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Playing for Keeps, Page 40

R. L. Mathewson

Page 40

 

  Her grip tightened on the steering wheel as she prayed for patience. "Jason, it's over. I'm sorry, but you have to accept it. "

  "No, I don't," he said calmly, irritating her even more.

  "Jason," she said tightly.

  "Haley," he mocked in the same tone, making her lips twitch damn him!

  She sighed heavily. "Jason, you really hurt me last night. I don't think you-"

  "I know I really f**ked up, Haley, but if you remember I did tell you when we started that I was most likely going to mess this up," he said, cutting her off.

  "Yeah, you did, Jason, and last night you proved beyond a doubt that you aren't capable of being in a relationship. "

  "No, last night I proved that I'm a f**king idiot," Jason said matter-of-factly.

  She wasn't going to argue with that since she'd come to the same conclusion after hearing what happened, but that didn't mean she'd changed her mind.

  "Jason, we're over," she said more softly.

  He snorted. "No, we're not. "

  "Yes, we are! Stop saying that!"

  "No, we're just fighting. You love me and you damn well know it. "

  She opened her mouth to deny it, but she couldn't. She did love him. More than anything on this earth, but he'd hurt her last night and she wasn't so sure that she could trust him not to do it again.

  When she didn't say anything he settled back in his seat and said, "I'm coming with you so you might as well get used to it. The sooner we get the fight over with the sooner we can move onto the next phase. "

  "What phase?" she asked cautiously.

  "Makeup sex," he said, grinning hugely as he wiggled his eyebrows.

  ***************

  "What are we doing here?" Jason asked as he climbed out of the car, but not before Haley did. He wasn't an idiot after all. She was still pissed off at him and was probably still looking for a way to ditch his ass. In retrospect, he probably shouldn't have made that makeup sex comment.

  The hour they spent at the rest stop had definitely proved that. She'd tried everything she could to get him out of her car, but he refused to budge. Finally when she was out of breath and exhausted from trying to drag him out of the car, it was a sad attempt, she gave up, slammed the door shut and drove off, ignoring him for the next two hours.

  "I need groceries," she muttered unhappily, throwing another glare in his direction. When her eyes shot between the Super Wal-Mart center and her car he snagged the keys out of her hand.

  "Hey!" She tried to grab them away from him.

  "Sorry, my little grasshopper, you're not ditching me at Wally World," he said, pocketing her keys and heading for the store, leaving her to either fume at him or follow. He didn't bother looking back since he knew she wasn't going anywhere.

  Although Wal-Mart wouldn't be his first choice, this solved one problem. He didn't have any clothes since he'd been in a bit of a rush to hide in Haley's car before she spotted him. But this would work out rather nicely for him and since he could smell the salt in the air he knew exactly what to buy.

  "I hate you," Haley mumbled, storming past him to grab a carriage.

  "You love and adore me," Jason informed her as he deftly snagged her carriage away from her and headed towards the men's department.

  Along the way he stopped at the women's department when a little black bikini caught his eye, deciding that it would look great on Haley he threw it into the carriage as well as the red one behind it. He wasn't too worried when Haley didn't follow him. He figured she was somewhere in the store trying to calm down or buy a baseball to beat his ass into submission.

  That was fine. They had a whole week to work their problems out whether she wanted to or not. She was his, plain and simple and the sooner she realized they'd be together forever the sooner he could correct the mistake he made last night and show her how good it could be between them.

  After he grabbed swim trunks, enough clothes for the week and a few toiletries he headed for the grocery section. When he spotted Haley's carriage he couldn't help but snort in disbelief. Did she really think buying single servings of food was going to feed them for a week? Clearly their fight had addled her brain.

  He paused near her carriage ignoring her cute little glare and dumped all his things into her basket.

  "Hey!" she said, trying to stop him. "What the hell are you doing?"

  "I need more room in my carriage for food," he simply said. He headed towards the dairy section, hoping she wouldn't just ditch his shit to get back at him. Then again she should know that if she did he would take it as an invitation to walk around na**d the entire week.

  "Why do you need bubble bath?" she asked as she came up next to him in front of the dairy coolers.

  He placed two gallons of milk in the carriage. "It's for you," he said in a tone that let her know it should be more than obvious. His little grasshopper loved taking long hot bubble baths to relax and he really needed her to relax if he was going to convince her to forgive him and forget about that breakup nonsense.

  "O-kay," she said slowly, picking up a familiar black cardboard box. "And what about these? A twenty pack and magnum size no less, someone thinks awfully highly of himself. "

  Sighing, Jason reached over and snatched the box of condoms out of her hands. "Only one box? I thought I grabbed three," he murmured, making a show of looking in her carriage for the other boxes. Finally with a resigned sigh he threw the box back. "Remind me to grab a few boxes on the way out. "

  With that he headed over to the cookie section, knowing she was definitely going to follow this time.

  "Why the hell would I remind you? We're not going need one box, never mind three!"

  Jason really couldn't help but smile at that little announcement. "Okay," he said, grabbing the box of condoms and sticking it on the top shelf between some figs and jelly cookies. "I was hoping you'd say that. "

  The damage had already been done last night. Granted if it had been any other woman he would have dragged her ass to the emergency room for the morning after pill, but with Haley he felt oddly calm about the whole thing. Actually, he felt a little excited at the idea of Haley having his child.

  Up until a few hours ago he hadn't given much thought to the consequences of last night. He'd been too scared that he'd lost Haley for good to really give it some thought, but once he found himself squeezed into his little hiding place he hadn't had much to do but think.

  When he allowed himself to consider having a kid he may have freaked out just a little. Thankfully Haley had been blasting the radio so she probably didn't hear him hyperventilating. After he finally managed to calm down he allowed himself to think about Haley pregnant with his child. He'd been a little shocked when the idea didn't freak him out.

  Soon he was picturing little girls with mischievous green eyes and pigtails asking him to play tea. Of course he'd bring real food to the tea party. None of that pretend food bullshit for his little girls.

  By the time Haley had stopped for breakfast he'd been calmer about everything. He'd already decided to ignore that breakup nonsense. It was just ridiculous and he knew sooner or later Haley would realize that so they could get started on making their all girl baseball team.