Better Than You (The Walker Family Series Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

here, and with victory one step closer, he wasn’t throwing in the towel yet. “Well…” he said carefully, “you didn’t throw my card away.”
    “No.”
    “So that’s something.”
    “Is it?” she challenged.
    “I think so. I was hoping you’d call.”
    There was a long pause, a rustle of some kind of fabric, another small sigh. This one wasn’t as agitated. More resigned. Maybe, he imagined, even a little bit sad.
    Mike tunneled through his memory and dredged up a genuine voice. The kind of voice he’d talk to his mother with because, clearly, there was no charming this Delta girl. “Are you having a nice night?” he asked, all innocence.
    Another pause. “Not really,” she said, something lacing her voice he hadn’t heard at the store earlier.
    “Why not?”
    “My dinner didn’t agree with me.” And for some reason, he didn’t think she was talking about her stomach.
    Jordan came back do wn the bar. “Do you jerk-offs – ” Mike silenced him with a wave.
    “What’s his problem?”
    “He’s getting rejected,” Tam supplied.
    Mike plugged up his free ear with a knuckle. “I’m sorry,” he told Delta.
    “Yeah, well…” S he trailed off and took a deep breath, let it out again. She was wrestling with her decision to call him, he could tell, chastising herself.
    He was over the moon, though. “How ‘bout if I make tomorrow night better? You wanna have dinner?” She was silent. “I mean, unless you’re still seeing someone…”
    “I’m…I…” She sighed again. “I can have dinner.”
    Mike grinned and shot his brother and best friend the bird. They both rolled their eyes. “Tomorrow, then. I’ll text you the address.”
     
    **
     
    When Mike left, Tam stopped even pretending to smile. Jordan had watched the guy’s depression deepen and darken over the past three or so years and it was exasperating. He worked the bar and took Tam refills and waited, because the question always came, always said in that same sad-sack, kicked-puppy voice.
    Jordan was reaching for a fresh mug from the overhead rack when Tam’s eyes flashed up to his face.
    “How is she?”
    Jordan sighed. Jo was probably the only person alive who didn’t know that, nearly four years later, Tam was still hung up on her. “If you’d just nut up and call her , then you’d know how she is.”
    Tam made a face and stared down into his beer, shaking his head.
    “She’s got a cold,” Jordan finally relented. “Keeps the whole house up at night coughing. But she’s fine.” Tam nodded. “And she handles single life better than you, dude.”
     
    **
     
    She was making a huge mistake.
    “ You have reached your destination ,” the computerized GPS voice announced as Delta turned in at the address Mike had sent her. It was a bowling alley. “Let’s meet for dinner,” he’d said, and she was at a bowling alley. Either he thought this was a cute joke, or this was his idea of a date. Neither was comforting for someone who was allergic to all things impulsive and frivolous.
    Delta parked her Volvo and then stared up at the glaringly bright neon sign above the building’s front entrance. It had been years since she’d been in a pair of bowling shoes; she’d spent every summer up until she was fifteen with her grandparents – her dad’s parents – and her grandfather had been in a bowling league. Her parents were stiff and stern and polished, but her grandparents…she’d been a kid with them. Not anyone’s collection of expectations, nobody’s princess – just a girl who went bowling with her grandpa. The old memories, sepia-toned and curling at the edges, came flooding back to her, bringing with them a nostalgia she didn’t want to feel when she met Mike Walker inside. She dated the right kind of men these days, not…whatever he was, and she didn’t want to be full of warm fuzzies and reminiscing when she was supposed to be scrutinizing his faults.
    With one last check of her lipstick – she’d