Page 40 of Knockout (Whiskey Dolls 2)

“I was thinking that she friend-zoned me,” I defended childishly. “I was just trying to honor that agreement. Besides, the asshole taking her out tonight is the same guy she’s been pining after for months now.”

If looks could kill, the one Gram was giving me would have flayed me in two and left me bleeding out on the expensive rug beneath my feet. “My God, I thought I taught you better than that. Guess that male idiot gene is just too prominent.”

My hackles rose. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Layla had asked that we be friends, and that was exactly what I was giving her, damn it! “What are you talking about?”

“You said you pushed her into the date. If you hadn’t opened your big, stupid mouth, do you think she would have said yes on her own?”

“I—” I clamped my mouth shut, because as I thought back on that scene in the laundry room, on the heat I felt swelling between us as she asked if there was a reason for her to say no to that doucheBaxter—ha, I’m going to trademark that—I remembered the heaviness I felt in my chest as I stared at her full, soft pink lips. I could have sworn there was something swirling in the air around us, pushing us together.

But what if I’d been wrong? What if it was all in my head.

I’d read things with Leah so fucking wrong, I wasn’t sure I trusted my instincts when it came to women anymore. So instead of acting on what I’d been feeling in that moment, I went on what we’d agreed to.Friends. Fuck, I was really starting to hate that word. And now I was pretty sure I’d read that whole situation wrong.

“Shit,” I hissed, reaching up to rake my hands through my hair, giving it a tug in frustration.

“And now he gets it,” Gram deadpanned, crossing her arms over her chest and lifting her head haughtily. “That girl has feelings for you, Jude. And you have feelings for her. But you’rebothtoo hardheaded and stubborn to realize it. Question is, what are you going to do about it?”

I didn’t have a fucking clue...but I was damn sure going to figure it out.

* * *

Layla

I stood off to the side of the basketball court back behind the building, watching as some of the older boys competed in a rousing game. My main job was to make sure the trash talk didn’t get too out of hand, but what I was really doing was shouting the kids on from the sidelines, cheering for every basket made, no matter which team it was for.

“Yeah!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, throwing my hands in the air and jumping up and down. “Go Marcus! You’re the best ever! Whoo! Marcus!”

Just like I knew it would, his face flushed and he ducked his head almost bashfully.

I spotted Tessa coming up beside me, joining me at the edge of the court, her lips pulled into a smile. “You just love torturing that poor kid, don’t you?”

“Hey, it’s not just him.” As if to prove my point, another one of the boys sunk his next shot, and I was right there as his own personal cheerleading squad. “That’s right, Scott! You’re awesome! Keep that up!” Scott had much the same reaction as Marcus had. I twisted my neck to look at Tessa with a smug smirk on my face. “See? I’m an equal opportunity torturer.”

She let out a little giggle. “I stand corrected.”

“So how’s pregnancy? The hubs still driving you up the wall?”

“Nah. He’s gotten better.”

I gave her wide eyes as we turned and started for a long bench that was cemented to the ground under a tree not too far away. “Really? That’s great, right?”

She settled down beside me on a tired sigh and patted at her round belly. “Oh, it is. It’s just that to get there I had to have a complete pregnancy breakdown. I started crying because Momma Gianna’s didn’t put enough pepperoni on my pizza, and that spiraled into tearing Bryce’s head off for not giving me any space. By the time I was finished, my nose was so snotty I couldn’t breathe and my husband was looking at me like I’d just sprouted horns. He’s only giving me space because he’s absolutely terrified of me.” She lowered her voice and leaned in so only I could hear. “I tried to initiate sex the other night and he actually flinched when I got close. He thought I was going to gouge his eyes out or something.”

A long, loud laugh burst from my throat as I threw my head back and cracked up. I could just imagine sweet, kind-hearted Tessa Dixon losing her shit on her big, brawny alpha husband to the point he was scared of every move she made, and it was freakinghilarious. “Oh man,” I gasped once I could breathe again. “I would have paid good money to see that.”

“You and every one of our friends, believe me. Bryce gets crap for it from the guys at Alpha Omega on a regular basis now.”

Brushing the tears from my cheeks, I turned my head to look toward the basketball court, but my attention caught on something else. Toward the back of the property line, there was a large rectangular section of ground where all the grass had been dug up. “What’s going on back there?” I asked, pointing at the huge patch of dirt.

“Oh, that,” Tessa said in a flat voice. “That was another bout of pregnancy insanity on my part. I’ve been doing some reading on how gardening can help children who have experienced trauma in their lives. I got it in my head that we—the other counselors, the volunteers, and I—could make something all on our own. I imagined this big, elaborate garden in my head with different sections to grow fruit and vegetables and maybe flowers, even add a gazebo with a really pretty fountain or something.”

“That actually sounds like a great idea.”

“It does. In theory. But we ran into a little snag.”

I looked from the dirt patch to her. “Oh?”

“Yeah. Turns out, not a damn one of us knows what we’re doing. That ugly rectangle of stripped ground was the closest we came to bringing my vision to fruition.” Now we have an eyesore and no garden,” she finished on a surly grumble.

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