“Don’t you need to stay with the team?” Brandon asked.
Matt lifted his shoulders, which were broad like his father’s. “It’s starting to break up, so Coach said we could leave if we wanted to.”
Stella watched the interaction between the two, noticing how Brandon remained silent for a moment, as though battling some sort of internal conflict. Did he not like Matt’s girlfriend? Or was there something else going on? Brandon seemed better at hiding his issues than she was.
Then, after several seconds of silence, Brandon nodded. “All right. But you’re still on yard duty. I want the grass cut and edged before you go to bed.”
“Got it,” Matt responded. Just then, Adrienne came out the door and the two linked hands. Brandon’s dark gaze followed them down the street.
On impulse, Stella turned in her chair to catch Adrienne press a kiss to Matt’s jaw. The kid’s reaction was to drop a kiss of his own on the girl’s head. Stella felt a pang at the young love, knowing that’s what her own mother wanted and had spent her entire adult life chasing, dragging her young daughter with her. Perhaps there were people who simply weren’t built for relationships. People who weren’t destined to experience that kind of euphoria.
“They’re cute together,” Stella commented.
Something dark passed over Brandon’s face, but then it was gone. “Yeah,” was all he said.
She studied him and noted the stiffness to his shoulders. “You don’t like Adrienne?”
“I like her fine,” he stated.
Except Stella suspected there was more. “You just don’t like her with Matt.”
Brandon shook his head. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He wagged a finger at her. “You don’t get to sit there and be all secretive and then try to figure me out.”
“Why not? Seems only fair.” Also, she wanted to turn the line of questioning off her. And maybe watch him squirm for a while.
Brandon West doesn’t squirm.
No, he wouldn’t. The man was too solid. Too big and firm. And the man across from her, who’d been eating her up with his eyes and making her skin itch, heaved a sigh. “I just don’t want them to get too serious.”
“They’re teenagers,” she reminded him. “Nothing is serious at that age.”
His eyes darkened. “You’d be surprised.”
With his gravelly words came the understanding of the shadowy look behind his eyes. Stella leaned back in her chair and gazed at him. “Oh, I get it. You don’t want him to be like you.”
“Every parent wants better for their kid,” he agreed.
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s more than that for you. You don’t want him to make the same choices you did.”
Brandon’s strong chest puffed out when he took in a deep breath. Yeah, she’d nailed it. He didn’t want Matt to be as irresponsible as he’d been.
“I just want him to use his head,” Brandon admitted without really agreeing with Stella’s assessment. “To be honest, I never expected their relationship to last that long. I thought it was more of an infatuation.”
“Maybe it still is.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s more than that.”
“How can you tell?”
His gaze zeroed in on her, warming her from the inside out. “I can tell when a woman is interested in a man.”
Four
Honey, you need to get laid. You’re too rigid.”
Stella lay on her back on her living room floor, moving through her stretches, and ignored her mother’s observation. Gloria always had observations, most of which were what Stella needed to do more of, improve on, or stop doing.
“I know you heard me,” Gloria pressed from her spot on the couch.
Stella pulled in a deep breath and closed her eyes. Maybe if she left them closed long enough, she could pretend her mother wasn’t there. Lord knew Stella loved her mom. But having her back in Blanco Valley, living with her of all things, could try the patience of the Pope.
“Honey…,” Gloria said.
“Mom,” Stella replied with her eyes still closed. She pressed a finger to her lips. “Shhhh.”
“I’m just saying,” her mother went on. The leather couch squeaked when Gloria shifted positions. “There’s just something about a nice, long orgasm that does wonders for a woman’s stress.”
Good Lord. Stella exhaled and sat up. She jabbed a finger at her mother. “That right there is why people go to therapy.” She stood from the floor and abandoned her stretches. Her knee was about as loose as she could do for herself.
Gloria picked at the chipped paint on her thumb. “Sweetie, people go to therapy because they’re uptight and don’t know how to release their stress.” She lifted one shoulder. “Just have yourself a couple orgasms and save yourself the money.”
Stella stretched her back. “You say that like they just spontaneously happen.”
“Well, they do,” Gloria said with sly tilt of her mouth. “When you’re underneath a man who knows how to strum a woman’s body.”
Stella held up her hand, then bent to roll her yoga mat off the floor. “There is some serious shit wrong with you.” Not to mention Stella didn’t even want to think about how her own mother knew that. No doubt from all the years she’d spent chasing one man to the next all over the country. Most of them younger with quick smiles and even quicker promises. Gloria Davenport practically defined the word cougar.
“The only thing wrong with me is that I’m not getting any,” Gloria went on. “Where are all the good men in this town?”
Stella stored her yoga mat in the hall closet. “There are plenty of good men in this town, but you refuse to consider anyone less than ten years younger than you.”
“Honey, old men are boring and stuffy.”
Stella considered her mother. “Not true.”
Gloria lifted a brow. “Because you have so much experience with old men?”
“Neither do you,” she pointed out. “Have you ever tried giving a man your age a chance? You might be surprised.”
Gloria stood from the couch. “Tell you what. I’ll give a man my age a chance when you give any man a chance.”
At her mother’s words, Brandon’s face flashed across her mind, sending her stomach somersaulting. No doubt he could give her one of those nice, long orgasms her mom kept bringing up. Multiple times. And, if judging by the way he’d stroked her ankle the other day, he’d do it with little effort.