Two a day, p.8
Two a Day, page 8
Naughty little goblins seem like a far-fetched dating excuse, but he showed me the text thread. I’ll at least let him tell me the rest of the story. “And what did the goblins do?”
“They fucked shit up!” he says with a laugh. At least he can handle being the butt of a joke. “The update could have merged my contacts and made Patrick’s number the default IOU. Your message on Monday could have been filtered.” He clicks on his screen again and curses. “Fuck.”
He shows me the phone and there’s my note, no contact name attached, filtered into “unknown callers.” If he’s making this up, he went to a lot of trouble to fake the proof.
“So does this also mean if you know ten Davids they’re now one David?”
He looks horrified at the idea. “I better check on that. My friend David runs a sweet new tapas place, but this other David from high school tries to sell me Muscle Milk all the time. I’d hate to mix them up.”
“Understandable. But how do you have another IOU in your contacts?”
Drew drags a hand through his hair, maybe a little chagrined. When he meets my gaze, his vulnerable expression tugs on my heart. I don’t want to sound like I’m doubting him if this is a tough topic.
In his silence, I add gently, “I’m just curious. But you don’t have to tell me. Truly, it’s fine.”
“I don’t mind,” he says quietly, but it sounds like he’s gearing up to reveal something personal. “I didn’t have a lot of money growing up. My buddy Patrick didn’t either, but when we got to college, he started figuring out the stock market and started making money. I was still scraping by, so he’d help me out from time to time. I named him IOU as a joke between us. He didn’t mind, but it always embarrassed me a little that I had to ask.”
I’m touched that he’d share that. “Sounds like he’s a good friend. I’m glad you had him to turn to.”
“He’s a good guy. He’s my financial advisor now, which works out well for both of us.” He blows out a long breath, letting his embarrassment go. Good humor comes in its place, his eyes twinkling. “Somehow, I completely missed that he was pulling a fast one.”
I laugh at the absurdity of the whole situation, from the prank to his friend seizing the moment.
I’m ready to let him off the hook except for one thing. I arch a brow, quoting Patrick’s impersonation of me. “That all sounds good. But I’m totes down for feeding and fucking too. Can you pull off that feat, stud?” I stare at Drew, a smile on my face. “That wasn’t the tip-off you weren’t texting me?”
He shrugs sheepishly. “It didn’t entirely sound like you—the stud part especially. But I didn’t want to be judge-y about how you talked over text.”
I lift the other brow. “Punish me, baby?”
He tosses up his hands. “Maybe you liked bondage and stuff.”
“I’ve been a bad girl?”
He holds up his hands in surrender. “Hey, now. No judgies.”
“None from me,” I say, enjoying the same rapport as we did on Sunday. “But that’s not what I’d say.”
Drew parks his hands on his hips, issuing me a challenging stare. “What would you say, Surf Angel?”
I step closer, part my lips, lick them, and say, “Smack my ass. Hard. Harder. Yes. Just like that.”
His breath comes out staggered. “Brooke,” he says in a warning.
I do need to stop flirting, for real. When we slept together on Sunday, we weren’t working together. But now we are. I’ve stepped into a new job, the team is on reputation rehab, and Drew has a chance to show what he’s made of professionally.
I hate to say this. Truly I do. But there is no other choice. “We can’t go out tonight. Or at all.”
He’s quiet at first, impassive. I can picture him watching a game from the sidelines, giving nothing away. Then, with disappointment, he nods. “I had a feeling.”
“With the trouble the team has been through, we can’t take a chance of anything that would be…” I pause, hunting for the word. “Inappropriate. Even remotely inappropriate.”
No way in hell would management want a lawyer diddling with a player.
“Of course. We don’t want to put the team in a bad light,” he says. It’s a relief that he understands the full scope of the disaster another night together could be.
“And it’s your first year here,” I add. “We both have a lot at stake.”
“Exactly. Gotta keep everything above board.” Drew’s mood shifts from disappointed to playful. “But I bet there’s no rule that we can’t be friends. How’s that for a technicality?”
I can’t help it. I smile too. This man could charm the panties off me any day.
I mean, the pants.
He’s totally not charming my thong off. That little lacy number is staying where it belongs.
“That’s a good technicality. Let’s be friends,” I say, and we shake on it.
My one-night stand is now officially off-limits in the bedroom.
As friends, we return to the ballroom and join my colleagues and the people from the charity. We chat and nibble on appetizers, Drew posing for photos in front of the banner.
He’s the opposite of the guys from last year.
There’s no scowl to be seen for miles.
He’s so photogenic. That smile that dazzled me the day I met him on the beach is shining at full wattage. My chest warms as I look at him.
Someone nudges me and I startle, then relax when I realize it’s Stephen. “It’s like hiring America’s guy next door for the quarterback,” my boss says at a low volume, shaking his head in admiration.
“That’s a pretty apt description,” I agree.
“He’s going to make our lives so much easier if this keeps up. The camera loves him,” he says. “When you add in the mom, the kid sisters, the lifelong friends—it’s a PR dream.”
He might as well blow a chef’s kiss. Stephen’s got a vision for his new golden guy. He’ll serve it up to the media, and the media will love it.
“That would make our lives easier,” I say.
He grins, diabolically pleased. Then he tips his chin toward the guy with the magic arm and the perfect rep. “Let’s grab a photo of you with him too.”
I shoot him the side-eye.
“No. Seriously. I want pictures of him everywhere. I want to show the world we’re a united team, from management to the players, here at the Mercenaries.”
I slap on my poker face and slide in next to the star.
“Lucky me,” Drew whispers.
But we’re sort of unlucky too.
When the event winds down, Paul from the charity corrals Drew into a long conversation, and it’s time for me to call it a night. I say goodbye to Stephen, thanking him again for the horchata and the promotion, then I head to the lobby to call a Lyft.
I enter my location in the app, but before I can finish, I hear footsteps.
I stop tapping. I turn around. Drew’s by my side.
“You’re not leaving without saying goodbye, are you?”
“Of course not. Just ordering a Lyft. I was going to say goodbye.”
He covers my hand with his. “Don’t take a Lyft. Let’s walk for a bit. As friends.”
So, as friends, we leave together.
9
My Hardship
Drew
I don’t want a consolation prize with Brooke, but I also don’t want to go home yet. So in this case, I take the consolation prize. I hold the door for her as we go, glancing toward the ocean, the waves crashing nearby.
“Have you been paddle boarding since that fateful day?” she asks.
“No. And I won’t be paddle boarding again,” I say, explaining that the Mercenaries GM added it to the list of forbidden activities. “I’m just glad paddle boarding was allowed when I got hit on the head with that guy’s oar.”
She smiles. “Me too.”
I gesture to the sidewalk. “But walking? I’m allowed to walk as much as I want.”
“Walking makes us outliers. No one walks in Los Angeles,” she remarks as we stop at Colorado Avenue.
“Or we’re caught in a time warp,” I suggest helpfully.
She plays along. “Maybe even a parallel universe.”
“Maybe one where you don’t work for my team.” I shoot her a flirty smile and I have no regrets.
“Oh, I definitely don’t work with you in that world,” she says, returning my grin as we cross the street.
In the real world, we run the risk of being a scandal. If word got out somehow that I was administering orgasms to a team executive, I’d look like a playboy. Perception is everything there.
But in this alternate world, we’re just a baller and a lawyer heading down the street, through the throngs of people in Santa Monica, I toss out another question. “But aren’t they walking too, in Los Angeles? Are they in the parallel universe?”
“Hmm. Technically they are walking, but I feel like they’re walking in exploration. We’re walking as a form of commuting and no one does that, so we remain in our parallel universe.”
“You are the queen of technicalities,” I say.
She mimes adjusting a tiara, then gestures to the nearby pier. “And in our parallel lives, we’re going to the pier. Which is home to one of my favorite activities.”
“Besides reading and losing your mind over my dirty talk?” I ask, and oops. Went there again. Oh well.
She rolls her eyes but nudges my elbow. “Yes, Drew. Besides those two. My third favorite hobby is playing Whac-A-Mole.”
“Who’s dirty talking now, Brooke?”
“Whac-A-Mole is like a sushi hand roll. They can’t not sound naughty.”
“Maybe both are,” I say, then pat my stomach. “And now I want to take you out for sushi.”
“Mmm. Sushi sounds great,” she says. “In our time warp, of course.”
I groan, missing both sushi and our date. “You’re tempting me, woman.”
“Sushi and Whac-A-Mole are your weaknesses too?”
“Yes. Hell yes.” And I can’t resist a little more flirting so in a low, smoky voice, I add, “Among other things.”
She takes a shaky breath and seems to recenter herself, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “What else would we be doing on the pier? Whac-A-Mole and sushi and…?”
Easy answer. “Skee-Ball. That’s one of my favorite things to do. When I went to New York earlier in the summer to visit my cousin, I schooled him and his friends in Skee-Ball.” I bump my shoulder to hers, maybe because I’m taking what I can get. “I’m fucking awesome at Skee-Ball.”
“I should hope so, with that magic arm of yours,” she says with her trademark sass.
I wiggle my fingers. “I have good hands too.”
She shakes her head, amused. “Why do I feel like you can turn anything into a naughty comment?”
“Because I can. Except I shouldn’t,” I say, resigning myself to our reality. “Especially since I got fooled by naughty comments this afternoon.”
“Please tell Patrick he wins the award for best prankster. His prank was so good, I almost don’t even care that I was so bummed you didn’t text.”
I hate that she thought I was ditching her. “I was so not ghosting you.”
She frowns. “I know that now. But you should have seen the curses my friends and I lobbed at you.”
I bring my hand to my heart, defending past me. “Here I was being a good guy, sending you texts, checking in, and you thought I was a world-class jackass,” I say.
She winces but nods. “The whole time before the event, I was racking my brain to figure out how to handle seeing this guy who had left me in the dust,” she says as we pass a sidewalk café with a view of the water. For a few seconds, I wish we could duck in there, grab some drinks, nosh on appetizers.
That thought is a little detour from our conversation. “Meanwhile, I was thinking about tonight. How I was going to tell you the trade news over text, so we didn’t get bogged down with work bullshit over dinner.”
She looks at me with delight. “You had a whole plan for just talking to me?”
“Oh yeah,” I say, telling her what I’d considered. “At dinner, I planned to focus on getting to know you.”
I still want that. She’s a fascinating mix of smart and funny, awkward and sassy. She’s not afraid to bust my chops, and I enjoy the hell out of her company.
“Aww,” Brooke says, sounding legitimately touched. “That’s sweet.” She shoots me an apologetic look. “And I feel terrible now.”
I wish she didn’t think I was a schmuck for the last few days, so I want to seal the deal on the rep of past me. “No need to feel bad, especially since you’re now aware what an awesome date I’d have been,” I say with a grin.
“And you are, it seems, since this is kind of like a great second date. In our parallel universe. And I’m curious. What did you want to get to know about me?”
“Anything,” I say, emphatically. “What makes you tick. You said you have a sister. What’s she like?”
That’s an easy start.
Brooke lights up as she tells me about Cara, her bright outlook on life, how hard she studies, her drive to be a special education teacher. “I’m proud of her, especially since she’s almost debt free. I didn’t want her to be like me, weighed down with loans.”
I grimace. “That’s got to be an inevitability of law school,” I say with sympathy.
“It is, but hey, no one feels bad for lawyers. And in a couple years, I’ll have them paid off. But that’s another reason I was in a funk about work when I met you. I thought I’d been passed over. But then it turned out I got a new job and a raise.”
I grin and offer a hand to high-five. She smacks back. This is not the way I want to congratulate her on her promotion. A hot kiss would be better. “That is awesome,” I say, focusing on the positive.
“The flip side is no third date,” she says, sounding a little forlorn.
Womp. Womp.
“For the record, I would have asked you on a third date. And I would also have not ghosted you.”
“Good to know,” she says.
We’re quiet for a bit as we walk into the night, my gaze drifting to her shoes. Sexy red skirt that revs my engine. Those black heels. That tight little waist. “By the way, those shoes? I would have had you leave them on tonight,” I say, in a voice just for her.
A smile sneaks across her face, deliciously dirty. “Would you have?”
“Absolutely. You naked in those heels? Mmm,” I say, enjoying the images my brain is supplying. “I’d put them on my shoulders, around my waist, up in the air.”
She lets out a sexy whimper. “You’re making this hard.”
“Oh, it’s definitely hard,” I say.
“Your hardship,” she says, playfully.
“That describes me when I’m with you,” I say.
She shoots me a knowing look that says she’s onto my dirty thoughts. And she knows the risks of them, since she clears her throat, tsks me, then says, “You mentioned when I met you that you had twin sisters. What are they like?” I suppose it’s good that one of us has the self-control to course correct.
Plus, I’m always eager to share deets on the doubles. “They’re troublemakers and they trick my mom and her hubs all the time,” I say, then grab my phone and show her the mermaid pic.
“They are adorable,” she says, then studies my face for a few seconds, like she’s making sure she has clearance. “You said they were half-sisters…”
An invitation, giving me the chance to fill in the gaps. So far, I like sharing with Brooke. “My dad took off when I was five, then he died when I was twelve—hard-partying lifestyle, drinking too much, driving too fast.”
She squeezes my arm. “That’s hard.”
“It is but I can’t even say I miss him because I never knew him. All I knew was how he left Mom—with all the responsibility.”
“She raised a damn fine son,” Brooke says.
Mom deserves the credit. “She’s a good woman. I have the utmost respect for her. I want to do right by her. She’ll be at my first game.”
“I bet you’ll love seeing her there.”
“And you?” My question is open-ended too, for the same reasons. She can tell me about her family if she wants to or not.
“Mom and Dad are still together. He’s a high school football coach. Cara and I try to see them as often as we can.”
“Nice,” I say, liking that she has similar priorities to mine. “Will they come to the game too?”
“Probably. I called to let them know about the promotion this afternoon. Dad is excited about me working for a football team now.”
“Good man,” I say as we pass a billboard for Sebastian Lowe’s new film, a dark superhero flick I can’t wait to see.
“Favorite movie ever,” I prompt.
“Fake Play, of course,” Brooke says, naming a popular football movie from last decade.
I scoff. “You can’t pick a football movie.”
“Why not?”
“Because we work in football. Sports movies are ruled out.”
“But it’s an awesome movie. And they should not be ruled out.”
“Fine. Then let’s add The Time Out and Par for the Course. Also, Hail Mary,” I add.
“Whoa, reaching way back in the Hall of Fame archives for that one.”
“You didn’t really think I’d pick Field of Green. Everyone picks Field of Green.”
“Of course I didn’t think you’d do that, Drew,” she says. “And I do love all of those. The refurbished cinema off Ocean Avenue—Silver Screen Theater—is showing some of the best sports flicks in a few weeks. Including Fake Play. You can bet I’ll be there.”
“No one can resist the pull of Fake Play.”
“Ha! I knew you loved it after all.”
“I never said I didn’t,” I tease.
“It’s the kind of football movie that even non-football fans love.”
