you saw her last night.”
Now, he did turn toward where Lance was standing.
The smile that spread across Lance’s face was big and annoying. “Yeah, I thought that’d get your attention.”
“You think you could help unload my truck or you wanna keep yapping?” Ethan asked and went back to taking the beers out of the package and dropping them into the ice inside the cooler.
“Sure. You’re probably going to need a cold one when you see Portia. She looks even hotter than she did last night, if that’s possible.”
Ethan kept working.
“She’s in the house right now, helping Camy in the kitchen. Isn’t she, Del? And man, those shorts she’s wearing are really short. I mean, they’re shorter than the dress she wore last night and that was short. You know what I’m sayin—”
His words were cut short when Del came over and bowed him in the ribs playfully. “Stop teasing him. It’s cool if he’s got a thing for little Portia.”
“She’s not little,” Ethan snapped before he could stop himself.
Del gazed at Ethan with a slow grin. “I can agree with that,” Del said. “She’s definitely all grown up now. Easy to see why she’s in the sex industry.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Ethan asked.
He’d been keeping the eye contact to a minimum while opening another pack of beer.
“Nothing, man. Don’t bite my head off,” Del said. “We’re just messing with you. She seems like a really nice woman, who happens to be extremely attractive and pretty rich too. Her company’s called Pleasure, Inc. and it’s made a killing over the past few years. Her book’s even on track to become a bestseller.”
Irritated that Del had investigated Portia, Ethan looked up to his friend with a frown. Sure, he’d run her name and dug up a few things about her too. And his friend, Byran at the Secret Service had found her private cell phone number. But Ethan hadn’t thought he was being intrusive. Del, on the other hand, had no reason to want to know more about Portia.
“She’s a successful businesswoman,” Ethan replied. “No need for you to dig up anything else about her.”
Del shrugged. “She’s been gone a while and now she’s back. I wanted to know why.”
So had Ethan. The three of them each had law enforcement experience so being precautious and suspicious came natural to them.
“Yeah, she’s back alright, and looking sweeeeet,” Lance said. “Still, I never really figured you’d go for her, E. I mean, you never did when we were in school.”
“She was two years younger than us,” Del said. “Considering where we were forced to live, we were all trying to stay in our lane then.”
“Yeah, she’s still two years younger than us,” Lance stated.
“But she’s an adult now,” Ethan told them.
