Merit (Treasure State Wildcats Book 4)
Merit: Chapter 5

Mom opened her front door before I had a chance to knock. “So? How was the date?”

The sparkle in her eyes was gut-wrenching.

There hadn’t been much to sparkle about lately, and it was a welcome change from the dreary, tired fog that usually clouded her blue eyes.

If I told her the truth about the date last night, that sparkle would vanish in a blink.

“It was good.” I kissed her cheek and stepped inside, kicking off my slides in the entryway.

“Good.” Mom pressed a hand to her heart. “How good?”

Stevie and I hadn’t killed each other. We hadn’t started a fistfight or screaming match in the restaurant. Hell, that was a goddamn success in my book. “Pretty good.”

“Pretty good as in there will be a second date?”

I fucking hated disappointing my mother. Especially now.

“Mom.” I put my hands on her shoulders, giving her a sad smile. “Stevie doesn’t like me.”

She frowned. “Oh. Does that mean you like her?”

“She’s great.”

If great meant she was a menace.

I still couldn’t believe she’d shown up with a fucking book. Like my company was really so dull and boring that she needed fiction to entertain her through a meal. A meal I hadn’t even eaten. Instead, I’d hit the drive-through at McDonald’s for a cheeseburger and fries before I’d gone home to explain to my best friend and roommate, Rush, why I’d called him and pretended he was a hookup.

Rush hadn’t been all that happy to pretend to be a woman when I’d called, faking a date.

What-the-fuck-ever. He’d played along long enough to torment Stevie for a few minutes before I’d walked out of Luna.

She thought I was a playboy? Fine. I’d be the playboy.

Not that she was exactly wrong. I had a reputation for a reason. But that was in the past, and even if I told her I was taking a break from the hookups and casual sex, she wouldn’t buy it. Stevie Adair had made up her mind about me a long, long time ago.

Mom’s shoulders slumped. “So that’s it?”

“Hey, we tried.” I slung my arm around her too-thin shoulders and pulled her into my side. “How are you feeling today?”

“Meh.”

“Can I do anything to help?”

“Go on a second date with Stevie.”

I groaned. “Mom.”

“Just . . . try. Harder. What if you become friends again? What if you realize there’s something special between you both?”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“Why not? This is Stevie we’re talking about. You two have so much in common. She’s smart. Beautiful. Sweet. Loves sports. She keeps your ego in check.”

And she had a stubborn streak that ran bone-deep.

To Stevie, I was enemy number one. And yeah, maybe I’d antagonized her over the years. The problem here was history. There was simply too much between us.

Mom pulled away and clasped her hands in front of her heart. The skin over her knuckles seemed too thin, like tissue paper. Translucent, so I could see the blue of her veins.

Every visit I seemed to replace something else different about my mother.

Fuck, this was hard.

“Please, Maverick. Try again. One more time. One more date. And then I promise, I’ll leave this alone.”

No, she wouldn’t.

Just like she wouldn’t stop nagging Mabel to go out with that doctor who’d asked her on a date.

I had a feeling that if I cracked into Mom’s phone, I’d replace a list of things she wanted to do before she . . .

Nope. Not going there. I wasn’t even going to think about what happened beyond the here and now. Not when this morning had been a decent morning.

I’d woken up early and gone to the fieldhouse with Rush to hit the weight room. After a shower, I’d stopped by my favorite coffee shop for a muffin and latte. Then I’d come here to relax and hang with Mom.

“Want to watch football?” I asked, walking down the hall for the living room.

“Maverick.”

I sighed, tipping my head to the ceiling. “Mom, Stevie and I aren’t going on another date.”

“Because you haven’t asked her yet.”

I dragged a hand over my face. “Mother.”

“Maverick. Please?”

A snarl tugged at my lips. Damn it. How did Dad say no to this woman? Oh, wait. He didn’t.

None of us told her no. And that really had nothing to do with the cancer. Mom had always been impossible to argue with. We loved her too much. Because she loved us even more.

The scales were always tipped in her direction, because without a doubt, my mother would move heaven and earth to make us happy. She was the best mom in this entire world, and I’d fight anyone who believed otherwise.

So when she asked for something for herself, which was as rare as a double rainbow in a snowstorm, none of us refused.

“Fine.” I marched for my slides, stepping into my shoes.

“You’re leaving?” she asked. “I thought we were watching football.”

“Either I go to Stevie’s now, or I’m not going at all.”

“Oh. Good.” She opened the door for me, smiling as I kissed her cheek. “Tell her I said hi.”

“Yeah,” I grumbled, then headed outside into the fresh Sunday morning.

May was my favorite month in Mission. The mountains were still capped in snow, but spring was blooming in the valley, the fields shifting from brown to green. The sky was a brilliant blue streaked with rays of white sunshine.

I rolled the window down as I drove across town to Stevie’s place, but I couldn’t even enjoy the clean, cool air and fresh wind on my face. Not when I was about to have a door slammed in it.

The only reason I knew where Stevie lived was because I’d had to help move her shit into her house last summer.

Elle and Declan had bought a house in town as a rental property investment, then leased it to Stevie and a couple other girls from the volleyball team. While Stevie had been off in Europe, her parents had agreed to help move everything out of her old rental.

Which meant my parents had offered to help. Then they’d volunteered me and my truck too.

I hadn’t been back in nearly a year. There was no reason for me to visit Stevie’s place. But I drove there like I came every day, pulling into the driveway and hopping out without delay.

She’d better be home. I wasn’t coming back.

I pounded a fist on the door, then crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for an answer.

Please be gone. Please be gone.

The door swung open.

Shit.

Stevie’s smile morphed into a sneer when she spotted me on her porch. She was wearing a pair of lavender leggings, the fabric molding to her long legs. Her sports bra was the same color with thin straps at her shoulders, leaving her midriff exposed. Her silky, chocolate hair was in loose waves that hung nearly to her waist.

She had the body of an athlete, tall and strong, but the feminine curves made her a damn knockout. Add in that hair, and she’d been the inspiration behind many of my teenage fantasies.

Not that she’d ever know.

She was beautiful. Too beautiful for her own damn good. Certainly for mine.

There was a strange pinch in my chest as I took in the toned lines of her body, from her strong arms all the way to her bare toes.

Huh. Weird. What was that? I rubbed at my sternum. Was this anxiety? A heart murmur? How did I make sure it never happened again?

“Yes?” She took a bite of the cookie in her hand. The scent of sugar and vanilla wafted from inside the house.

Stevie made the best chocolate chip cookies in all of Mission. Whenever she brought them to my parents’ house, I’d sneak a handful when no one was looking.

My stomach growled. “Can I have a cookie?”

She arched her eyebrows and shoved the rest of the cookie into her mouth. Her foot started tapping on the hardwood floor.

“My mom asked that I try again. The dating thing.”

Stevie choked, coughing up a crumb before she smacked her hand over her mouth, holding up her other hand as she finished chewing and swallowed. “What?”

“She wants us to go on another date.”

Horror. That was the only way to describe the emotion on her face.

“Fucking hell, Adair. You look at me like I’m a monster.”

“Well, Houston, you’re the guy who called a hookup while you were on a date with me.”

“It wasn’t a real date.”

She huffed. “Does that matter? Why would I want to subject myself to that again?”

I exhaled and let out a frustrated growl. “Look, I just want Mom to be happy. She asked me to try, so here I am, trying, okay? Can we just . . . talk? Please?”

The dismay on her face vanished as she shifted to the side and waved me in. Her feelings toward me aside, Stevie wanted Mom to be happy too.

I stepped out of my slides and followed her past the open living room and into the adjoining kitchen. There was a plate of cookies on the counter covered in plastic wrap.

She moved to the cupboards, taking out two glasses. When they were each full of milk, she slid one to me and waved to the cookies. “Go ahead.”

“Thanks.” I took one, dunking it in milk as she did the same.

The butter and sugar and chocolate melted on my tongue, and I held back a moan. No person as infuriating as Stevie should be able to make such good cookies.

“Are your roommates home?” I asked as I grabbed my second cookie.

“No.”

Good. I didn’t need an audience for what I was going to suggest. “I have an idea.”

“I’m already terrified.”

“So am I,” I muttered, giving myself a moment to inhale the second cookie.

She didn’t even blink when I went for number three.

When it was gone, I wiped a hand over my mouth and gulped my milk until the glass was empty. Then I braced my hands on the counter. “What if we came to a mutually beneficial arrangement that would also please my mother?”

“I’m listening,” she drawled.

“We start fake dating.”

“I’m not lying to my family, Maverick. Or yours.”

“It’s not a lie. We actually date. No one needs to know it’s hopeless. A dead-end street. It’s not if we break it off, but when.”

She didn’t immediately say no. That was something. “For how long?”

I shrugged. “For as long as it takes to convince Mom we’ve made up. That we gave it our best shot. We just weren’t meant to be.”

“We’ve been fighting for over a decade.” She picked up another cookie. “That could take another ten years.”

“Yeah.” It was definitely going to take a while.

Maybe, down the road, Stevie and I would naturally bury the hatchet. We both would move on with our lives, replace jobs and relationships. Except my mother wouldn’t be there down that road to see us move past our juvenile disagreements.

Hence, this proposal.

“I told you that your dad made me that job offer.”

“Yes.” Her lip curled.

“I won’t take it.”

Her eyes blew wide for a moment before they narrowed. It was something I’d seen her do countless times. That was the thing about Stevie. I could read her expressions like an open book.

And this meant she was intrigued. Good. I could work with intrigued.

She took a bite of her cookie, staring at me as she chewed. If I had to guess, she’d had cookies for breakfast. And if anyone ever criticized her for it, she’d wave them off with a flick of her wrist.

Stevie wasn’t a woman who skimped on food. If she was hungry, if she wanted cookies, then she ate cookies. She’d probably devoured my entire cheeseburger after I’d left Luna last night.

She put her all into everything she loved. Food. Friends. Family.

I was counting on it.

I was counting on her love of my mother.

“How would this work? I need specifics.”

“We go on dates. Real dates. That’s it. I give Mom her dying wish. You avoid having me as a coworker.”

She set her cookie down. Picked it up. Set it down again. “This could work. But I have stipulations.”

Of course she did. “And they are?”

“No other women. I don’t need to be made a fool. If people believe we’re actually dating, then you can’t be going off for hookups like you did last night.”

I hadn’t hooked up with anyone. But if I told her that the person I’d been talking to was Rush, that it had all been a ruse to piss her off, well . . . she’d just get pissed. “Fine. Same goes for you. No other guys.”

“Fine. When would we be going on these dates?”

“Saturdays.” That gave us a week in between them. A week to recover. “Starting the weekend after graduation.”

She worried her bottom lip between her teeth.

I knew that look like all the others. She was going to say yes. I did a mental fist pump.

“All right.” She nodded. “We’ll fake date for a while. Saturdays only. Do our best to convince your mom we’re mending broken bridges. And when it comes time, you’ll tell my dad you’ve had a change of heart and turn down the job at Adair.”

“Deal.” I held out my hand.

She slipped hers into mine, our palms molding, and a jolt shot up my arm.

I let her go at the same moment she tugged free.

Static. That’s all it was. Static electricity. A shock.

She smoothed her hand over her side, down that pale purple fabric and the perfect line of her hips. Then she cleared her throat and took a gulp of her milk.

When her hazel eyes flicked to mine, there was something in them I hadn’t seen before. It almost looked like she was shy.

Stevie wasn’t shy.

Maybe I had a few things still to learn about this woman. Good thing we were stuck together for the foreseeable future.

Before she could change her mind, before she realized this was doomed for failure, I took three more cookies off the plate. Then walked out the door, not letting myself look back.