The Job (Auctioned) by Cara Dee (ebook reader for surface pro TXT) 📗

the team. Her coach gave her a smile, but the look he sent me from halfway across the field was anything but friendly.

I blew him a kiss.

He was just pissy because I’d gotten into a heated argument with the ref once. Or twice. A few times. It happened.

With the game about to start, I bent down and picked up the two camping chairs I’d brought and my cooler and walked off to the side. More parents had shown up in the past ten minutes, and I was already on a tight leash. If I wasn’t on my best behavior, they’d suspend me from attending permanently, and it wouldn’t surprise me around this bunch of prissy bitches if blocking the view was an infraction.

I glanced over my shoulder and noticed Boone wasn’t following. “Oi. You comin’ or not?”

He looked my way, visibly exhausted, and made no reaction. He followed, but his face was blank. It was as if someone had punched the life out of him.

It rattled me. It freaked me the fuck out. My hatred toward him took a shitload of energy to maintain, and if something was seriously wrong with him, I feared what it would do to me. I could already feel a rock of worry growing in my gut.

I unfolded the chairs in a spot where we’d have the perfect view of our daughter scoring goals, and I sat down and opened the cooler.

“You want a beer?” I asked.

“Sure.”

I popped two cans into a couple koozies and handed him one.

Like shit attracted flies, one of the mothers was quick to come over to us.

“You can’t drink beer here,” she snapped.

I eyed her over the brim of my shades and held up my can. “Are you blind? It says right here.” I pointed to the text on the koozie. “‘It’s just soda, dumbass.’” Last year’s Father’s Day gift from Ace, with help from Boone. I’d helped her order a customized tool belt for him. Hot pink, just like my koozies.

“You think this is funny?” The woman did not like me. “For heaven’s sake, it’s ten in the morning.”

That one pissed off Boone. “Never you fuckin’ mind what we do at ten in the mornin’. Take a hike.”

For one brief second, I was flooded with energy and memories from better times when it’d been Boone and me against the world. When it’d been us, like a team, raising Ace together. Working together. Spending most of our time together.

It was a punch in the gut.

The woman sneered at us before she stalked off and muttered about her love for the O’Sullivan boys.

I interpreted it that way, at least.

I leaned back in my seat and took a swig of my beer, and fuck, it tasted good. Ice-cold beer, sun shinin’, about to watch my daughter kick ass on the soccer field. I’d had worse mornings.

“You coulda said hello earlier,” I pointed out. “No need to be rude.”

Boone let out a breath and faced the field. “Don’t start with me, Case. If I say hello, you tell me not to talk to you. If I say nothing, I’m rude. Just gimme a break today.”

Funny how quickly that feeling from our glory days disappeared.

The rock in my gut doubled in size as I sat there and side-eyed him and sipped my beer noisily. Back in the day, he would’ve whacked me upside the head. Now, nothing. Not the slightest reaction.

I shouldn’t bother. I hated him, right? He’d hurt me too fucking much. He’d broken the only promise I’d ever asked him to uphold. More than once. The last time, almost four years ago, became too much for me. Even though he didn’t know, even though he’d never intended to, he’d shattered my fucking heart.

I’d walked away. I’d told him he was dead to me.

Three beers and two Slim Jims got me through the game. Our team lost, but Ace had delivered two goals, so she still had every reason to be proud of her achievement.

We met up at the nearest Denny’s, and Ace and I were seated when Boone stepped out of his truck out in the parking lot. I knew what he liked, so I’d already ordered for him. My stomach snarled with hunger, which almost hurt because of the worry I couldn’t let go of.

At some point during the game, I could’ve sworn Boone’s eyes looked glassy. For no apparent reason.

“What took you so long, Daddy?” Ace glared playfully as he sat down next to her.

“Had to stop for gas.” He kissed the top of her head. “Y’all ordered?”

I nodded once. “I got you your usual combo.”

“Thanks.” He rested his arms on the table and cracked his knuckles, drawing my attention to his ink. We were both tatted up all over, and I liked his tribute to Ace. The little aces of spades across his knuckles, and then on the side of his hand, in cursive writing, it read Aisley Paisley, which had eventually morphed into her nickname Ace. Boone still called her his Aisley Paisley sometimes, and Ace pretended she loved it because she loved him. More than that, she was fiercely protective of him.

A feeling I used to relate to a fuckload.

Despite his intimidating stature, Boone was the sensitive bastard in the family.

Ace’s teddy bear daddy.

I swallowed the grief that threatened to put another dent in my armor of hatred, and I clenched my jaw and looked away.

I wasn’t gonna be able to let this go. Angering him, bugging him, saying things that stung, was nothing. It was even a stupid goal of mine. But this was something else. It wasn’t about cuts and scrapes anymore.

His hurt, or whatever it was, ran deep.

Our food arrived, and I nodded in thanks and grabbed my fork. Ace and I usually shared our meals when we were here, one stack of pancakes and one order of toast, scrambled eggs, and sausage. The fact that Boone tucked into his two plates filled with all kinds of food wasn’t necessarily reassuring, because