Free Outside The Lines by Kimberly Kincaid

when I say it won’t happen again.”
    “See that it doesn’t , or next time I won’t be so generous. With either of you.”
    Without another word, his mother turned and walked out the door.
    #
    “Don’t take this the wrong way, dude, but you look like hammered shit.”
    Blake tightened his grip over the handle of his racquetball racquet and gave his cousin Aaron’s serve a satisfying thwack . “Is there a right way to take that?”
    “Probably not,” Aaron conceded cheerfully, the tattoo covering most of his right uppe r arm flexing as he made a one-handed volley like nothing-doing. The dickhead. “So are you going to tell me what’s got your panties in a twist, or are you going to let me use my imagination? Because seriously. I have extremely vivid mental acuity.”
    “I ran into Jules Shaw a couple of weeks ago.”
    The racquetball sailed past Aaron’s drop-jawed stare, bouncing to the blond wood floorboards behind them. “Damn, man. Not even I am that vivid. Is she…I mean, are you…”
    Better to just come out with it now that the lid was off the jar. “Yes, she’s still drop-dead gorgeous, and yes, she still makes me crazy.”
    “Nothing makes you crazy.” Doubt flashed behind his cousin’s black-coffee eyes , and he went to go retrieve the racquetball from behind center court. “You’re the most composed guy I know. No offense.”
    Only Aaron would find the insult in maintaining control. “None taken. And u nfortunately my composure disappears when it comes to this woman. She’s like Kryptonite, only with really hot shoes.”
    Blake shoved back the memory of Jules’s shiny black heels and walked over to the far corner of the court where he’d stashed his water bottle, since their game was obviously on a holy-shit delay. Not that it wasn’t warranted. After all, not only had Blake blown past all reason in an effort to seduce his ex-fiancée on top of cheap office furniture, but after her heated affirmation that it would never happen again, she’d barely said two words to him as he walked her politely from the building.
    Yeah. Holy shit might even be a little tame.
    “ So how’d you run into her?” Aaron asked, redirecting Blake’s attention back to the squeak and shuffle of the glass-enclosed racquetball court.
    “We’re working together on the Brentsville Hospital charity fundraiser committee. She’s in charge of the catering.”
    Aaron whistled in both amusement and surprise. “I bet your mother had a kitten. Come to think of it, how’d that get past the board, anyway?”
    Blake froze, his water bottle halfway to his lips. “What do you mean?”
    “I mean, the board of trustees is pretty protective of their own. Especially when the man in question just happens to have a last name that starts with F and ends in isher. I’m just surprised they let that fly.”
    Shock ricocheted through Blake’s chest. “Jules wrote an unbelievably good proposal. Look, I know the board can be...”
    “Totally biased with regard to preconceived notions?” Aaron skimmed a hand over his tattoo, a wicked smile breaking over his face.
    “Keep your issues to yourself, dude. I was going to say selective. But my mother isn’t that exclusionary. She wouldn’t turn down the right proposal just because of the name attached to it. ”
    As if to plant a fast-growing seed of doubt, his mother’s words from this morning slammed through his memory with the force of a wrecking ball in full swing.
    Perhaps it would be best if we rectified that .
    No way. She might’ve said she’d replace Mac’s as the vendor in the heat of the moment, but his mother would never orchestrate something so calculated or cold.
    Would she?
    “You know what, you might be right. That seems a little callous, even for the powers-that-be,” Aaron said, wiping the sheen of sweat from his dark brow. “So Jules is making you crazy, huh? Are you two…”
    His cousin waved an expectant hand through the air, but Blake deflected it