He arches an eyebrow. Even that simple gesture is impossibly sexy on him. But then, he has an unfair advantage because he’s decked out in tailored pants, a dress shirt, and a vest that fits him like a glove. If he wasn’t already stunning, the damn vest alone would send him to the top of the hot list.
I’ve seen him in shorts, and now I’ve seen him in a suit. The man makes the clothes every time.
The universe is a joker.
“I had no idea you were going to be here,” he says, in a thoughtful tone—that tone makes zero sense. “But the job sounds good?”
Why is he being so nice? “Yes. Like I said, I just found out today. They added football to my purview. So I guess we’re working together,” I say with the biggest grin I can muster.
No way am I letting on how hurt I was by his silent treatment. I don’t want to get wounded again. I still have scars from Sailor’s trickery.
I angle my body toward the ballroom, hoping Drew gets the message that it’s time to return to the event.
“I was shocked too,” Drew adds, still chatting in spite of my best efforts to grow wings. “I was going to tell you about the trade when we texted earlier,” he says as I take a step down the hall.
What did he just say?
I stop and turn back to him, lifting a brow. “Excuse me?”
He smiles, flirty and just a touch embarrassed—but sexy embarrassed—as he glances around and lowers his voice. “You know. About the tacos, and the chocolate sauce, and the yada yada yada.”
I know nothing about this yada.
I frown. “What texts, Drew?”
He steps closer, leans into me, his mouth dangerously near to my ear. I shiver. Stupid body. “You know—when you let on you’re into food play,” Drew whispers, his voice low and husky and turning me on even though I’m not into food play.
I am, however, into solving problems.
I step back, meet his eyes. “We didn’t text, so I’m not sure what you mean. I haven’t heard from you since you left my house.” And I will prove it, stat. Reaching into my clutch, I grab my phone, unlock it, and click to my texts. “See?” I say, eager to show him the evidence.
He peers at my screen, studying the messages from Sunday, then my text to him on Monday about changing the time for tonight. There’s no reply from him. The chain ends there.
Such a sad text thread.
So empty.
“Oh, shit,” he mutters, then drags a hand down his face in slow, motion. “I should have known you’d never call mestudorbaby.” He sounds mortified.
He pulls his phone from his pocket. “I never got your message on Monday about the time. But Ithoughtwewere texting,” he says, sheepishly. “Because of this…”
He shows me the screen he’s pulled up, and I read a slew of messages between Drew and IOU. My eyes widen, flicking from the screen to him as I follow this bawdy thread.
By the end, I can barely contain my laughter. “Drew, I think you have two IOUs,” I whisper through my chuckles.
“Ya think?” he asks drily. “I just want to know which of my jackass friends pulled this off.”
“Someone who’s going to be crowing about it for a long time,” I say with admiration for the architect of this joke. Someone worked him over big time. “But how did this happen?”
Before he can attempt to answer, his phone beeps. The name IOU appears in the notification window but there’s a picture of a dark-haired man smirking, next to the wordsDid you spank her with tacos yet?
Drew groans. In guy language, that loosely translates toI can’t believe that fucker tricked me.He shakes his head. “I have to tip my cap to my buddy.”
“But what happened? You wrote back to me on Sunday night and I got it. And then nothing?”
His brow knits, cogs turning as he thinks. Then the circuit closes and he winces at what he’s about to say. “This is going to sound incredibly ridic, but I had to reset my phone on Monday morning because it was doing wonky phone shit. I don’t know if it was the sand on Sunday or it was possessed by goblins or what.”
Naughty little goblins seem like a far-fetched dating excuse, but he showed me the text thread. I’llat least let him tell me the rest of the story. “And what did the goblins do?”