Groupie (Juked Book 2) Read online

  “That’s a vegetable joke,” she argues putting her hands on her hips.

  “It is not,” I reply. “Tomatoes are fruits.”

  “They are not. They go in salad. And spaghetti. You don’t put apples or bananas in spaghetti.”

  “But I put raisins in my salad.”

  Ashley grimaces. “Ew! Why would you do that?”

  “Because it tastes good.”

  She crinkles her nose and shakes her head, making me smile. “Do you want to hear the punchline or not?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “The tomato was blushing because he saw the salad dressing. Get it? The salad was dressing?”

  Ashley’s jaw drops. “That is inappropriate.”

  I laugh. “Oh it is, is it? Who says?”

  “My mom does. You’re always supposed to knock before you go into a bedroom or bathroom, so you don’t walk in on someone changing.”

  “That’s true. You’re very smart.”

  “I know.” She plops down on an office chair and spins. “My teacher says I’m one of the smartest in the class.”

  Her self-confidence always makes me smile. “What is your favorite thing you learned at school today?”

  She thinks for a minute while spinning. “We learned about soil erosion.”

  “Really? In third grade?”

  “We went to the science lab, and there was all different kinds of soil in the trays, and we got to pour water on it like it was raining and watch the dirt travel down in the water. Like soil erosion.”

  “That sounds interesting.”

  “It was.”

  “Hey, Tiff.” Steve walks out of his office, looking at papers in his hands.

  “I was wondering where you were. Haven’t you been banned from the office on your day off?”

  “Yeah,” he admits as he keeps shuffling. “But these insurance papers have to be turned in on Wednesday, and I forgot to bring them home. The wife and I won’t have a chance to look at them again if we don’t do it tonight.”

  “Why didn’t you just log into your email and print them out?”

  “I tried. I couldn’t find the email. I think I may have deleted it after printing the papers.”

  “I could have forwarded it to you,” I chide.

  “Fine. You caught me. I needed an excuse to get out of the house.”

  “Mother-in-law is still in town?” I say with a knowing smile.

  He drops down into a chair and rubs his face. “I love my mother-in-law. I really do. But a month? Is it really necessary to stay for a month?”

  I laugh. “Steve, she lives far away. Maybe she misses you guys. Didn’t her husband die last year?”

  “Yes. And I know she misses him. He was a great guy. But he also catered to her. And now that he’s gone, she expects me to pick up where he left off.”

  “Aw, give her a break. She probably needs a little extra help.”

  He scoffs and leans forward, ready to go on a rant. I brace myself, because his rants are usually really humorous. “Tiffany.”

  “Steve,” I deadpan.

  “She is sixty-five, not ninety. She travels all over the world with her friends. She’s a black belt in Tai Chi and goes to class three times a week. She plays tennis on weekends and is planning a trip to D-I-S-N-E-Y. By herself. With my child.” We glance at Ashley, who seems to be more engrossed in spinning the office chair than trying to figure out what her dad is spelling. “The woman has more energy than I do. There is no reason for me to walk all the way from the kitchen to the living room to hand her the remote when it’s sitting on the coffee table two feet away from her.”

  I stifle a laugh. “She can’t be that bad.”

  “She can.” He sits back. “And she is. And Meg won’t buy any junk food when her mother is in town, because Nana is on a clean-eating kick. No additives, no preservatives, no calories, no flavor. That’s why Ashley and I are going out for ice cream, aren’t we?”

  “Yeah!” the tyke yells and jumps off the chair, barely missing the corner of the desk as she wobbles forward, dizzy from the spinning. “We’re going to Orange Leaf! Daddy promised to take me to get ice cream as long as I promised not to tell Mommy or Nana.”

  I open my eyes and mouth wide in fake shock. “But we aren’t supposed to keep secrets.”

  “It’s not a secret,” Ashley says with attitude. “It’s a surprise.”

  I snort a laugh. “A surprise for who?”

  “A surprise for Meg, when she finds out what she missed while we were gone,” Steve says as he goes to the door. “Serves her right for making me eat quinoa last night. See ya later, Tiff. Don’t work too hard.”

  “Never do,” I call after them.

  “Bye, Tiffany!” Ashley waves over her shoulder. “Next time we’ll do number jokes.”

  “Sounds good, sweet girl. I’ll start studying.”

  “Daddy, are tomatoes a fruit or a vegetable?” Ashley asks as their voices fade down the hallway. “Tiffany says they’re a fruit.

  “What?” he asks. “How can they be fruit? I put them on my salad….”

  I chuckle under my breath. I’m so lucky to work with a guy like Steve. It’s always entertaining when he’s around. My cell rings.

  The number on my screen is local, but I don’t recognize it. For a second, I think about letting it go to voicemail, but something makes me answer.

  “Hello?”

  “Um, hi. Tiffany?” The voice on the line sounds familiar, but I can’t quite place it.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Rowen. Rowen Flanigan?”

  My heart starts pounding and a smile stretches across my face. “Hey, Rookie. How are you?”

  “I’m good. I hope I didn’t catch you in the middle of something important.” He sounds nervous, which is strange because he always comes across as quiet, but never unsure of himself. Of course, we’ve only interacted a handful of times, so I guess I can’t really make that judgment.

  “I’m at work.”

  “Oh shit,” he says. “I totally forgot you would be working today. I forget not everyone has rotating hours like me. I can call you later.”

  “No, no!” I say quickly, afraid he’s going to hang up. “I’m just doing some research right now. I’m not in the middle of anything pressing.”

  “Can I ask what the research is on?”

  I relax and smile. “I’m researching stats on Football Hall of Famers. The list of this year’s nominees is about to come out, and I’m doing background so I have easy access to it later.”

  “That doesn’t sound very exciting.”

  “It’s not.” I swivel back and forth in my chair, wrapping a stray lock of hair around my finger. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, my job is watching sports channels and interviewing my favorite athletes, so I can’t complain about the other one percent of the time.”

  “True, true.” He clears his throat. “I hope it’s okay I called. I had such a good time with you at the party the other night, I was hoping to see you again.”

  I feel like I lose my breath. “I… are you asking me on a date?”

  “Well, yeah,” he says.

  Something about Rowen draws me to him. He’s sweet, and kind. Plus, he’s a hell of a soccer player. We really hit it off on the balcony.

  But after seeing the look on his face when he walked in on the blow job races the other night, I thought for sure that time on the balcony was the only I’d ever get. He’s just too… well… conservative.

  “Tiffany?”

  “Sorry. Something distracted me.”

  “That’s okay. I can let you go.”

  “No, wait,” I plead and then take a deep breath to calm down. “I’d love to go out with you. Where did you have in mind?”

  “Well, I’ve been trying to see different parts of the city since I moved here, so I was thinking about checking out Discovery Green. Have you ever been?”

  “Yeah. It’s really neat. It has all kinds of food trucks, if you’
re into that kind of thing.”

  He chuckles. “That’s so much more up my alley than some expensive restaurant.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Well then, that’s where we’ll go.”

  I bite my bottom lip, trying not to squeal with excitement. I haven’t gone on an actual date in a couple years. Soccer always got in the way and then my injury and then work. The idea of having a man’s sole attention on me, particular Rowen’s, makes me more giddy than I would have thought.

  “So listen,” he continues. “We have a morning game on Sunday, which means we’ll be done by afternoon. Can I pick you up around five? By then the families will head home because of school the next day.”

  “That sounds great. I’ll text you my address.”

  “Okay.” We both pause for a minute, not really sure what to say. “Anyway, I’ll let you get back to work. I’ll see you Sunday. Are you going to the game?”

  “Probably not,” I admit. “I work late Saturday night, so I usually skip the Sunday morning games.”

  He chuckles. “I understand. I’ll see you Sunday evening then.”

  “All right, and Rowen?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks for calling. I’m really looking forward to this.”

  “Me, too,” he responds and hangs up.

  I lower the phone and immediately lock Rowen’s number into my contacts. Then I sit and think for a few minutes.

  I have a date with Rowen Flanigan. The thought makes me smile so wide my cheeks hurt.

  I can’t wait.

  I’ve only ever been in the northern states or Europe at the end of winter/beginning of spring. Needless to say, the weather this time of year in Houston is like nothing I’ve ever experienced.

  It was warm, temps in the seventies, the entire month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The week after Christmas? It dropped to the thirties, and all of a sudden I was in the holiday spirit.

  But it bounced back, and I have to admit, winter has been really pleasant compared to what I’m used to. No blizzards. No frigid, bone-chilling wind. While I’m not looking forward to a hundred-and-ten-degree temperatures with ninety-five percent humidity in August, this time of year, I understand the appeal of Houston.

  “You realize it’s seventy-two degrees?”

  Tiffany and I are leaving the Grove, where we just ate the best hamburgers I’ve had since moving to Texas. “I know.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a little too warm to wear that beanie?”

  I tug it down over my ears. “I don’t wear it because I’m cold.”

  She quirks an eyebrow. “Then why do you wear it? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you without it, except on the field.”

  I place my hand on her lower back and direct her to the left, toward a giant fountain. There’s a few people milling about, but it’s quiet and serene. Not at all what you’d expect in the middle of downtown. Perfect for talking and getting to know each other.

  “I started wearing it in middle school,” I say. “If you haven’t noticed, I look an awful lot like my dad.”

  “You don’t say,” she says sarcastically, making me smile.

  “I was in seventh grade, I think, and some punk kid on my team started talking trash about how the only reason I was on the team was because of who my dad was. Which we all knew was a load of crap. I was the fastest runner and made the most goals.” I shrug. “But I took it to heart. I decided that, as much as I loved and admired my dad, I wanted to distance myself from him to become my own person.”

  “And the easiest way to do that was to hide your hair?”

  “It does stand out.”

  “But what did you do in school? They let you wear the beanie?”

  “Oh no. It stayed in my backpack most of the day. I wore hoodies almost every day. I got in trouble a lot for having the hood on, but I learned quickly they couldn’t take it away if it was attached to my shirt.”

  “Wow.” She takes a seat on the bench in front of the fountain, and I sit beside her. “You really were determined to hide it, weren’t you?”

  “What can I say? Middle-schoolers can be cruel.”

  “This may sound like a dumb question, but if it bothered you so much, why didn’t you cut it off?”

  “I did at first, but when my hair is too short, it itches when I play. I’d rather wear the cap.”

  “Makes sense.” We sit in silence for a few minutes, watching a woman with several children wander around the fountain. “What’s their story?” Tiffany asks me.

  I smile. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “No way,” she says bumping my shoulder. “I already know the answer. I wanna hear your guess.”

  “You do, huh?” She smiles and nods. The woman points out different areas of interest to the kids. Sometimes it’s an insect on the ground. Sometimes it’s the tops of the trees. Sometimes it’s the way the fountain moves. She’s a black woman, maybe mid-thirties. And the kids are of all different races: a Hispanic teenaged girl; a Hispanic boy around eight or nine; a black boy who seems to be about three; and two toddlers in a double stroller, one little girl with pink bows in her hair and a white, tow-headed girl who is sucking her thumb as her eyes drift shut. “Got it.”

  “Let’s hear it,” she teases.

  “She’s a nanny,” I say. “But not just a nanny. She watches kids for a couple of different families. That’s why none of the kids look alike.”

  “Go on.”

  “The parents decided to go to the concert going on over at one of the stages right now. That’s why she and the kids are here in the park. See the big bag attached to the stroller? That’s a picnic dinner. They’re heading over to the picnic area to eat, but she’s trying to stretch out the entertainment as long as possible while they wait for the parents.” I keep observing. The kids seem to really like her. She gives them affectionate pats on the head and hugs when they come up to her. “She’s a good nanny.” Tiffany is smiling. “What? You didn’t like that one?”

  “You got it all wrong.”

  I stretch my arm along the back of the bench. “I totally nailed it.”

  She wedges her fingers between her thighs as she leans forward. “Nope. Not even close.”

  “Let’s hear what you think, Ms. People-Watcher.”

  She takes a deep breath before launching into her story. “Those are her children. She’s their foster mom.”

  I look at the woman again, digesting what Tiffany is saying.

  “Didn’t you hear them call her mama? The three little ones have been with her a while. That’s why they feel comfortable touching her so much and climbing all over her. The teenager and her brother, they are newer additions to her home. See how the girl wants nothing to do with any of them? She’s still trying to wrap her brain around living with new people and going to a new school. And the boy… he’s excited about the things Mom is showing everyone, but he doesn’t want to make his sister mad by enjoying their new placement.”

  Sure enough, the boy smiles at something funny the littler one does, but it falters when he realizes his sister is glaring at him.

  “Huh. I didn’t catch that at all. I wonder where her husband is.”

  “She’s not married. No wedding ring.”

  “I thought you had to be married to be a foster parent? Isn’t it a requirement or something?”

  “Nope,” she says. “There are too many kids in foster care and not enough homes for them. As long as you aren’t a pedophile, Child Protective Services welcomes just about anyone. You’d be surprised how many little girls are afraid of men because of the abuse they’ve gone through.”

  “Wow. I never thought of that.” I look at the woman and children again with a different perspective and a new-found respect. The way she treats the kids so lovingly, like they’ve always been hers, it’s inspiring. They seem to really love her. “How did you figure all that out? Have you been practicing since the last time we did this?”

  “My best friend in high schoo
l was in care. She lived with a single foster mom for about ten years before we graduated. Kids went in and out of their house a lot, so I’ve seen it before.”

  “You cheated.”

  Tiffany laughs and leans back, her shoulders resting just above where my arm is. I feel the softness of her hair on my wrist, and it takes everything in me not to start playing with it. “I did not cheat. I observed. Just because it’s something I’ve seen before doesn’t make it any less valid.”

  “Fine. It was a good observation.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Where did you go to high school, anyway?” I ask. “Somewhere around here?”

  She shakes her head. “I went to Cloverleaf High School in a little town outside of the Nashville suburbs.”

  “Tennessee? How did you end up here?”

  “College,” she says. “I was recruited to play soccer, and I couldn’t pass that up. Then the injury, the internship, the job. I was supposed to go to Columbia for the Master’s program in journalism, but once I got the job at the station, I changed my mind.”

  “Columbia? In New York?” She nods. “That’s impressive.”

  Her eyes light up. “I was really excited to be accepted. It’s not an easy program to get into. I swear I almost threw up when I called to withdraw from the program.”

  “Why did you do that? Wasn’t it your dream?”

  She draws her legs up to sit crisscross on the bench, her thigh resting on mine. I’m not sure if she doesn’t notice because she’s too busy telling her story or if she doesn’t care, but either way, I’m not drawing attention to it. I like the feel of her on me, even if it’s just like this. “My original plan was to get my Master’s, then get a job and work my way up the ladder. My goal is to produce for ESPN.”

  “So what changed?”

  She looks at me with a smile. “This job. I’m trying to figure out how to describe what it means to work in Houston straight out of college.”

  She’s so freaking beautiful. I still can’t believe she agreed to go out with me. She really is the total package… beautiful, smart, funny, interesting.

  “You know how unusual it is for you to have been recruited to the Mutiny straight from college?”