“What you two were doing was not romantic,” the woman says, glaring at me.
The girls all giggle behind her, one saying what she saw and the others chiming in.
“I understand what you must be thinking, but please, what can we do to make this right? I can buy your entire collection of cookies.”
Nikki comes over. “They aren’t Girl Scouts, Logan. They’re in survivalist training.”
Could have fooled me. “Oh, sorry.”
“Yes, we build fires and hunt and fish. Speaking of, did you know that fire you started is against code for this area?” One of the girls comes up with an open book. “We should call the park ranger and get them fined.”
Miss Hartford poises her phone in front of her, staring at me.
I hold up my hands. “Okay, okay. We made a few mistakes.”
“Go ahead and call, my brother’s a ranger,” Nikki says.
I look over my shoulder and see her standing there with her arms crossed and hip cocked.
“No!” I hold up my hand. “Listen, you look like tough girls, but how about you come down to Pump It Up one day and I can show you a few moves to defend yourselves?”
The girl who probably knows the book she’s reading by heart looks at her leader. “It would be good for us to learn some self-defense.”
The woman looks at me. “How do I know you’re qualified?”
“Qualified? He’s Logan Stone,” Nikki chimes in again.
I wince. I was gonna try to keep that under wraps until they agreed.
“Logan Stone?” the girl asks and looks behind her, where the other three girls have pulled out their phones.
Once they’ve obviously got an image of me on their phones, they all giggle and show one another. The one with blonde braids brings her phone up to the girl with the leader.
She reads it then looks at me, and I feel as though I’m about to be interrogated by the world’s youngest federal agent. “He is, Miss Hartford. He’s at the end of his career, but he’s telling the truth.”
“End of his career?” Nikki comes up to me and swings her arm through mine. “He holds the title, and he fights again soon where he’ll keep the title. End of his career?” she scoffs. “Check your facts.”
“It says he’s thirty-four.” The girl looks at Nikki like duh.
I pat Nikki’s hand. I appreciate her sticking up for me, but the girl is right. I’m nearing the end of my career if I want to go out on top.
“Well, it only means I’m more knowledgeable, doesn’t it?” I say.
The whole group looks me over.
I’m starting to feel a little insecure until Miss Hartford sighs and nods. “Okay. But you two need to pack up your stuff and leave. Make sure you put out that fire.”
“Do you own this piece of land?” Nikki asks.
I laugh and put my body in front of hers, leading her back to our tent. “Thank you. I’m at Pump It Up every day from one to three, so just stop by and let me know when you want to plan some time with the girls.”
“Logan, we don’t have to leave. Adam will come and tell them.”
I shake my head. “Let’s just pack up and get home. Plus, you need to see someone about your hair.”
She touches the back. “How am I going to explain this? I can’t very well tell people that I burned off my hair giving you a blow job.”
“We also have another problem,” I tell her.
“What?”
“Do your wifely duties involve pulling splinters out of my ass?”
Her eyes widen. “Seriously?”
I nod and her head falls back in laughter. I could watch her laugh all day, but I shake my head and get started folding the tent up.
After we have everything packed, we head back to my truck.
“Hey,” I say to her once we’re secure in the cab.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for sticking up for me back there.”
She might not know how much that means to me, but it does. Rarely in my life has anyone gone to bat for me, and it only proves my gut was right to follow her up here.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Um… it was Dad.”
Nikki
“This isn’t something I thought my wife would be doing until at least ten years into the marriage,” Logan says, lying on his stomach on the bed.
“Just hold still.” I pluck another splinter out of his ass. “I’d rather do it now when your ass looks like this than when it’s all saggy.”
“Are you suggesting my ass is gonna be saggy in ten years?”
“Well, you are at the end of your career,” I joke, laughing so he knows I’m only kidding. The way his eyes were so grateful and caring when he thanked me for sticking up for him… I’ve never felt so appreciated for doing such a small thing.
“Funny. Let’s remember the vows, for better or worse.”
I pluck out another one.
“Ouch!”
“Sorry.” I cringe. “Isn’t that the problem though? I don’t remember the vows.”
“Just another reason for us to repeat them.”
I freeze with the tweezers over another splinter. “What?”
He tries to glance over his shoulder but can’t. “I want us to renew our vows at some point.”
I grab another splinter. “Like when?”
“Relax. Not until my fight is over and we’ve dated for a little bit.”
I laugh because surely that sentence has never been said before. “Let’s get all these splinters out and then my hair cut. One problem at a time.”
I hear the downstairs door open and then, “Logan!” I tense for a moment.
“Busy, Mom, come back later,” he yells back, and the tension leaves my muscles.
Of course it’s Pauline. I need to stop thinking some woman is going to come in and throw a landmine into our situation.
“You’re never busy for me, unless Nikki’s with you.” I hear her footsteps on the stairs.
“She is with me.”
“Hi, Pauline,” I say with the hope it will keep her out of here. Not that it’s my ass on display.
“Oh, sweetie, you’re who I wanted to see. There’s all this talk about this duo night.” She walks into the room and rears back in horror. “You don’t have hemorrhoids again, do you?”
“I’m tapping out,” I say.
“Jesus, Mom, I’ve never had hemorrhoids. And please leave.” He throws his head into the pillow and screams. “I swear, Nikki, I’ve never had hemorrhoids.”
Pauline strolls into the room and looks over my shoulder. “Really? I swear it was you. Maybe that was Bert. He was an old boyfriend.” She touches my arm. “Always had one health problem or another.”
“He did have two heart attacks,” Logan says.
“And I nursed him back to health after each one,” Pauline says and rolls her eyes.
Their banter as son and mom is cute.
“What happened here?” She points at Logan’s ass.
“He has splinters,” I say, placing the blanket over his bare ass.