Backfield in Motion by Boroughs Publishing Group Read Free Book Online Page A

them?”
    “Why don’t you go see your family?” Bruiser
shot back.
    Brett almost smiled. “Touché.” He looked
down at his watch. “Uh, but that’s not exactly what I’m warning you
about.”
    “What is it then?”
    “You know how you told me your mother and
sister like to chat?”
    “Uh, yeah.” Brett was the only person he
ever talked to about Eunice and Shanna.
    “Well, I told them about Mac and the
barbecue. They volunteered to style her hair, do all that beauty
stuff, the whole works on the house.”
    “Oh, no. No way.”
    “She doesn’t have much money. They’d do it
for free.” Brett seemed to be trying hard not to smile, the
dumbass.
    “No. I don’t want my mother and sister
filling her full of embarrassing stories about my childhood.” Or
even worse, telling her the entire tragic truth of his childhood, a
truth he fought tooth and nail to hide. Embarrassment he could
handle, pity and blame he couldn’t.
    “You know that’s not what you’re worried
about. They embarrass you. You’re a real asshole.”
    If Brett only knew. “Yeah, so what?” Bruiser
played along. He hated the guilt that burrowed a little deeper into
his heart every day, which had a lot to do with why he avoided his
family.
    “Well, it’s a done deal. I told Zach, and
Kelsie set up an appointment for Mac.”
    “Ah, fuck. I thought we were friends. My
mother’s been trying to marry me off to a nice girl for years.
She’ll latch onto Mac like a burr on my ass.”
    Brett, the rat bastard, actually grinned a
very rare grin. “Good luck with that.” He stood, grabbed his
jacket, and chuckled as he went out the door, leaving Bruiser alone
with his thoughts.
    “Well, shit.” Bruiser spoke out loud. He
worked damn hard to keep his personal and professional lives apart
and his buddy just mashed them all up together.
    With friends like Brett, who needed
enemies?
    Bruiser shrugged into his jacket and got the
hell out of there.
    Mac was kneeling down in the flower-beds at
the front door of the practice facility as he walked out. He
hesitated, his gaze dropping to her nicely rounded ass in those
tight jeans. A ponytail tangle of dark-blonde hair fell across one
shoulder and a thin sheen of sweat covered the bare skin above the
back of her tank top. Bruiser licked his lips. His dick hardened
instantly. Odd, since thinking about Chelsea and Sondra didn’t get
the slightest rise out of it.
    Bruiser held his duffle bag in front of his
crotch and plastered his charming smile on his face, a smile he’d
never used before on Mac. Why he was using it now, he hadn’t a
fucking clue. This was just Mac, tomboy extraordinaire and good
buddy to the majority of the team. If he were lucky, she’d say
she’d changed her mind, and he’d be off the hook. Oddly enough,
that possibility actually disappointed him.
    One way or another, he’d convince her to get
her hair done elsewhere. His mother and sister talked too much, way
too much, and he didn’t need Mac or anyone else knowing his entire
sorry past.
    “Hey, beautiful.” He came to stop a few feet
from her, careful to keep his expensive shoes on the sidewalk and
out of the fresh soil.
    Mac glanced over her shoulder, dirt smeared
under one cheek. She rolled her eyes. “Beautiful? Seriously.” She
glanced away and wiped a strand of dull-blonde hair off her
forehead with chipped and ragged fingernails. His mother would be
appalled at the state of Mac’s fingernails, which almost made him
smile. Almost.
    “Absolutely. In an au-naturel sort of way.”
Bruiser gave her his sexiest smile, the one that usually had women
unzipping his pants. Not so Mac.
    “Are you on drugs?” Mac snorted and sat back
on her haunches, stretching the fabric of her jeans tighter around
her ass. Bruiser’s throat went dry, and he coughed.
    She studied him with narrowed eyes.
    Taking a deep breath, Bruiser jumped in the
deep end, grateful he could swim with the best of them, and dialed
up the charm. “The