Merit (Treasure State Wildcats Book 4)
Merit: Chapter 10

Dad rapped his knuckles on my office door. “Hi, buddy.”

“Hey, Dad.” I smiled as he settled into the empty chair across from my desk. “What’s up?”

He crossed an ankle over his knee. There were still a few streaks of mud left on the soles of his boots, just like on mine.

The spring rain from this past week meant the entire valley was soggy, and we’d both gone on field visits this afternoon.

“How’d your meeting go?” he asked.

“Good.” I picked up my notebook, scanning the page of scribbles I’d made. “I’ve got some questions, but I’ll rough out the plan, then run it by you.”

“Sounds good.”

This was my second week as a full-time employee at Adair, and today’s visit was my first solo client visit. Last week, Dad had kept me close, taking me on his own client meetings so I could shadow him for a while. But the last inquiry that had come through our website, he’d assigned it to me.

It was a small and simple job, and the client had requested a weekend or evening consultation. The other landscape designers at Adair worked weekdays, seven to four, and at the end of May, everyone was fairly booked for this season. The only person with bandwidth at the moment was me. So Dad had bypassed the typical onboarding process and sent me on my own.

It meant working on a Saturday, but since I had no desire to stay home where I’d undoubtedly dwell on last Saturday with Maverick, here I was.

I’d been so nervous that my hands had shaken the entire visit, hence the awful handwriting of my notes, but I’d been smiling ever since I’d left the jobsite.

“How is everything else going?” Dad asked. “Any . . . issues?”

“No.” But I really didn’t like that tone in his voice. It was almost as if he had the answer and was trying to see if mine matched. Like the time he’d busted me in high school after I’d told him I was spending the night with my friend Maggie—she’d told her parents she was staying the night at my house—and we’d gone to a camping party in the mountains instead. “Why?”

“No reason.” He waved it off.

“Okay. Are you sure?”

His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m sure. It’s usually an adjustment, adding another person to the team.”

Ah. So I might not have any issues, but someone else in the office did. “What happened?”

“Nothing worth stressing over.”

If that was true, he wouldn’t have asked if there’d been issues. “Did someone complain about me?”

“I wouldn’t call it a complaint. Samantha just overheard some grumbling in the break room that you were already getting clients.”

Dad’s assistant, Samantha, was new to Adair this season. His former assistant had retired last year, and he’d hired Samantha this spring. She was my age, also a recent graduate from Treasure State, and had gotten a degree in teaching. Except she didn’t want to be a teacher. She’d just finished her courses to earn her bachelor’s because she didn’t want to start over in a different major.

I could understand not wanting to go back to the beginning and drag out college. She fully admitted to taking this job for the paycheck until she could figure out what she really wanted to do.

Maybe Dad had brought her on because we were the same age. Because he thought we’d become friends.

Well, so far, I couldn’t stand Samantha. She was a gossip and spent the majority of her seven-to-four shift kissing Dad’s ass. Her smiles were fake and her laughter forced. In just two weeks, it had become so awkward that I’d started using the back door to avoid seeing her at the reception desk.

“Did Samantha say who was grumbling?” I asked. Not that I didn’t believe her, but I also didn’t believe her.

I’d known the other designers for years. They’d known me for years. Yes, only as a part-time employee and Dad’s daughter. But it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone that I’d eventually have clients of my own. And I couldn’t see any of them squabbling over tiny projects.

“She didn’t want to throw anyone under the bus, being new to Adair and all.”

“Sure.” That, or she’d made the whole thing up.

“Don’t worry about it. I guess I’m just overly sensitive. I don’t want anyone giving you a hard time since you’re my daughter, and I’m making exceptions to the rules.”

“I’ve worked here for years,” I said, like he didn’t already know that. “Maybe not as a designer, but I know this business.”

Dad nodded. “Yes, you do. I’m sure it’s nothing major, but if something does happen, I want you to talk to me about it.”

“Of course,” I lied. Not in a million years would I tattle to my boss, even if my boss was my dad.

“Are you busy tonight? Want to come over for dinner with Mom and me?”

“Actually, I have a date,” I said too brightly, hoping to hide the dread in my voice.

“With Maverick?”

“Yep.”

At least, I think I had a date with Mav. I hadn’t heard from him since last weekend when I’d made a huge fool of myself.

I’d spent a week in agony from a humiliation the level of which I’d never experienced before. It physically hurt every time I replayed last Saturday, from the bar to my living room. Work had been a lovely distraction, but it wasn’t enough to erase the memory of my verbal diarrhea.

Not only had I asked Maverick to have sex with me, but I’d told him about my virginity.

No one knew about that. No one.

What demon spirit had possessed me to share with that man, of all people, my secret truths?

Maverick’s silence for a week probably meant that this charade was over. I was praying for it at this point. I wouldn’t blame him in the slightest for running far, far away from the drama of a twenty-two-year-old virgin and her sexual dilemma.

“So you guys are really dating?” Dad asked.

“Yep.” It wasn’t a lie. I kept telling myself it wasn’t a lie. We were going on dates. They just weren’t romantic dates.

It still felt like a lie. Not giving my parents the whole story felt like a betrayal.

“Huh.” Dad rubbed a hand over his jaw. He hadn’t shaved today and his whiskers, more gray than brown these days, scratched against his palm. “I know it was Meredith’s idea. That she pushed you kids into this. Part of me is proud that you’d do this for her. But the other part, your dad, worries about you. I’m well aware that Maverick isn’t your favorite person.”

And yet he’d still decided to offer Mav a job. He’d talked at length about a garden center expansion the night of graduation. How could he be worried about these dates but not see a problem with bringing my not-favorite person on at Adair?

I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to get into that discussion today. It wouldn’t matter anyway. Maverick wasn’t taking the job.

“He’s growing on me,” I admitted. “And it was time to let go of the past. Meredith was right about that.”

A whole truth. It was time to bury our hatchets.

“I’m glad. When he comes to work here, it will be better if you two are on speaking terms.”

When. Not if. When. In Dad’s mind, that job was already Maverick’s, even if Mav hadn’t accepted his offer.

“He’s still got a year left of school, Dad. Maybe he won’t want to work at Adair after he graduates.”

“Maybe.” Dad shrugged. “Maybe not. I guess a guy can hope.”

Was this his version of shoving us together? It wasn’t the same as Meredith’s dying wish, but the pressure of his hope settled on my shoulders like a forty-pound bag of potting soil.

Before I could say anything else, the chime from the office’s front door dinged.

Dad twisted in his chair, peering out my open door to the hallway. We were the only two in the office today, but through my window, I’d kept an eye on the garden center since I’d arrived after my client visit.

The parking lot outside our greenhouses had been full for hours. The staff had spent the day hauling wagons of petunias and irises and geraniums for those customers who were too impatient to wait until after Memorial Day to do their planting, despite our warning that there was still a risk that the flowers would freeze. From what I could tell, we’d sold quite a few larger shrubs and trees from the nursery too.

But customers didn’t wander into the office, so as footsteps thrummed on the floor, I expected a staff member to emerge from the hall.

Instead, my date filled the doorway with his broad frame.

Maverick was wearing a pair of jeans that hung low on his hips and a quarter zip with the sleeves pushed up his sinewed forearms. His hair was combed. His jaw clean-shaven. He looked ready for a date.

Well, he hadn’t stood me up. That was something, right? Or maybe he was here to call it off.

“Hi, Maverick.” Dad practically leapt from his chair as a beaming smile lit up his face. He shook Mav’s hand like it had been a year, not two weeks, since they’d seen each other. “How’s it going?”

“Not bad.” Mav returned Dad’s smile, then his blue gaze settled on me. “Hey.”

“Hello.” A flush crept into my face, and I couldn’t seem to hold his eye contact.

My fingers found the end of my braid, toying with the ends as I focused on my monitor, as if I could actually focus on the spreadsheet on the screen.

“How’s spring practice going?” Dad asked Mav.

“Not bad.” He crossed his ankles, relaxing against that door like he’d spent countless days visiting me at work.

The space wasn’t large, just enough room for my desk, a bookshelf in the corner and a couple of chairs for clients or coworkers. But with Maverick here, the room might as well have collapsed in on itself.

He and Dad chatted about football, about the Wildcats training regimen and the coaches and the season schedule, all while I closed out of my tasks and tried to ignore the heady scent of Maverick’s cologne tinging the air.

Another day, it would have irked me that he and Dad were talking about football. They usually talked football—though lately, this job offer was also on the topic rotation. They’d bonded over football years ago, and I’d always wondered if the reason Maverick talked about it so often was because it forced me out of the conversation.

Today, they could talk about it ad nauseum for all I cared. Anything to buy me time to stop the trembling in my hands.

Last Saturday had been a giant clusterfuck. But there was no going back in time. We’d figure it out. We’d stick to the plan.

Once we were alone, I’d beg him to forget it had ever happened. Then I’d fulfill my end of the bargain, date him long enough to convince Meredith we’d tried. And after a string of Saturdays, we’d have our inevitable breakup. He’d tell Dad he couldn’t take the manager job. And it would be over.

“I’m excited to watch you play this year,” Dad told him. “Should be a great year.”

“I think so too.”

Dad turned, giving me a smile. “It’ll be strange not to spend our weekends at volleyball tournaments. We’ve been doing that for so long, I don’t know what Elle and I are going to do with ourselves on Friday and Saturday nights.”

My parents were loyal supporters of the Wildcats volleyball program. If there was a tournament within three hundred miles, they’d come and watch me play. They’d been regulars at Upshaw Gymnasium, so familiar that most of my teammates and players had known them by name. And before I’d started college, they’d been just as supportive during my years in high school. They’d driven me to countless club tournaments, sacrificing their own nights and weekends to make sure I never missed a practice.

I wasn’t the only person mourning the loss of volleyball.

Was that why I’d asked Maverick to take my virginity? Was that my grief over a finished volleyball career manifesting in a moment of crisis?

“Well, I should let you kids get out of here.” Dad clapped Maverick on the shoulder. “Good to see you, son.”

“You too.” Mav shifted out of the way, letting Dad through the door.

“Bye, Steve.” Dad held up a hand. “See you Monday.”

“Bye, Dad.” The moment he was gone, Maverick closed the door, and the office shrank again.

Maverick rounded my desk, taking a seat on its edge. “Hi.”

“Hey.” I rolled my chair backward, putting an extra foot of space between us. That cologne was stronger now that he was closer. Rich and masculine and clean, like soap and citrus and fresh cedar.

Why couldn’t he smell like he did when we were thirteen? Like stinky feet and onions. And why couldn’t he have grown up to be gangly and ugly? It wasn’t fair that Maverick was this handsome.

Was that why I’d pitched this sex thing? Because at least I could say I’d lost my virginity to a smoking-hot guy?

At this point, I had no idea why I’d made this suggestion. All I could do was regret it. Over and over and over again.

“You good?”

“Not really,” I confessed.

I couldn’t look at his face and not hear myself.

I think I want you to have sex with me.

Mortification spread through my veins like poison, and I covered my face with my hands, not wanting him to see as I fought the urge to scream.

Why couldn’t I have just kept that to myself? Why, of all people, had I told Maverick? Was I really that desperate?

I didn’t want to be a virgin anymore, and I was so fucking tired of caring. Except I did care. Even though I knew it shouldn’t matter, I cared.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed.” His voice was low and gentle. It was not a voice I’d heard from Maverick often, but it was my favorite. It was the way he talked to his mom or Bodhi.

It was the Maverick he hid behind layers of arrogance and flippancy.

“Are you going to look at me?”

“No,” I murmured into my palms as I shook my head.

“What if I was a normal guy? A boyfriend you wanted to date. Would you have told me?”

I gulped and forced my hands down to my lap, keeping my eyes glued to my fingers. “Probably not.”

“Want me to pretend you never told me?”

“Yes,” I whispered, even though I knew it was something neither of us would forget.

“Nadine.”

The nickname made me glance up.

His ice-blue eyes were waiting. “Talk to me.”

“I don’t know what to say.” Hadn’t I already said too much?

“It’s not a big deal. You know that, right?”

“Isn’t it? It makes me feel like less. I just . . . want it over with. The longer it’s gone on, the longer it bothers me. If you were a twenty-two-year-old virgin, wouldn’t you feel . . . different?”

“I suppose. I don’t think you’re less, but I get it.”

I exhaled, trying to let go of the tension in my chest. “I wish I’d never said anything. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know where we go from here.”

“It’s a Saturday.” He stood and held out a hand. “We go on our date.”

It wasn’t that simple, but I didn’t let myself overthink it. This was the plan. Stick to the plan.

So I put my hand in his and let him pull me to my feet. Then, with his hand clasped around mine, I let him lead me outside and to his truck.

“What are we doing?” I asked as we both fastened our seat belts.

“It’s a surprise.”

“I don’t like surprises.” I glanced to the back. To the red cooler behind us. “What’s that?”

“Dinner.”

“What kind of dinner?”

“Mushrooms. Lots and lots of mushrooms.”

I scrunched up my nose. “You’d better be joking, Houston.”

Maverick chuckled. “There she is.”