No yeah, that was a dream, I decided.
Especially when I felt Drew get up and leave, closing the door behind him and leaving me to listen to his footsteps return down the hall.
18
EVIE
It was 11AM by the time I made it down the stairs the next morning. I’d woken up barely ten minutes ago, which was nuts. That meant I slept like a rock.
I was nervous when I heard Drew in the kitchen because I had no idea how he’d be this morning. I mean last night was crazy. It was crazy twice. It all felt like a dream quite honestly, and the only reason I knew it wasn’t was because I woke up to find the top right corner of my fitted sheet ripped off the bed.
And I remembered being the person who did that.
“Morning, babe.”
My eyes fluttered first, and then my heart followed suit when I heard Drew’s voice ring out from the kitchen. Whoa. Babe? Really? I was instantly as relieved as I was confused by the unwavering affection in his greeting. Okay, so I guess we know exactly where his head is at? I thought to myself, my heart pitter-pattering.
But then I got downstairs and realized the truth.
We had company.
“Oh. Hello,” I smiled politely at the older man standing beside the kitchen counter, wearing a blue Empires cap and a polo with the Empires logo on the breast. He gave a big, jolly wave before extending his hand as I walked over to him.
“Lou Dickerson. I’m your fella’s pitching coach. Nice to meet you.”
“Oh, so nice to meet you! I’m Evie,” I smiled bigger now that I knew who he was – or maybe it was because Drew placed his hand on the small of my back, wearing a convincingly proud smile on his face as he looked from Lou over to me.
“Lou’s just here to meet me so we can head to the stadium early and watch some tape from yesterday,” Drew said. The look of surprise I gave him was real.
“Wow. That’s super early.” Three hours earlier than usual. I had hoped to have even a minute of time alone with Drew before he left today. If anything, I just needed to see where his head was at. But apparently that wasn’t happening thanks to Lou.
I couldn’t be mad at this Lou guy though. He was just so nice and happy and he had the voice of a radio guy from the 1950’s.
“Evie, I wish I didn’t have to cut into your morning together, but when you see something that needs fixing, you gotta fix it!” he said.
“Ohhh right, the game.” The catastrophic 17-4 loss, to be specific. I didn’t even realize that Lou was talking about that until now. “Wow. I completely forgot that was last night.”
“Well, then it must’ve been you with the good influence,” Lou marveled. “I tell you, Evie, I came here prepared to talk Drew off a ledge this morning, but when I arrived the man was whistlin’ a tune in the kitchen!”
“What can I say, Lou? She’s good at helping me forget,” Drew said with such uncharacteristic wholesomeness that I had to suppress a laugh.
But then I chewed my lip over the fact that he was being so obviously fake with that line. Does that mean I did not in fact help him forget anything? Is he just happy he got to break the no touching rule and shove something in my face? Oh God, this is it, isn’t it? This is the start of the ice-out.
And… here it was.
The paranoia.
As I carried on with the typical small talk with Lou – Drew’s hand on my back the entire time – I wondered what the hell was next. When would I get alone time with Drew next? Tonight after the game? That meant I’d have to endure a whole day of being in my head about last night, overanalyzing everything and trying not to text Drew before he finally got in. God, that sounded like torture.
Especially since I was half-convinced that this was it for us.
We’d proved last night that, new rules or not, we couldn’t control ourselves around each other, so this was it for our contract. Tonight, Drew would come home and tell me that in the end, the fauxmance wasn’t worth his blue balls. Or he would try to get me to sleep with him, I staunchly would not, and then he’d just kick my ass out, invite some girls over and deal with Iain in the morning.
That sounded like such a Drew Maddox thing to do that my stomach preemptively twisted.
“Shoot, look at that time!” Lou suddenly looked at his watch. “We gotta split. Grab those waters, will ya, Drew?”
“Got it.” Drew slid his hand off my back and went over to the fridge, taking out two water bottles and setting them on the counter. “Car’s downstairs, so we’re all set.”