I smiled. “That it is. And I’m guessing you live somewhere a little more swanky?”
Christian squinted at the building. “How do you get in?”
“Through the store. There’s a door in the back that leads upstairs to the two apartments.”
“What about when the market is closed?”
“It’s open twenty-four hours. So it’s never been a problem.”
Christian grinned. “You really jumped into the billionaire lifestyle, huh?”
“Totally.” I chuckled. “Well, thank you for the ride home—and for dropping off my grandfather.”
“Hang on. Let me find a parking spot, and I’ll walk you.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Maybe not. But it’s dark out, and I’m going to do it anyway.” He looked around. The street was lined with bumper-to-bumper cars, so he hit the button for the flashers. “On second thought, right here looks good.”
Christian got out of the van and jogged around to my side to open the passenger door. He held out a hand to help me. Being the klutz I am, I somehow dropped my binder as I stepped to the curb. It fell to the sidewalk and bounced, spilling the contents all over the street.
“Shit.” I bent to scoop up the papers, but the breeze caught a few pages and sent them sailing down the street.
Christian chased those down, while I corralled the others. When they were all cleaned up, he went to hand me the ones he’d gathered, then pulled them in for a closer inspection. “You’re keeping your own stats? You know there’s a team analyst who does that—more than one, actually.”
“I know. I used their stats to build an algorithm to try to predict the success rate of certain plays in the future.”
“Really? You can do that?”
“I thought so. It worked pretty well for some players, but not so much for others.”
“Which ones?”
“Which ones what?”
“Did it not work for?”
I shuffled the loose papers around until I found the ones with the most red ink. “Yates, for one. His was completely off. And so was Owens.”
Christian smiled. “Ah, you’re missing the human factor.”
“What do you mean?”
“Yates’s girlfriend dumped him this week. He’s a great player, but he’s also emotional as shit. He was off his game at practice all week, too. And Owens is worried about his contract renewal. His wife recently found out she’s pregnant with their fifth kid, and he’s in his early thirties. He’s got a lot riding on his shoulders with an uncertain future.”
“Oh wow,” I said. “I didn’t know any of that.”
Christian extended the papers in his hands to me. “Numbers are only half the equation. You need to get to know the people, too.”
I scrunched up my nose. “I’m not so great at that.”
He smiled. “I can help, if you want. I’m benched for a while still and mostly sitting around twiddling my thumbs.”
“That’s kind of you to offer. Normally when I tell people the things I’m doing for fun, they just look at me like I’m nuts.”
Christian walked me to the entrance of the fruit stand, which was only twenty feet away. “By the way, what was the reason you shot down the guy who asked you out earlier?”
“Umm… I recently went out on a first date with someone I used to work with, and my life is kind of busy right now.”
His eyes dropped to my lips for a half second. If I’d blinked, I would have missed it. “You and the guy you worked with exclusive?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Not yet anyway. But I also think I need to get settled in my new role and let that be the focus for a while—at least get to know all the different people in the organization and learn who I can trust and who I need to look out for.”
Christian rubbed his bottom lip with his thumb. “Alright. I get that. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yeah. I know everyone in the corporate organization pretty well, and all of the players. I’ll come by after practice and help you figure it all out.” He shrugged. “Sooner you’re settled, the sooner you can have dinner with me.”
“I never said I’d have dinner with you.”
Christian leaned in and kissed my cheek. “We’ll work on that, too. ’Night, boss lady.”
CHAPTER 4
* * *
BELLA
“The last thing we need to talk about is Sports Illustrated.”
“What about it?” I asked.
Beau Fallon, VP of Publicity, tapped his pen to his notepad. “They still want you for the cover. The president of the conglomerate that owns the magazine called me himself to ask what it would take to get it done.”
“Like I told you, I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to have a high profile right now. I need to make friends with the people who work here, not alienate them further by flashing my face all over and acting like I think I’m a rock star.”
“I know, and I agreed when you made that decision. But I wanted to raise the issue again because they brought up a good point—you’re the youngest person to ever own a team, and a woman. It could be inspiring to other young women to know someone who looks like them is on top at an unlikely place.”