I inspected it. “You just grabbed this? What did it cost, like fifty thousand dollars?”
“How am I supposed to remember? Well, are you going to say, ‘I do’ or what?”
“The woman says ‘yes’ for a proposal and ‘I do’ at the wedding. You’ve got so much to learn if we’re going to get you through this wedding without everyone realizing its fake.”
“That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. If we’re going to pretend to be in love, we’ll probably need to get to know each other. I was thinking we could spend some time together. Let me tag along while you do wedding planning things or whatever.”
“Tag along…”
“Yeah. I’d be your famous, mega talented sidekick.”
“Why do I feel like you’re not telling me your real motivations here?”
Chris stood up and dusted off his knees. “Because you’re unusually perceptive? So what are you doing tonight?”
“Looking up venues for the wedding.”
“Great. What time should I meet you?”
“Meet me? I’m going to be right here on my laptop. In like… I don’t know, however long it takes me to finish cleaning.”
“Wait,” Chris lifted up the blanket to see my sock-clad feet. Then he looked around for a second, head swiveling.
“What are you doing?”
“Just trying to find… Ah!” He found my speaker, then hit play. “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” resumed blaring through the apartment.
I tried not to be mortally embarrassed, but my cheeks were already burning.
He hooked his thumb toward the speaker. “You were absolutely doing that thing from that old movie, weren’t you?”
“Will you please leave?”
Chris started bobbing his body and dancing his way out of my apartment, mouthing every word to the song as he went. He was in the middle of silently singing when the door closed behind him.
I got up, turned off the music, and looked at the pickles in my hand with utter confusion. Chris Rose was turning my life and my brain into a scrambled, confusing mess.
And then my phone buzzed. I glanced at the text that just came in and felt a jab of pure panic hit when I saw who it was from.
Lance Carter.14ChrisThe tune of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” was still stuck in my head as I sat through a team meeting at the facility. Unfortunately, I did occasionally have to “work,” but unless coach went on one of his occasional rants, I’d still be out in time to crash Belle’s wedding planning session on her couch.
And damn, I was looking forward to it.
I sat in the back of the meeting room and took notes. One thing nobody ever seemed to get was that when I was at the facility or in a game, it got my entire focus.
Okay, sometimes it might’ve been more like ninety, and today I might’ve been rocking more of an eighty or seventy. But I couldn’t help it. I’d gotten a glorious view of Belle’s white-panty clad ass when I broke into her apartment.
Magnificent.
I felt my cock stiffen at the memory, which led me to thinking of our encounter in the airplane bathroom for about the hundredth time since it happened.
I was packing up my stuff to leave after the meeting when one of coach’s assistants stopped me. “Hey, Coach wants a word in his office.”
Dammit. I had somewhere to be, but I knew I was on thin enough ice as it was. I grudgingly headed to his office.
Coach Mackie was sitting behind his desk, completely decked out in the black and red team colors. He looked like a bulldog who snuck into a Golden Corral after hours that hadn’t been found for about a week.
“Sit.” Coach Mackie pointed at the chair across from his desk.
I obliged, slinging my bag to the ground beside me. “What’s up?”
“I wanted to make something crystal clear to you. I don’t like you. I don’t like the bullshit you get into. I don’t like looking at your stupid pretty boy face. And I’m only tolerating your ass on my team because of the numbers you put up.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Thank you?”
“No. I’m telling you that if you don’t play out of your mind for the rest of the season, you’re done here. And I’ll do everything I can to make sure every other team in the league knows what a pain in my ass you were.”
“Honest question. How long has it been since my last incident?”
“Get out of my office.”
I shrugged, then stood. “Coach. It was really sweet of you to call me pretty, though. That means a lot.”
“Out!” Coach Mackie pounded his fists on the table.
He didn’t have to tell me twice.
Oh, actually I guess he did. But I was more than willing to go, because Belle was probably waiting for me with those diamond-cutter nipples of hers all perked up and excited.
It really was cute how much she liked me.