Mark wouldn’t go so far as to say he was better than Ty Savage. Well, maybe a little.
“Even better than Gretzky.”
Mark wasn’t so sure he was better than Gretzky, but one thing he was absolutely sure of: He’d never been comfortable in the hero role. He’d played hockey. He’d never saved a life or put his own life on the line. He’d never been a damn hero, but it seemed important to Derek. “Thanks, Hackster.”
Derek set his bottle on the island. “Do you want to see my stops?”
Not really, but when the kid looked at him like that, he couldn’t say no. “Sure.” He pointed to Derek’s skates. “You can show me on the front drive.” It was long enough that the kid wouldn’t run into anything, except Chelsea’s car. But really, what was one more dent?
Derek grabbed his skates, and the two of them headed toward the front of the house. As they moved past the office, Chelsea stuck her head out of the door.
“Can I talk to you, Mr. Bressler?”
He put his hand on Derek’s shoulder. “Go ahead and put your skates on outside. I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Okay, Coach.”
He watched Derek close the big door behind him before he approached his assistant. He was sure she’d want to talk about the kiss. “I’m sorry about grabbing you earlier,” he said, getting it over with. “It won’t happen again.”
She pushed up the corners of her lips. “Let’s just forget it ever happened.”
“Can you do that?” In his experience, women didn’t tend to forget something like that. They liked to pick at it and dissect it for days.
“Oh yeah.” She chuckled and waved a hand over her head as if the memory had been swept away. Her movement raised the hem of her hideous dress up her thigh. The laugh was a little too fake to convince anyone, least of all him. “Not a big deal. I’d already forgotten it.”
Liar. He took a step closer and stopped a few inches from her, forcing her to tilt her head back and look up at him as if she was waiting for his kiss. “I’m glad you’re not going to make a big deal out of it. I was half asleep.” Now it was his turn to lie. “And all doped up.” He hadn’t taken any Vicodin since that morning.
Her smile fell. “I think we’ve already established that we are not even remotely attracted to each other. You think my face is okay, but not my body. And while I find you…” She held up one hand and tilted it from one side to the other. “…okay, you’re rude and your personality sucks. And I like a man with a good personality.”
He doubted that like hell. “Right.”
“I do,” she tried to argue.
“You’re talking like a homely girl.” And she was far from homely. “Only homely girls like guys for their personality.”
She pointed at him. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. That was really rude.”
He shrugged. “Maybe, but it’s true.”
She frowned and folded her arms beneath her breasts. “What happened earlier isn’t what I needed to talk over with you. An agent from Windemere called regarding a house in Bellevue. It’s about to go on the market, and the agent wanted to show it to you first.”
“Set it up for next week.”
“She wanted to show it today.”
He shook his head and moved to the front door. The less time he spent with his assistant at the moment, the better. “I’ve got a date with the Hackster.”
“The kid is trouble.”
Derek wasn’t the only one. Mark looked over his shoulder at his cute little assistant with the sassy hair and smart mouth. The woman was nothing but trouble.
He opened the front door and closed it behind him. Derek sat on the porch fastening his skates. “That girl’s mean.”
“Chelsea?” He put the tip of his cane on the stair below and stepped down. Chelsea was many things. Annoying being the most prominent, but she wasn c, b’t mean.
“She gave me the stink eye.”
Mark laughed. “She didn’t give you the stink eye.” Although she had given Mark the stink eye on one or more occasions. The day she’d found out that sending her to buy those condoms had been a fool’s errand came to mind. “She just told you what you didn’t want to hear. You shouldn’t just show up at someone’s house. It’s rude.” He pulled his cell out of his pocket and handed it to the boy. “Call your mom.”