Dream Maker

Book 1: Dream Team

by Kristen Ashley

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

From New York Times bestselling author Kristen Ashley comes the first sexy, contemporary romance in a brand-new, spin-off from the Rock Chick and Dream Man series, in which two broken hearts find love and healing in each other.

Evie is a bonafide nerd and a hyper-intelligent chick who has only ever been able to rely on herself. So when she decides to earn an engineering degree, she takes a job dancing at Smithie's club to make the tuition money she needs. But with her lack of dancing skills and an alpha bad boy who becomes overly protective, Evie realizes this gig might not be as easy as she thought.

Daniel "Mag" Magnusson knows a thing or two about pain, but the mask he wears is excellent. No one can tell that this good-looking, quick-witted, and roguish guy has deep-seated issues. Mag puts on a funny-guy routine so he can hide his broken heart and PTSD. But when Evie dances her way into Mag's life, he realizes that he needs to come face-to-face with the demons of his past if he wants a future with her.

Release date: May 26, 2020

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 496

Sample

Chapter One

I…can’t…even,” I snapped at my windshield as I slammed on the brakes when the car started to pull out in front of me, and I knew it wouldn’t stop because they couldn’t care less I was only three car lengths away and going five miles (okay, maybe ten) over the speed limit.

“Stupid millennial!” I shouted when I noted the age of the clueless person driving.

Of course, I was a millennial.

Which meant, obviously, I could call my own people stupid and clueless.

Some Gen Xer said something like that, it’d tick me off.

But right then, I had visions in my head of ramming him from behind just to make a point à la Evelyn Couch in Fried Green Tomatoes.

Sadly, Evelyn’s insurance was great, but mine wouldn’t take another bust-up, of which I’d had many (and this might have a wee bit to do with me going five, more like ten miles over the speed limit on more than the regular occasion—then again, I was always in a hurry and it was no lie that wasn’t hardly ever my fault).

Another reason my insurance agent was going to blackball me to all insurance companies happened right then.

My phone rang.

And I looked to it instantly.

What could I say?

I’m a millennial.

The call was from my mother.

Normally, it was a very good possibility, to the point of it being a probability, I would avoid my mother’s call.

Today, I could not.

So I snatched up my phone and engaged, hopeful to the last (in other words, delusional) that maybe for once, I might have backup in the current situation I was going to have to handle. A situation, like all of them, that was not mine.

“Hey, Mom,” I greeted eagerly.

“Evan, darlin’, please tell me you’re going to see your brother.”

Oh, I was going to see my brother all right.

In lockup.

Again.

I was Norm from Cheers at Denver County Jail.

“Of course I’m going to see him,” I replied.

“Okay,” she said, sounding relieved.

I understood her relief.

And my heart sunk.

Because it was not about the proud mother of a good little sister looking after her big brother.

It was a good little daughter doing what a mother should be doing and thus the mother didn’t have to do it, which was good, since she wouldn’t do it anyway.

Again.

“Tell him his momma sends her love and if he needs anything…” She trailed off.

Call your sister, Evan, I finished for her in my head.

“Mom, I gotta say, this is the last time—”

“Okay, honey, good chat. I gotta go. I gotta get to work.”

She did not.

She was unemployed.

Again.

“Talk to you later,” she went on. “Come over for dinner. Your stepdad and I miss you.”

With that, she hung up, not setting a dinner date, not staying on the line long enough for me to share with her I was D…O…N…E done with sorting Mick’s crap and not ending the conversation saying such as, “I love you, you can’t know how much. You’re so responsible, I’ve no idea how you got that way, but we’re so lucky you did because I don’t know what we’d all do without you.”

No, she did not say that.

I tossed my phone to the seat, drove to the jail, and as I was pulling in the parking lot, I heard it buzz with a text.

I glanced at it, looked back out the windshield, and muttered, “Oh boy.”

I found a parking spot, shut down my car and snatched up my phone again.

I went to texts.

I read the latest and then, because I was clearly in the mood for self-flagellation, I scrolled up and read it from the top.

The tippy-top stating the text string was with DANIEL MAGNUSSON.

Hey, this Evan?

Yes, is this Daniel?

Mag. And yeah.

Mag.

Who called themselves Mag?

Hi.

Hey, we doing this?


“This” being going on a blind date because our mutual friend Lottie (who’d set us up, like she’d set up all my girlfriends at the club where we worked with friends of her fiancé, Mo) would not let it go even though I got the impression both of us consistently, and for some time, tried to put her off.

For my part, I knew I did just that.

And his “we doing this?” solidified the impression he did too.

Sure.

You climb?

Climb?

Indoor climbing. Rock walls.


Rock walls?

Was he insane?

No.

I did not climb.

I owned eight pairs of Chucks in eight different colors.

But I did not own a single item that might be construed as anything that had anything to do with physical activity.

This was partly because I stripped for a living, which was physical enough.

This was also partly because, when I wasn’t stripping, I was so busy doing everything else, I didn’t need to work out.

How about we go for ice cream?


That got me about two full minutes of continual dot, dot, dots, which did not turn out to be a textual opus.

It turned out to be three words.

Right. Sounds good.


Such a lie.

I knew he thought it didn’t sound good.

He probably had protein shakes for breakfast and lunch and an unseasoned chicken breast for dinner.

What could I say?

He was Mo, Lottie’s fiancé’s former roommate, and Mo was a commando.

And so was Mag.

That was what I’d guess commandos ate.

That and rations.

You open Tuesday?

Yeah.

How about 6:00?

Liks. In Capitol Hill.

I know it.

See you there.

Great. Yes.

See you there.


This had all happened last Thursday.

It was now Tuesday and my hope was that his latest text would be about canceling.

It wasn’t.

It was,

Hey, we still on for tonight?

Because Mac won a gift card to a restaurant.

It expires tomorrow and if someone doesn’t use it, it’ll be wasted.

She’s offered it to us.


Mac, by the by, was what some people called Lottie, seeing as her last name, for the time being, was McAlister.

And considering she wasn’t close with her dad, she was totally going old school and taking Mo’s name when they got married.

“Yes,” I said out loud to my phone. “We’re still on, after I go in, see my brother, listen to him beg me to post bail while I try to find the courage to tell him this will be the last time ever I post bail for him or get his ass out of whatever jam he’s gotten himself into. Then I’ll fail to find that courage. I’ll then go to my second most often visited hotspot in Denver. Saul Edelstein, bail bondsman. But I actually do not want to have dinner with you, alpha male, probably toxic male. Though Mo isn’t toxic, he’s very sweet, but Lottie warned me you had ‘issues’ and needed someone to settle you down, and apparently, she thinks I’m that person.”

I stopped talking to Mag, who Lottie told me was actually called Danny, who wasn’t there.

And I stared at the phone thinking that the issues Lottie didn’t share with me, but the girls at the club did, were that some woman had broken Daniel Magnusson’s heart, and like a definitely toxic dude, his strategy for curing it was sleeping with everything that moved.

However, to be honest, although this appeared to be one more project I didn’t need, even if Lottie hadn’t been entirely forthcoming, my sense was that mostly Lottie seemed like she wanted to fix us up because she liked us both a lot, thought we’d be good together, look out for each other, and in the end, be happy.

I could not imagine what she was thinking.

A commando was so not my style.

A manwhore?

Totally not.

My last boyfriend was shorter than me by two inches, weighed twenty-five pounds less than me and his skin had not seen the sun for probably five years and not because he was a vampire.

Because he was a gamer.

I liked him.

We shared a lot of the same interests. He was funny, he could be gentle, he listened, he wasn’t all that great in bed, but he gave it his best shot, and he felt safe.

Of course, his eventual utter lack of interest in anything but gaming led to the demise of our relationship.

So now, I missed him.

Or the him I’d had before I lost him to gaming.

My thumbs flew over the bottom of my phone screen.

Sounds good.

When and where?


I was folding out of my car when I got back,

I’ll pick you up.

At six.


Pick me up?

For a date?

What was this?

1987?

I’ll meet you there. Where is it?

And 6:00 is good.


I was nearing the door when I received,

Picking you up, Evan.

Six.

I don’t think it’s fancy.

But I don’t think it’s T and jeans either.


Then,

Mac gave me your address.

See you at 6:00.


Of course she did and of course he was old school too.

No one got picked up for dates anymore.

And now I was stuck for a whole dinner.

It was easier to feign a headache or, better yet, period cramps and duck out if I had my own ride.

“Damn,” I whispered, standing outside the doors to the jail.

I texted,

See you then.

Looking forward to it.


I got back an unconvincing,

Yeah.

Me too.


Now I had to spend at least a couple of hours with this guy rather than snarfing down a quick cone while we mutually agreed we didn’t suit, shaking hands, then I’d go home and give myself a facial or watch some Japanese anime or repeat a binge watch of Fleabag or something.

Ugh.

I entered the jail, did the rigmarole check-in, and while doing it, caught up with Officer Bobbie behind the desk (bad news for Bobbie: her kid had the flu so bad, they had to hospitalize him, good news: he was okay now, and mental note: stop by the jail and give Officer Bobbie something fun to give to her recently very sick kid).

Then, I was sat in front of a video screen and I waited for Mick to appear before I grabbed the handset.

But when he appeared, I didn’t grab the handset.

My heart started beating in a strange way I’d never felt before.

It was like there was nothing in my chest cavity, it was hollow, save my heart, and my heart was thumping in there, all alone.

I snatched the handset so fast, my hand was a blur.

And I nearly came out of my skin listening to the warnings about how the police were recording our visit.

When it was done, his name jumped out of my throat.

“Mick?”

“Hey, Evie,” he said, his voice wrong, wrong, wrong.

Tentative.

Trembling.

Scared.

My cocky, criminal, wastrel, good-time, bad-decisions big brother didn’t get scared.

I leaned forward. “Mick—”

“You’re gonna get a text, honey. Take it, and…you know. Just take it and do right by your brother.”

Oh God.

“What?” I asked.

He leaned toward his screen too.

“You…are gonna…get a text, Evie. Take it. And…do right.”

What did that mean?

Before I could find some words to ask him to share in ways that wouldn’t get him into trouble, or later be used to incriminate him, he kept talking.

“I’m counting on you.”

“Mick.”

And then he did not ask me to go to Saul.

He did not say the reasons for his current accommodations were all a mistake.

Or he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Or they’d brought him in on nonsense to lean on him to rat on someone else.

Or one of the hundred other excuses he used.

He did something that sent ice splinters tearing through my veins.

He pressed his middle three fingers to his lips, then pressed them to the screen, hung up his handset, stood and walked away.

Chapter Two

What am I doing?” I asked my reflection as I leaned away from my bathroom mirror and stared at myself.

I was holding a mascara wand in one hand, the tube in the other, and I’d just finished putting on some powder, a little blush, minimal highlights on my cheekbones, under-eye-shadow base over my lids up to my brows to even the skin tone and now mascara.

I didn’t wear makeup unless I was stripping, first, because I had two pounds of makeup on when I danced and that not only felt ick, I figured I was already over my quota, and second, I just didn’t wear makeup.

Okay, lip gloss that was actually lip treatment disguised as lip gloss, of which I had varying colors, but only because this was Denver, Denver was arid, and if I didn’t my lips would be chapped all the time.

So might as well throw a wave at something girlie while I was keeping my skin healthy.

Now, I was going on a date with Lottie’s commando friend and suddenly I was a traditionalist.

Or, probably more accurate, I was going on a blind date with Lottie’s commando friend after my brother freaked me out about some text I’d be getting where I’d have to “do right,” whatever that meant.

And since Mick Gardiner hadn’t done right since he was around the age of two, his version of doing right did not bode well for me.

I’d pushed the wand into the tube and was about to grab a wipe and take all the makeup off, add some moisturizer (again: Denver) and maybe some powder so I wasn’t all shiny, and that was it, when someone knocked on my door.

I looked down at my phone on the basin, touching it to activate the screen.

6:04.

“Hell,” I whispered, tossed the tube in the basket that contained my measly collection of cosmetics, grabbed my lip treatment that was a shade called “buff” and dashed out of the bathroom.

I slicked on the gloss as I shoved my feet in chili-red Rothy’s points, grabbed my blazer that was on the bed and rushed out of my bedroom.

I tossed the blazer on the kitchen counter, the lip gloss on the blazer, at the same time I hesitated because I realized I hadn’t put on any jewelry and considered running back to my room in order to do that really quick.

This was when another knock sounded at the door (apparently Daniel Magnusson was not patient).

This possibility led my mind to race to the hope that, regardless of his apparent impatience, Mag was like Mo.

Maybe not as humongous as Mo (though, that wouldn’t be bad, Mo didn’t seem cuddly as such, more like terrifying and able to tear you limb from limb with his bare hands, but he looked sweet and openly happy anytime Lottie cuddled him).

But definitely as soft-spoken and gentle and loving as Mo was with Lottie.

I mean, it would not suck having a man in my life, that man being like Mo.

I could pay my own bills (and sometimes my mother’s, and a lot of the times, my father’s, this being the reason why it was taking forever to earn my degree—I kept having to sit out semesters because of lack of funds, the sole reason why I stripped, because I didn’t make Lottie-style tips, but strippers at Smithie’s made a bucketload).

I could take out my own trash.

But it’d be nice to have someone around.

Okay, so maybe it would be nice to have someone around to listen to me bitch about my delinquent brother or my user mother and the many times they inveigled (or out-and-out connived) me into getting involved in their messy lives.

But it also would be fun to cook with someone again.

Or have someone to go see movies with, then dissect them after.

Or go out and enjoy some really good food together, good food that came with good conversation.

Or take a vacation and not think of anything but whatever excursion we’d planned that day.

So, all right.

Maybe I should give this a real shot.

Lottie was good people, a good friend, a good woman.

She wouldn’t steer me wrong.

I went to the door, looked out the peephole and froze stiff.

Mo was six five, bald, with unique but handsome features (when you got past the terrifying) and was the aforementioned humongous.

The man outside was not any of that.

He was…

He was…

I watched as he lifted his hand again to knock, I unfroze, unlocked and threw open the door, blurting, “I forgot to put on jewelry.”

His chin jerked into his throat, his torso swayed back, and his electric-blue eyes did a slow sweep of me, from hair to Rothy’s. Those eyes grew alert, then they grew appreciative, and after that, his mouth curled ever so slowly into a sexy smile.

Ohmigod.

Oh man.

Oh hell.

Damn.

He was…

He was…

All that dark hair, longish, flipping and curling and falling into his eyes.

Tall, maybe not as tall as Mo, but not too far off.

Way taller than me, and I was five nine.

Fit.

Oh God.

So fit.

Not humongous, but lean, broad of shoulder and chest, trim of waist, and bulky of thighs.

Dark gray trousers, light-blue button-up, and he’d done a French tuck.

The Queer Eye boys would give him an A++++.

“Evan?” he asked.

“Danny?” I mumbled.

“Mag,” he stated.

“Uh…” I kept mumbling. “Lottie said—”

“Lottie’s bustin’ my chops,” he told me then softened his next with a grin. “No one calls me Danny but Mo’s sisters and that isn’t at my request.”

“Oh,” I whispered.

“You forgot your jewelry?” he prompted.

My hands flew to my earlobes as I said, “Right. Um, come in. I won’t be a second.”

I stepped back, opening the door wide for him to enter.

He walked in and looked around.

I closed the door.

“Let me guess,” he said as he stopped looking around and turned to me. “You drive a Prius.”

“Well, yeah,” I replied.

He busted out laughing.

My nipples tingled.

Ohmigod.

What was happening?

He was so not my thing.

I was a freak.

I was a geek.

And as such, I was into freaks and geeks.

Stick with what you know.

But the sound of his laughter…

The look of it on his face…

Okay.

I changed my mind.

I was not giving this a shot.

No.

Absolutely not.

My brother was in jail (again).

My mother was unemployed (again).

My stepfather (this one number two) was undoubtedly stepping out on her (again) so she’d dump him (again) only to take him back (again).

My father was a professional pothead disguised as a guitar teacher, and underlying all of this, for decades, he’d been a grower and dealer. But now, since marijuana was legal, he worked part-time at a dispensary, and he’d started that because he thought he’d get an employee discount but stayed because he enjoyed communing with his brethren.

Last, my little sister spent all her time attempting to garner followers on social media as well as get on reality programs, therefore how she paid her bills, I had no idea, but if my mind went there, it grew troubled.

Oh, and I was going to get some text from someone, and my brother needed me to do right by him, which undoubtedly would not be right by me.

I did not have the time, or the inclination (that last was a bit of a lie) to be charmed by, become besotted with and put the effort into taming a brokenhearted manwhore who was so pretty, my heart wept just watching him laugh.

But in the end, that heart would just be broken.

Because he’d break it.

“What’s funny?” I asked.

“You might have wanted to leave some of the stock of Urban Outfitters for the other nostalgics,” he answered on a grin.

Did he…

Actually…

Say that?

“Some of it’s from Anthropologie,” I sniffed.

He busted out laughing again.

“And some of it is vintage,” I snapped over his hilarity.

Now, he looked like he was fighting bending double with his amusement.

“What do you drive?” I queried.

“F-250,” he answered, still chucking.

“Sorry?”

“Ford F-250. A truck. A big one. And no, it’s not diesel and it absolutely does not plug into anything.”

I felt my lips thin.

He grinned again.

“I see we’re gonna discuss global warming over dinner,” he noted.

“There’s nothing to discuss. The globe is warming. Thus, we all should take some responsibility for turning that around. End of topic,” I retorted.

He was still grinning when he said, “Chill, Evan. I’m teasing you. Your pad is tight. I like it. And cross my heart,” and he did just this with a very long, well-shaped forefinger, “I put all my leftovers in those reusable ziplocks Mac bought all the guys, and as often as I can, I refuse a straw.”

“The end of the world as we know it isn’t funny,” I informed him.

“I’m not kidding.”

I studied his face in an attempt to ascertain if that was a lie.

He was apparently being honest.

Or he was a good liar.

He smiled at me again and said softly, “Your jewelry.”

“Right,” I muttered, turned and walked back to my bedroom.

My mind ran amok (mostly with thoughts about how soft his hair might be, then trying to stop thoughts of how soft his hair might be) as I put my little gold ball studs in my ears and one midi-ring on my left forefinger that had a line of tiny emeralds across the front.

This completed my outfit of army-green crop pants, gray scoop-necked, relax-fit tee (which I’d also given the French tuck), and the sand-colored blazer I was going to don when I got back to the kitchen.

I walked out and I did so carefully because Mag was still standing in my living room, he was watching me, and I was known to be a klutz and I did not want to date this guy, but I also did not want to make a fool of myself in front of him.

I went to the kitchen to shove my phone and lip gloss in my little bag and put on my blazer.

As my kitchen had a huge opening to the living room over a counter delineated by a column at one end, Mag asked through it, “Did you put on your jewelry?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause then, “Did good, babe. As gorgeous as you are, you don’t need much.”

My fingers stilled.

I wanted to be offended he’d called me “babe” and thought I needed his approval of my accessorizing.

All I could hear was the word “gorgeous.”

And this was the charm I needed to guard against.

The problem with that was it felt too nice aimed my way.

I didn’t know what to do, or say, so I looked down to my bag, fumbled my lip gloss, it fell off the counter, I bent to retrieve it…

And then, typical, within minutes of meeting him, I gave him a massive dose of the real Evan Gardiner.

This being, I slammed my forehead into the edge of the counter.

And that hurt.

A lot.

“Shit. Evan,” Mag called.

But I did not reply because I was in the midst of overcompensating the recovery. Staggering back, I slammed into the counter behind me, the edge of it digging painfully into the small of my back, and between the crack on my head making me dizzy and the sting in my back, I went down, flat on my ass.

Fabulous.

Mag was there in what seemed like half a second, crouching beside me, his long, strapping thighs splayed wide, his trousers molded to the curves and dips of his clearly muscular knees, his hand coming toward me.

I started to rear away from it, and he murmured, “Whoa,” and again moved fast so I banged the back of my head into his palm, which cracked against the cupboard.

I heard Nancy Kerrigan’s plaintive cry in my head, but mine had to do with why I’d given in to this date.

“Oh God, sorry,” I muttered, totally mortified.

“Just…don’t move,” he ordered, taking control of my chin and lifting it slowly.

I forced my eyes to his face to see him examining my forehead, but that close, I could see how curly his eyelashes were.

Not good.

Because they were awesome.

“Smacked yourself a good one,” he murmured.

Man.

This was just…

Humiliating.

“I think you need ice,” he went on.

“I—”

I stopped speaking because he moved fast again, doing this to pick me up.

Pick me up.

One arm under my knees, one at my upper back.

I was so stunned by this maneuver, not only him doing it, but his being able to do it, I said not a word as he walked me to my couch, laid me down on it, then strode back to the kitchen.

I heard the ice machine grinding and then he returned with a bundled dishtowel.

“Lay back,” he demanded.

I reclined against my fringed toss pillows and Mag gently set the bundle on my forehead.

“You need at least fifteen, twenty minutes of that, which means we’re gonna miss our reservation. I’ll order a pizza,” he declared. “Let me guess. Your half, veggie.”

I was not thrilled (at all) that I’d blown this date the way I had.

But one could not say I wasn’t thrilled I’d blown this date and now had a real excuse to get out of it.

In an effort to do that, I peered out from under the towel and started, “Danny—”

“Mag.”

“Sorry.”

“What?”

“What?” I parroted, because he wasn’t close, but he was not far, and I could see how curly his eyelashes were again.

“You said my name.”

“I did?”

His eyes narrowed and he stopped bending over me, holding the ice to my head, and bent into me, pulling the ice away and staring into my eyes.

“What day is it?” he asked.

“Tuesday.”

“Who set us up?”

“Lottie.”

He held three fingers up to my face. “How many fingers do you see?”

“Three, Mag, stop it. I’m okay. I just…”

I didn’t finish.

“What?” he asked.

“Just…”

I again didn’t finish.

“What, Evan?”

God, really, was he actually that handsome?

And right there, hovering over me, looking concerned, which made him even more handsome?

“Evan?” he called.

“Your eyelashes are very curly,” I whispered.

That was when he did it.

His gaze changed, it was an amazing change I felt in amazing places, it shifted to my mouth, and I felt that too, it was also amazing, and last, he murmured, “Baby.”

“I’m not your baby,” I breathed.

His gaze shifted back to my eyes, and he rumbled, all sexy, hot and sweet, “Oh yeah, you are.”

My toes curled.

“Danny—”

“Mag.”

“Mag, I—”

My phone buzzed with a text.

He looked to the kitchen counter, to me, put the ice back on and ordered, “Hold that.”

I did as told, and he straightened and took the single step it took him with his long-ass legs to get to the counter.

“What the fuck?” he asked.

I kept the ice where it should be but tipped my head to look at him only to see him reading my screen.

Yes.

Reading my screen.

“What are you doing?”

His eyes dropped down to me. “Who you gonna meet at Storage and Such on East Colfax at eleven fuckin’ thirty, Evan?”

Uh-oh.

“Why you gonna meet someone at Storage and Such on East fuckin’ Colfax at eleven fuckin’ thirty?” he continued.

I pushed up and reached out a hand. “Give me my phone.”

“Answer me,” he demanded testily.

I twisted in the couch to put my feet on the floor, saying, “I’ve known you all of ten minutes. You can’t read my texts and it’s none of your business who I meet where.”

“You got a situation?” he asked.

I didn’t.

My brother obviously did.

“No,” I semi-lied.

“You keep bad company?” he asked.

I didn’t.

But my brother totally did.

“No,” I did not lie, though I had a feeling, if I went to Storage and Such on East Colfax, I would be.

My phone chimed again with another text and his eyes went direct to it.

Now…

Really.

I stood, pulling the ice off my head and snapping, “Danny!”

He looked to me and growled, “It says meet outside unit six and come alone.”

I slowly closed my eyes and let my head fall back.

“Evan.”

He was still growling.

I said nothing.

Come alone.

Mick, what mess are you in now? I thought.

“Evie,” Mag clipped.

I opened my eyes and righted my head.

“There’s a favor I need to do for my brother.”

“At eleven thirty on East Colfax?”

I tipped my head to the side and shrugged, but that was a sham seeing as a chill was racing up my spine.

“Lie down. Ice on,” he bit out.

“Danny—”

“Lie your ass down and get that ice back to that bump, Evie, then we’ll talk.”

“We won’t talk, you’ll just go. Obviously, the date’s off for this evening. We’ll reschedule.”

Or we would not.

“Mac says you’re a genius,” he announced, apropos of nothing.

I blinked and asked, “What?”

“Lottie. She says you’re a genius.”

Wow.

That was nice.

“She says you told her that you took apart a radio, and put it back together,” he carried on. “When you were six.”

I did do that.

My mother thought I was a freak.

My father bought every broken radio he could find at thrift shops, brought them home, made me fix them, then sold them at triple what he bought them for.

I didn’t, incidentally, see a dime of those earnings.

I was six, but, you know, allowance.

Maybe?

Mag continued talking.

“So, genius, look at my face and tell me if I’m leaving.”

I looked at his face.

I then became suddenly exhausted as the weight of my visit with my brother and all that might mean settled hard on my shoulders, and I decided to stretch out on my couch and put the ice on my head.

“Good call,” he muttered.

One could say I was correct in my concerns about Daniel Magnusson.

I didn’t know if he was toxic.

But he was a bossy damned alpha.

And meddling.

“I don’t like you,” I told the ceiling.

“You like my eyelashes,” he said as I heard him settle in my armchair.

I made no reply.

“Talk to me,” he demanded.

I sighed.

Then I stated, “I think my brother is in a bit of a bind.”

“And this requires you to go to Storage and Such in the dead of night?”

Hmm.

The crack to my head was wearing off (though the humiliation lingered), and as it was, I was belatedly sensing this might be a boon.

I got the impression he liked me.

Even if I was a freak and a geek.

Even if I got snippy about global warming (as one should).

Even if I cracked my head on the counter and landed on my ass in my kitchen.

Even if I was not at one with some guy I barely knew helping himself to my texts.

But first date already ruined, it would be annihilated if he knew about my family.

He’d never want to see me again.

I slid my eyes his way. “My brother can’t go as he’s incarcerated.”

Mag just stared at me.

“And my father can’t go because my brother and my father haven’t talked to each other in five years due to the fact they’re the same person in two different bodies