My brows furrowed when I saw his shirt. “And what in heaven’s name are you wearing?” I bent for a closer look.
“Lost a damn bet with Knox.”
Oh my God, is that Christian’s face? “What bet did you lose?”
“He beat me at checkers, so I have to sit here with all this dumb shit on.”
“Why were you playing checkers with Christian?”
“Because he’s a sore loser. I won last time, so he had to have a rematch.”
I shook my head. “But why were you playing with him at all?”
My grandfather shrugged. “You’ve seen the outdoor park in my complex…”
“Yes? What about it?”
“They have those concrete tables with checkerboards painted on the top.”
“Okay…”
“We sometimes stop there when we go out for a walk.”
I was still confused. “Christian comes to see you?”
“Once or twice a month. He used to come to my team’s practices, but since I retired, he comes to the house instead.”
“I didn’t realize you two were friendly.”
“Ever since I coached his pee-wee football team—too many years ago for me to count. I followed his career through the years after that, made your father come down and watch a few of his high school games. That’s how he became interested in Knox for the Bruins.”
Pee-wee football. And here I’d thought Christian was poking fun at me for being a stats geek and not knowing people so well. I had no idea my grandfather had been his coach.
“Well, the jumbotron found you sitting on the visitor side, and the announcers are having a field day with it. Why don’t you come up to the owner’s box for the rest of the game?”
He shook his head. “No can do. I’m no deadbeat. A bet’s a bet.”
I sighed. “Okay…well, my friend Miller is here with some friends, so I’m going to go back up. But I’ll come back down in a little bit to keep you company.”
“You enjoy your friends. I’m fine right here by myself watching the game.”
I smiled. “I’ll be back anyway.”
The second half had already started by the time I made my way back to the fancy skybox. “Is everything alright with your grandfather?” Miller asked.
“Yeah, he’s fine. Apparently he lost a bet, so that’s why he’s sitting on the opposing side, wearing a T-shirt with Christian Knox’s face on it.”
“Sounds like something we would do.” Miller sipped his wine and motioned to the private seating area outside where his new boyfriend, Trent, and Trent’s brother, Travis, were sitting. “So what do you think of Trav?”
I squinted. “I thought you said this wasn’t a fix up.”
“It’s not. But he has a great smile, doesn’t he?”
Sadly, I hadn’t even noticed. Though I had noticed, from all the way up here, that Christian Knox had a fantastic one as he stood on the sidelines. It was less of a smile and more of a smirk. On his official player photo, you could see one dimple. But in some of the interviews I’d watched this week, a second one made an appearance too. And no, I hadn’t stalked. I’d done research. I was the team owner now and needed to know who my players were. At least that was what I’d told myself on more than one occasion as I clicked on his photo in the team portal.
I shrugged. “I guess so. But you know I just started dating Julian.”
“Not dating. Date. You had one. Speaking of which, has he called yet?”
“No, but it’s only been a week.”
“I called Trent five minutes after our date ended to see if he wanted to go out again. He was literally still on my block, walking to the train he takes home.”
“Not everyone likes to go at warp speed in relationships like you do. Besides, I’ve known Julian a long time. He’s not the type of guy to rush into things, even with projects when we worked together. It was one of the things that gave us a lot of compatibility when I was doing the math on us.”
“The math on us.” Miller scoffed. “I know you’re a math genius, but not everything can be solved using a formula. If you’re going to pick men to date with some sort of dumb algorithm you developed—”
I interrupted. “I didn’t develop the algorithm. I used the Gale-Shapley model. It’s been proven to work for dating apps like Hinge, college admissions, and matching residents to hospitals. It’s a solid solution to stable matching problems. The developers won the Nobel Prize for it. Besides, you’re the one who pushed me to find someone I could have a long-term relationship with so…” I made air quotes. “I don’t wind up an old maid.”
“I meant to go out and meet people or go out with a guy more than five times, not feed all the men you know into a database.”
“You have your ways of doing things, and I have mine.”