The Perfect Stroke (32 page)

“Whoa! Where do you think you’re going like that??” the doorman yells, grabbing me around the waist. I was so intent on getting inside that I didn’t even see him coming to block the entrance. “Good Lord! What is that smell?” he bellows. I try to pull away from him, but his grip is tight. I hear Gray come up beside us.

“Get your hands off my woman!” he growls like the caveman he is.

My head is swimming, my breath is ragged, and my heart is still beating out of my chest. I’m so hyped up on adrenaline that it doesn’t even hit me that I’m still completely naked—not until the exact moment I feel the doorman’s hand grope my ass. I push away from him immediately, but I needn’t have bothered because Gray is all but tearing me away from the man. I wince at his hold, knowing there will be a bruise there tomorrow.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Gray yells, and I can feel eyes on us. Gray moves me behind his back.

“Gray,” I whisper, hoping to get his attention before this gets worse. When I look over his shoulder and see the small crowd gathering, I realize it
can
get a lot worse. There’s at least fifty people standing around watching us, and I’d lay odds that all fifty have seen as much of me as Gray has. I burrow against his back, feeling embarrassment and shame wash through me.

“Mr. Lucas? What are you doing here? Do you know that young lady? Why are you both naked?” another man asks from beside us. I look up enough to realize that he must be the manager.
Great.

Gray can’t take the time to acknowledge the man, though, because he’s taking a swing at the doorman. Which, by the way, makes it very hard to hide behind him. I’ve wrapped my arms around myself as best as I can. Someone is handing me a black suit coat and I reach out to get it. When I see the man holding it looking at my body, it feels wrong to take his coat. I start to anyway, but Gray is there in front of me and he’s holding the black suit jacket the doorman was wearing. He wraps it around me.

“Get the fuck away from my woman,” Gray growls towards the other men and several others who have joined the small crowd and gather too close for comfort. I feel like I’m hyperventilating. The world is starting to spin, and if I pass out, I figure that will be the ultimate embarrassment. I manage to hold on enough to watch Gray take a tablecloth from someone. He wraps it around himself. The fabric strains to meet at his hips and doesn’t quite make it, but at least he’s mostly covered. He’s exchanging words with the manager and is demanding the doorman be fired. I really can’t listen to any more, and if one more person in the background keeps asking what that horrible smell is, I might go off.

That’s when I realize I’m crying. I feel the tears sliding down my face and it makes me mad. I’m not a crier. I don’t cry hardly ever. And the fact that I’m doing so now in front of all these people who have seen me naked—and in front of an irate Gray who is still yelling about the doorman copping a feel of my ass—pisses me off. I can’t control it. The more I try, the faster the tears come. So before I start sobbing in front of the vultures, I take off toward the elevators.

Not nearly fast enough, however.

“Claudia, can we talk to you?”

I turn when I hear my name and freeze when I see a reporter there with a photographer behind her, his camera zoomed in on me. Then I take off running because, yeah, the sobs have started.

What did we do?

“Ow! Damn it, Mom, that shit stinks worse than the skunk.”

“It definitely does not, trust me on that one, son. You smell like old Mr. Simpson’s outhouse. If you’re going to pick wildflowers with your woman, you should at least wait until you’re home. There, at least I have my own tomato juice. This store crap is hardly making a dent in it.”

“I didn’t exactly plan on getting sprayed by a skunk, Mom.” 

“Apparently not. Why on Earth you felt the need to do something this asinine is beyond me. I mean, you have a king size bed and a kitchen table here. Not to mention that big shower, or heck, even that chair in the sitting room!” she mutters, pouring another can of tomato juice into the tub.

It’s a good thing I’m not a modest person because having my mom pour juice over my naked ass would definitely be on my list of things that would kill me. I hang my head down as she pours another can over it. Shit. I feel like the biggest asshole on the face of the Earth.

“How’s CC?” I ask, afraid to know the answer, but scared not to. I haven’t gotten to speak one word to her since we went running back to the hotel.

There was chaos downstairs when the doorman grabbed CC. My fist found its way to his face, and then a reporter showed up trying to get a picture of me and CC. It was all bad. It probably didn’t help that I ripped the camera way from the photographer and threw it on the ground so it busted into a million pieces, inadvertently dropping the damn tablecloth I had covering me.

I followed CC up to our room, but she didn’t talk; she was too busy crying. I wanted to console her, but when got to our room, it finally hit me that without my clothes, my wallet,
or anything else
—we were stuck… which required me knocking on the door of my mom’s room. Which brings me to getting drowned in store-bought tomato juice and vinegar by Mom in my hotel room after she already did the same to CC in hers… and not getting two minutes alone to check on my woman. I’m mad, worried, and stressed the fuck out. I’ve already put a call in to Seth about the press, but as much as I don’t want to admit it, there’s a very real possibility that pictures of me and CC in our birthday suits will be all over the papers in the morning. CC has to be so pissed off at me, and I can’t blame her.  

“How do you expect the girl to be after running across a busy golf course butt-ass naked, getting groped by a doorman, and then having her future mother-in-law washing her from head to toe and seeing every nook and crevice the good Lord saw fit to give her?”

“Can I see her?”

“After you smell better, maybe. Now hold still or this scrub brush will take off your hide along with the smell.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I grumble unhappily, and for my tone, I get the brush slapped upside my head.  Fuck. Will this day ever end? Better yet, will CC be back in my arms when it does? This is all my fault and I’m feeling like shit for getting her into it.

“You okay, sweetheart?” Gray asks again.

I’ve lost count, but we’re surely in double digits by now.

It’s the day after the entire mess. The tournament has been postponed because of a rainstorm, so we’re just trying to recover. We’re snuggled on the couch watching TV and wearing the hotel robes. Finally clean… and finally Ida-Sue-and-crazy-Lucas-family free. If it wasn’t for smelling like tomato juice and vinegar, I would pretend it was all a bad memory.

I’m trying to act normal, but there’s this fear that keeps swamping me. There were a lot of people around when we made it back to the hotel.
A lot
. Gray said he had it handled, but fuck, I don’t know how many people saw me naked. I don’t know what kind of chaos played after I ran away crying. It took Ida Sue an hour to calm me down, but we both know that if this gets out, Riverton will use that against me, which means there’s no way I’ll be able to get the loan from the bank unless Ida Sue performs a miracle. Every time the phone rings, I jump, worried it’s Riverton and praying it’s Ida Sue instead with word from the bank. I don’t care what the terms are; right now, I’d sign away my life if it means keeping the garage from that asshole. I feel so bad. There’s just no words. Jackson has been trying to get a loan, but his credit pretty much sucks after his divorce.

“I wish you would quit asking me that,” I tell Gray, trying not to be frustrated with him. It’s not fair that I’m blaming him, though I am. It’s not his fault I’m in the mess that I’m in, but it
is
his fault we literally got caught with our pants down.

“I’m worried about you, Cooper.”

“I’m about as good as someone can be when they’ve mooned half of Georgia and then got groped by some perverted doorman.”

“Fucking bastard. I should have hit him harder.”

“Let’s try to just not talk about it, please?”

“I’m sorry, baby,” he says. He sounds so sad, I feel like a bitch for being upset.

“I know,” I tell him, then wince. I made the decision to make love with him. It’s not his fault completely and yet I realize I am holding a grudge. I’m blaming him.

“C’mon, CC. Talk to me. What’s upsetting you the most?”

“You need more besides what we just talked about?”

“I can’t help feeling like there’s something more. You need to talk to me.”

He’s right. I know he is. I take a deep breath. Is this where I push him away?
Is this where I lose him?

“There’s things you don’t know,” I tell him.

He pulls up, turning so he can face me, and I see the worry and maybe even hurt in his face. Guilt swamps me and I try to push it behind me so I can concentrate on what I need to tell him.

“Talk to me, CC.”

“Gray, when Banger got sick, things just got… really bad. It was just me and him. There wasn’t anyone else to depend on.”

“I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help you.”

My next words stop, and I feel like I’m choking on them. He’s completely serious. I want to believe him, and I think most of me does. There’s still this small voice in my head telling me not to believe him—not to trust him. I have this war going on inside of me. Will he let me down like others have? Will he leave me? Am I being unfair? Why do I insist on making Gray pay for the sins of others?

“Okay, fine!” I tell him, more upset with myself than him and deciding just to lay it out for him. “Gray, I’m in trouble. I made a huge mistake…” I start, when a knock at the door stops me.

Both of us look at the door and Gray huffs in frustration.

“Stay right here and don’t move.” I don’t respond, my eyes still glued to the door. I have a bad feeling. “Do you hear me, CC?” he prompts, and I tear my eyes from the door to look at him.

“Okay,” I say weakly, sitting up.

“I love my family, but I swear they have the most horrible timing,” Gray mutters, walking to the door.

I just keep staring at the door like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. He might think it is family, but something inside of me tells me different, and I know once that door opens, my world is never going to be the same.

Son of a bitch, I can’t believe I was just about to get CC to talk and my family interrupts me. I’m tempted to just ignore the knock, but I know CC won’t let me by with that. My only option is to get rid of them quickly and hope that she doesn’t backpedal. CC’s been better the last few days, but I know something has been bothering her since she left Florida and I had to follow her to Kentucky. I can’t let her weasel out of telling me. I
need
to know. More than that, I’m tired of dancing around how I feel about her. We’ve been together long enough; she should know that I’m here for the long haul. I should be able to tell my woman I love her without worrying it will make her run for the hills.