Fake Dating the Defenseman Next Door (Soltero Beach Scorpions Hockey #1)

3. Angela

three

Angela

U nlocking the door to the short-term luxury condo I rented, I’m ready to collapse. My feet ache from standing up for hours, my body in desperate need of a long, hot soak.

And, with some luck and consideration from the neighboring party penthouse-level condo owner who seems to have a revolving door of visitors, some decent sleep.

Fourteen hour days are not what I’m used to. But for my grandma? I’ll do anything and everything that needs doing to ensure this reno is my best work yet.

That means trading in my Oxford t-shirts and pinstriped pencil skirts for jeans and t-shirts. It means rolling up my sleeves and getting my hands stuck in the dough, mixing and testing and baking and tasting. It means being covered with a thin film of flour, sugar, cinnamon, chocolate dust and whatever else.

God, I’ve missed it so damn much.

I’d forgotten how satisfying it was to create something that brought such pure, simple pleasure to other people when they bit into a delectable treat you made. With your hands, your skills, your heart.

It was good, honest, hard work and I didn’t expect it would inspire such… nostalgia.

I give myself a little shake as I strip down and climb into the shower. Never, in all the years I’ve been away, have I missed this town. With it’s snobby, richer-than-God clientele and their stuck-up, self-absorbed kids who stared down the line of their straight, patrician noses at anyone that didn’t fit their idea of who belonged here. Old money or new, it didn’t matter which one you were so long as your family had it.

Lots of it.

That’s when people sat up and paid attention.

When you came from an immigrant family like mine, one that sought to make as best a life as they could with what little they had… well, let’s just say some people found it easy to point out differences in painfully obtuse ways.

But in recent years, I’m told people have been flocking to my grandma’s shop. According to my best friends Nina and Tiffany, it’s become the town’s best kept secret and grandma’s earned some notoriety. Seems she’s created a community around herself that have come to love her and her food.

I know because in the week since I’ve been back, so many people have stopped by asking me about her and her wellbeing. Wanting to know when we’d reopen, how she’s recovering, if I’m planning on staying long-term.

Ha! Hell to the no.

There are two reasons I returned to Soltero Beach.

First, to help my grandmother with her business.

And second, to show Grant Reed and the rest of the people who bullied me in high school that they didn’t break me.

Two birds, one stone.

I shut off the shower and get ready for bed. With another early start planned for tomorrow, I know I need my rest.

But shortly after I drift off to the land of nod, a rhythmic, thumping bass reverberates through the walls. I’m jarred awake by the slamming of doors, the rattling of the walls, the people laughing raucously at some unheard joke.

What the hell’s going on?

I fumble around for my phone, lifting it to my face to check the time.

Ten thirty two.

I’ll need to get up in a few hours and this is the third night in a row that my next door neighbor seems to be throwing some kind of fraternity rager.

Burying my face in the pillow to muffle the sound, I scream even though they wouldn’t hear me over the volume of the music or the noise of their guests.

If the last few nights were any indication, this will go on for several more hours. Heavy footfalls will stomp down the connecting hall, doors will be repeatedly opened and slammed. The laughter and obnoxious beat of the bass will pulse through the wall reminding me of the days spent holed up in tiny, cramped student housing while everyone else around me partied.

Still a party pooper, Ang.

I consider my options.

Option A: Try to sleep through it? Impossible.

B: Give them a couple hours to settle down? Unlikely.

C: Call the cops? And say what? People are throwing a party at ten-thirty at night. Could you come tell them to keep it down?

Or, D: Go over and give the probably-spoiled-rich frat kid a piece of my mind and a lesson in being a considerate neighbor?

Yeah, you know what, why not? Even if they’re students attending the nearby university, they still need to respect that fact that actual adults live around them who need to rest and work in peace.

Am I a grumpy witch at the ripe old age of twenty-eight? Why, yes, I am. Thank you very much.

This is me owning it—my party pooper label and all.

Throwing off my sheets, I slip my feet into my house slippers and stomp over the carpeted hallway to bang on the door.

No one hears. Of course not.

So I throw it open and march on in, scanning the crowd—my god, have university students gotten much taller and buffer than I remember—and locate the sound system in the open-plan living room. I yank the cord out of the outlet, abruptly killing the music and the vibe.

All eyes turn to me as a shocked silence settles when I climb on top of the coffee table and raise my voice.

“It is ten thirty on a Sunday night, people. Some of us have work in the morning. For me, that’s in about four hours. So, who’s the responsible adult in charge? Who actually lives here?”

Heads swivel and people part like the Red Sea before Moses as snatches of whispers rise to my ears.

“Who is this chick?”

“I don’t know, man, but I thought the pajama party wasn’t until next week.”

My ears burn, but I stand my ground.

“Is she a fan? What’s she holding?”

And finally, a figure steps up. A tall, dark, and decidedly handsome figure with wide, sculpted shoulders that look molded for his shirt.

My heart pounds and my fingers flex over the plush toy I definitely hadn’t meant to bring with me in here.

“That’d be me.” He says, walking over and offering me his hand. Those warm hazel eyes drift over my messed up hair, my oversized T-shirt that comes to an stop mid-thigh, and the stupid toy I’m clutching to my braless bosom.

It can’t fucking be Diego. It can’t fucking be Diego.

Then he tilts his head the same way he did in the donut shop whenever he came in and I see it—the small, faint scar slashed across his cheek.

My heart hammers hard against my ribcage and a flash of heat ripples through me. The boy I’d harbored a schoolgirl crush on grew into a man.

One entirely mouth-watering specimen of a man. Dark stubble runs along a defined jawline, ink swirls up his muscular arm and disappears under the slim fit green T-shirt that I know will make his hazel eyes look more forest-green than bark brown.

When our gazes meet, his eyes flare and I see I was right. Striking forest green has me rooted to the spot as his mouth curls upward. A red-hot spear of arousal slashes through me and I clutch my plushie tight to chest to hide the evidence of my nipples tightening against the flimsy cotton.

This can’t be happening.

His eyes sweep over me from my messy bun down to my bare toes and flip flops. Then he nods at the stuffed toy in my arms.

“Is that a Mr. Buckwheat plush from Guardian: The Lonely and Great God ?”

And I pray for the earth to open up and swallow me whole.