Fast & Loose by Elizabeth Bevarly (the giving tree read aloud .txt) 📕

she’d come in to do, and that Bree was circling the block, waiting for her. But the big man was still standing between her and the door, and there was just something about him that prevented her from asking him to move. She told herself that the artist in her simply wanted to take a moment to appreciate physical beauty, since the artist in her did indeed appreciate physical beauty, regardless of how it manifested itself. This guy was beautiful in a way she didn’t often see, a beauty that was almost strident thanks to the boldness of his character and his larger-than-life charisma. Just by virtue of entering the room, he’d overpowered it, imbuing it with whatever it was that made him him.

He looked at Lulu and found her studying him, but instead of glowering at her this time, he smiled, and—whoosh!—there went the air rushing out of her lungs again. Because he had the kind of smile that made a woman want to immediately shimmy out of her underwear. And then hand it to him. On a silver platter. And tell him to just go ahead and keep the platter, too.

“You a visitor here, too, sweetheart?” he asked.

She told herself she should be put off by the way he kept calling her sweetheart. Usually, she wanted to smack guys who called her things like that. But the way he said it was different from the way other men said it. With other men, it came out sounding like an epithet uttered to keep a woman in her place. With this guy, it came out sounding like a luscious temptation to make Lulu do things she normally only wrote about doing in her journal.

She shook her head again to clear it of its odd thoughts, then realized the gesture was also a response to his question. “No, I live here.”

“Lucky you,” he replied, sounding genuinely envious.

Pleased that he would be impressed by her hometown, she smiled and replied, “I agree. It’s a great place to live.”

“I bet. Having a legendary track like Churchill Downs to visit whenever you want,” he said reverently. “Being able to go to the most famous horse race in the world year after year. That’s gotta be great.”

She deflated some. There was so much more to Louisville than the track, so many things to see and enjoy that had nothing to do with horse racing. But this guy was obviously one of those people who came to town only this time of year only to watch the horses. They flashed their cash, threw around their weight, and generally ran amok, usually at dozens of parties that had sprung up over the years to preface the Derby. Then they left town hungover and exhausted the morning after the race, never having explored anything else.

“Actually, not that many locals go to the Derby,” Lulu told him. “Or, at least, not to the part of the track where you can actually see the race. We’re generally relegated to the infield, where it’s a zoo, thanks to all the scalpers and corporate ownership of the good seats. It’s visitors like you who end up having the real Derby experience. The rest of us mostly watch the race on TV from home.”

The look he gave her then was probably the same expression he wore when he found a slug—or, even more appropriately, half a slug—on the bottom of his shoe. But all he said was, “Not a race fan, huh?”

Actually, Lulu loved the Derby itself and hadn’t missed seeing one that she could remember—on TV, anyway—in all her twenty-six years. Even when she’d had to be in Michigan once on Derby Day, she’d managed to make it to a TV in time to hear the strains of “My Old Kentucky Home” as the horses made their way to the starting gate. It was something that always brought tears to her eyes, which, she supposed, was hokey, but true. Any native Louisvillian worth his or her salt would admit to the same.

She didn’t, however, mention any of that to the man before her. Instead, she told him, “I’ve only been to the Downs a couple of times in my life. And I’ve never been to the Derby.”

Now he looked at her as if the half-slug on his shoe had developed leprosy. Then he smiled that underwear-divesting smile again and said, “Well, now, sweetheart, that’s just crazy talk.” He dug into his inside jacket pocket and withdrew a credit card–shaped piece of cardboard. “Here,” he said, thrusting it at her. “A clubhouse pass to the Downs. You can thank me later.”

Somehow she refrained from rolling her eyes. Big Daddy Race Fan was just so nice to the li’l ol’ local girl. She crossed her arms over her midsection. “Thanks, anyway, Big Daddy, but I have plans that day.” Mostly, she planned to steer clear of people like Big Daddy Race Fan.

“Oh, come on,” he said in that indulgent tone of voice people used with underlings they were trying to humor. And just like that, Lulu’s back went up again. “Be the first local to watch the Derby from the clubhouse,” he said. “Make your city proud. Don’t worry about putting me out. They sent me a dozen of these things.”

“I’m not worried about putting you out,” she told him. “The pass won’t be good for Derby Day. They never are.”

His smile fell. “They’re not?”

“Read the fine print,” she told him. “That’s why they sent you a dozen of them.”

He flipped the card over and did just that. “Oh.”

She almost felt sorry for him. He’d probably been thinking he’d have clubhouse privileges and all kinds of special treatment for Derby—for himself and eleven of his closest friends. Friends he doubtless planned to make while he was buying pitchers at Hooters. Poor guy. It was hard for someone like him to face the fact that he was just an Average Joe, not the big-time player he envisioned himself to be.

“Have fun in the infield,