by Bria Quinlan
I saved my notes, backed them up, backed them up again, and got up to stretch.
Rolling out my yoga mat—which, contrary to Kasey’s beliefs was not for picnicking—I started some warm-up stretches to get the writer-knots moving out of my shoulders and back.
Of course my butt would be straight up in the air when the door opened.
“Hey! Nice greeting.” Connor laughed as I heard him drop something by the door.
I rolled my eyes and glared at him over my shoulder. Instead of moving along, he lifted the coffee table up and over me then dropped to the floor to match my stretch.
“How’s it going?” he asked, as he exhaled and shifted with me to the next move.
“Good. Today was super productive. I’m almost ready to let my agent know about my new concept.” I held the stretch letting my muscles tense then start to relax.
That seemed to be the entire basis of living right now: tense slipping toward relaxed, then handspringing back to tense.
“That’s great.” Connor was nothing if not supportive of my career.
I think the fact that he also had a career that didn’t allow him a lot of flexibility created an understanding that most people didn’t have. They thought writing meant “working at home” and that meant napping on the couch watching soaps for six hours then tossing words on the page for twenty minutes.
I glanced toward Connor, watching him flex his way out of the stretch and felt such a deep contentment slide over me that I almost sighed out loud.
I sat up and leaned back on my hands, watching Connor finish the stretch he was easing out of.
He shifted, sitting up as well before crossing his legs to sit on the floor next to me. After a moment he leaned over and brushed a kiss across my lips, giving me the same shudder he’d given me since I’d stopped fighting our attraction.
Sure, half the country was attracted to Connor, but my feelings for him were way stronger than the draw of his pretty face. And, we’d worked hard to earn this after the way our relationship had started—fake and full of animosity. But real and full of love was a lot better.
“So,” he leaned over and swept a kiss across my lip so quickly I couldn’t even react. “Marcus asked if I wanted to rent a house together in Florida for spring training.”
Connor grinned at me like a loon. I was tempted to make a joke about him making a friend—a real friend—but realized it was too important a moment. He’d set aside his need to compete with every human with a Y chromosome and seemed so much happier for it.
“Oh, cool.” I liked Marcus. He was happy with his life, settled with his wife, and not a partier.
“We thought that way when you and Chantelle come down, we’re not living in one of those houses where the guys are throwing frat boy wannabe keggers every night.” He shifted so his hand covered mine where we sat on the floor. “I want you to be comfortable there so you’ll be there a lot.”
This had been an ongoing theme lately—the Spring Training Separation Period.
I was worried about the separation, but Connor was a wee bit obsessed with it. He’d had his handy-dandy personal assistant, Nick, doing things like printing out flight schedules and marking all flights from New England to Florida in blue with pink for return flights. He’d already asked me what I’d need to work remotely and for how long I felt comfortable not being at my house.
Poor Nick was probably trying to balance his other clients while solving imaginary scenarios that hadn’t happened yet so Connor wouldn’t worry about them.
“That’s sweet.” I thought about how often I’d be able to get down there—which was, not that much.
Florida was not a cheap flight time with spring break and people getting sick of the winter. I figured I’d get maybe two trips down.
“I can see your brain working.” Connor gave me a grin and eased back, lying on the floor beside me. “Stop. Paying for the travel isn’t a big deal for me. It’s not like a gift. It’s not me paying.”
“Um, it would be you paying if you paid.” I pointed it out since this seemed like just one more way Connor’s logic was slipping.
“Hails, I’m a multimillionaire. If I can’t spend my money on the things I want the most—which is time with you when I’m away—then what can I spend it on?” He sounded so sincere that I stretched out next to him, cuddling into his side as he continued. “I’ve already looked at the schedule and asked Marcus when Chantelle and their daughter typically come down. I know you’re on your own schedule too, but we put in long days. You’d have plenty of time to work. I’ll have a car down there for you to go wherever you want. You could maybe do some readings and stuff if we can get those scheduled.”
I let this run through my mind, considering the schedule as I went. It wasn’t a vacation—he was right. I could make this work. And, if this was what the future held, I needed to be able to compromise if I expected him to.
“So, I haven’t driven a car in six or seven years,” was all I said in reply.
He flashed me that gorgeous, happy smile. “I’ll make sure Nick gets us a lot of insurance then.”
I dropped my head back down onto his chest and relaxed into him, letting him make lists of things for Nick to do in his head. This was what my life had become—and it was a pretty good life.
This man, this insanely talented, kind-hearted, world famous, chaotic-minded man may have asked me to marry him.
Or maybe he didn’t.
7
I couldn’t believe I was going out for Abby’s birthday. It was still taking an adjustment to realize she wasn’t some snotty teenager. She was actually just a cynical twenty-something.
In retrospect, it wasn’t that much of a surprise. She’d been a steady presence in our lives. Her being one of the girls was kind of already an unspoken truth.
“So, you guys are taking Abby out to make her a woman, huh?” Connor lounged in the leather chair, feet propped up on the coffee table.
“You know,” I glanced over at him stretched out on my favorite piece of furniture, “if you don’t bother to ever go sit in your own chair, it’s not going to break in nice and cozy like that one.”
“Yeah. That’s okay.” He gave me a typical over-confident Connor smile, like he knew something I didn’t about the chair. My chair.
He was probably paying someone to go sit in the new chair at his place every day so it would eventually be broken in exactly how he wanted. Knowing my clever, clever man, he probably interviewed people based on their height, weight, and body mass to make sure the person exactly matched his form.
Probably compared butts and everything.
I just shook my head at him. There was really no sense in trying to comprehend the way Connor’s brain worked. With that, I headed into the bedroom to figure out what to wear.
Luckily, I still had Personal Shopper Becca’s binder to work with, so it wasn’t all that hard. And, since my agent was still feeling bad about the whole blackmailing-me-to-fake-date-a-player, she was still paying for Becca and her magic binder. I just had to open the huge color-coded binder to Girls’ Night Out and adjust for weather. And the fact that I didn’t want my butt hanging out of anything. Most suggestions were perfect, but for some reason Becca had an addiction to club clothes she kept thinking I’d wear.
Halloween seemed like a good time for that. It’s shocking how few Slutty Writer costumes there were for sale.
Unfortunately, girls’ night out meant breaking in more shoes. Becca loved shoes more than Carrie Bradshaw. The higher the heel, the better in her world. I, on the other hand, could live in flip-flops, Chucks, and Uggs…weather dependent.
Flipping through the binder, everything seemed flashier than I was looking to wear. I’d have to tell Becca to come up with some slightly more casual going-out clothes for next year. Something with flats. Because, unfortunately, if Connor was here to stay, so was having to look like I knew how to dress myself if I wanted to leave the house.
Yes, the irony of hiring som
eone to dress me so I looked like I could dress myself was not lost on me. But it gave me a comfort that nothing else could. Becca was good at finding outfits that were me—that I felt good and comfortable in—that I wouldn’t feel embarrassed if I landed on the front page of a tabloid.
After sorting through the pages and matching clothes up with the pictures, I finally found something that didn’t feel too over-done: a short skirt, heels that weren’t going to kill me, and a rich, velvet-like red top. That seemed pretty safe.
Unwrapping my wet hair from the towel, I crossed into the bathroom and started layering in gook that would make it look less-than-flat for the evening.
“What time is your car coming?” I shouted to Connor where he was still lounging.
He could probably go out in track pants and a plain white t-shirt and end up on the cover of some magazine as a Hot In The City type thing.
“Mac’s coming in about twenty minutes.”
I flipped my hair over, running the hairdryer as quickly as I could, thinking “dry faster” so maybe I could get a bit of cuddle time before he left.
No idea why Connor was having Mac pick him up here instead of just waiting at his own place for him. It’s not like I was getting ready to go out and rob a bank. It was just girls’ night out.
I didn’t know if it was cute or weird.
Probably both knowing him.
I slapped on some mascara and lip gloss and hobbled out to the living room, trying to get used to these shoes before leaving the house.
Connor was still in my chair, reading my latest National Geographic, which I’d magically started receiving on a regular basis. He looked adorable and sweet and comfortable.
I thought of the night ahead of me, the heat and crowds at the club. Wouldn’t it be nice to just curl up on his lap and stay there for the evening instead?
I crossed the room to do just that, even though I knew the plan wasn’t going to be put off and he’d have to leave in a few minutes.
Connor glanced up and his relaxed expression fell away and he stood, his gaze raking me from head to toe as I stutter-stepped to a halt.
“You’re not wearing that out.”
Note: That was not stated as a question.
“Yes. I am.” Because, yes. And, I was already wearing it. And honestly, this whole getting dressed to be able to have my picture taken at any given moment because my boyfriend was successful at catching and throwing a little ball around was absurd.
He continued to glare at me. Well, my skirt. The glaring seemed to be mostly directed at my skirt. And maybe the shoes.
“It’s kind of…” Connor glared some more, turning a bit to the side as if that were going to make the skirt not offend his delicate sensibilities.
I waited, wondering what he’d fill it in with… Short? Tacky? Out-of-style?
“Sexy.” He said the word as if it were a curse, annoyed that he was having to spit it out.
“Sexy?” I was still trying to wrap my head around that idea.
Sexy wasn’t a word people typically used to describe me. Even Connor. He’d tell me I looked cute or sweet or pretty. But never sexy.
My heart flipped over just a bit. A girl wants her man to think she’s sexy once in a while at the very minimum.
“And this is…” I tried to come up with the right word to fill in the blank. I narrowed it down to annoying and bad. Both of which did not seem to match up with my emotional response to my boyfriend thinking I looked sexy. “Not good?”
Connor paced past me, giving me another sweeping head-to-toe glare from the rear.
“It’s just the girls?” he asked.
“Going out tonight? Yes.” Unless he was trying to ask if we were going to an all girls club. Which honestly sounded like a pretty good idea. A place to have a drink and dance without dealing with Stranger Danger paranoia.
He shook his head. If there had been a chance of me knowing what the string of logic was he was working with, it was long gone when he’d asked that.
“Not even Dane?”
“Why would Dane be going?”
“Because you look like that and I’ll be at a dinner smiling and telling people to donate money to a good cause where I can’t do anything about the way he’ll be looking at you looking like that.”
I took a step back, almost tripping over the coffee table.
Connor was jealous? Because I was wearing a little skirt and leaving the house?
Granted, neither of those things happened on a regular basis, but it was just so… So cute.
Mr. Hottest Guy in Sports didn’t want me leaving the house unchaperoned in a short skirt.
“What exactly do you think is going to happen with me looking like this?”
Because, honestly, I had no idea what he was thinking. Not that that was new. Following Connor’s thought process was—obviously—becoming harder and harder to do.
“You’re going to get hit on!” He ran his hand through his hair, glaring at the skirt again. “You’re wearing heels.”
He said that in the same tone that someone might say you’re stealing from your dying mother.
I had better get hit on.
I mean, if I didn’t get hit on looking like this, there was a problem.
“So?”
“So?”
I glanced at the clock, doing the math on how much time we had to humor his silliness before Mac showed up and saved me.
“You know what?” Connor pulled his phone out and started scrolling through it. “Why don’t I take a cab to the dinner. Mac can drive you guys to…where is it you said you were going tonight?”
The tone that came out in was far, far too innocent compared to the outraged So? of a moment ago.
“I didn’t say.” And suddenly I was really glad I hadn’t.
He glanced up, giving me a look I can only assume he learned from Abby. We stared at each other, just giving one another a bit of space in this ridiculousness.
“Hailey, where are you ladies going tonight?” He smiled, trying to smooth things over.
“I’m not sure. And,” I smiled back, “I do not need Mac to chaperone me to make sure I behave.”
Seriously, I had a boyfriend who had dated half the model population of the free world and he was worried that I was going to do something stupid while out with my girls. Was he kidding?
“What?” He took the last step toward me and wrapped me in his arms. “I completely trust you. You’re the best person I know. It’s them I don’t trust.”
I rested my head against his chest, feeling the rapid bam-bam-bam of his heart against my ear.
“I don’t want to seem dense as this seems important to you, but who is them?”
“Them, Hailey!” His heart rate kicked back up. “Guys. The ones who are going to be hitting on you. All night.”
“Aww.” See? Cute. “Connor, just because a guy hits on me, doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything stupid.”
He huffed out a breath. “I know.”
“So, it doesn’t matter if a guy or two is friendly, because I’ll just tell them I’m taken.”
“A guy or two? Hailey, did you look in a mirror before you came out here?”
I pet his chest, easing him back down into the leather chair and curling up on his lap like I’d wanted to before he’d gotten stupid.
“I wish we could just stay in like this tonight.” I barely mumbled it into his neck where my head rested. I felt him nod in response as his arms tightened around me.
His phone gave a little buzz from where it sat on the coffee table letting him know Mac was here. He ignored it, his head dropping back against the back of the chair.
“I’m going to go out tonight and dance and have fun with the girls. I’m not going to worry about the fact that you will be at an event surrounded by models all evening while you talk about the upcoming season and the potential something sportsy happening to sportsy people. Because honestly, why do men need models to do that? And then, I’m going to co
me home, take these shoes off, probably soak my feet so they don’t fall off, and text you good night.”
“That sounds nice,” he answered, obviously only focusing on the last part of the evening. “Or, I could just come back here and see you when you get in.”
Apparently that worry wasn’t going away as easily as I’d thought it would.
“Okay. You could do that if you wanted to. But right now you’re going to head downstairs because it’s rude to keep Mac waiting.”
“Right,” he answered, but instead of getting up, he just tightened his arms around me.
After a moment, he rose, me still in his arms, and turned to set me back down, brushing a kiss across my lips first.
“Love you.” Connor smiled, looking a bit more relaxed again, before grabbing his coat and stalking out the door.
I watched it close and wished again for a night snuggled up on the couch for just the two of us before going back into the bathroom to fix my makeup.
8
I pushed my way into The Brew having absolutely no idea what to expect from a night out celebrating Abby’s twenty-first birthday.
For some reason, as cantankerous as Abby was, she didn’t come across as the type of person to go out and get wasted just because she was celebrating being on this Earth for a certain number of years.
But, who knows. She also hadn’t seemed like someone who would stealthily push her way into our circle.
It had taken me the entire walk there to realize that Abby, while being an odd-shaped puzzle piece, had somehow managed to become, in her own outsider’s way, a member of our group.
I also realized I was okay with that.
It wasn’t a surprise that I was the last one to get there since Jayne and I were the only ones who lived outside The Village.
And I’d had to deal with a temperamental baseball player.
I glanced around at the girls, figuring out if I was over or under-dressed for the evening. Even with Becca’s guidance, I was always afraid I’d hit things just a little wrong.
Jayne was looking her high-end artsy self, Kasey had the polish you’d expect of a marketing guru in the making, and Jenna managed to pull off Girl Next Door Goes Slightly Wild in a Very Safe Way.