If he thought her explanation was odd, he didn’t say anything. He slid the button, then handed it back to her to input her password. Then, with quick thumbs, he entered his information and gave the phone back. Then he began packing up the remains of their lunch and the Danish box.
Cassie looked at the contact page. Not only had he left his cell, but his home phone and email. “Trey Owens.”
He froze mid-step. “Hmm?”
“Owens. I don’t think I even knew your last name.” She laughed a little. “Weird.”
“Yeah. Weird.” He seemed confused by her finding humor in the moment. But maybe he was still reeling from the quick on-off switch of their kiss.
After all, she was.
* * *
“So, let me get this straight.” Stephen guzzled from his Coke, then reached for another wing in the Big Ass Basket of wings they were sharing. “She still doesn’t know who you are.”
Josiah shook his head. “Three times now, she’s seen you. This time without the glasses. And she still didn’t connect the dots?” He took a wing for himself. “Is she slow?”
“Fuck you,” Trey muttered, then waved their server over for another round of sodas. What he wanted was a beer. Beer and wings. Together, they were an American institution. But he and Josiah had decided to take Stephen out for a non-alcoholic meal. If he wanted his friend to sober up, he had to play the game with him. “She’s not slow. She just doesn’t follow football. And she’s not from around here, either. She doesn’t know anything about the Bobcats.”
“Yet,” Stephen said, with doom-like emphasis. “She doesn’t know yet. It’s quiet right now, with preseason going on. But you know the closer it gets to regular season, the closer it is to you not being able to hide this shit. Your face is going to be on the local news, on a billboard nearby, whatever.”
“Yeah. I know.” He wasn’t an idiot, after all. “I can’t explain it. She just . . . gets to me. And the longer I go without having to hear her ask about other guys on the team, or how I get paid, or asking to wear my fucking jersey in bed—”
“That’s hot,” Josiah said around a mouthful of chicken. “Not sure why you’d turn that one down.”
“On principle, sure. When it’s the fourth woman in a row to ask, it loses appeal.”
Josiah and Stephen exchanged looks that screamed bullshit. But they didn’t push, and the three ate in silence for a moment. The only sounds were the cups rattling on the table when one or more of them pounded a fist on the table watching the Arizona Diamondbacks—the closest thing they had to a home MLB team—bite the big one against the Cardinals.
“So, when do you see Sexy Club Chick—”
“Cassie.”
“Right, Cassie, the Sexy Club Chick, again?”
He ignored that. “Anyone notice we haven’t seen much of Coach lately?”
“Don’t change the subject,” Stephen warned.
“He’s right,” Josiah put in, then shrugged when Stephen glared. “By now, he’d be giving us daily inspirational speeches and calling Trey and me up to his office for weekly leadership talks. But we haven’t been up to the main offices since the first day.”
“Thank your lucky stars,” Stephen muttered.
“Some of us actually like the guy,” Josiah said easily.
“Because ‘some of us’,” Stephen said, using the dreaded quote fingers, “are his little bitches who do everything he asks.”
“I happen to like Eyes on the Family events, thank you.”
Trey resisted rolling his eyes, but he understood where Josiah was coming from. Every player, even the hardest ones, tended to have a charity or cause close to their hearts. Some gave back by loaning their name and fame to the organization and stumping for events. He preferred the anonymous route, sending in a check via his accountant from a trust. But if Josiah liked those stuffy dinners Coach was always attending, more power to him.
Plus, Trey liked Coach Jordan. He was stricter than any other coach he’d had, but he could appreciate the intensity and focus it brought to the field. He didn’t put up with shit from his players, and he expected their best on and off the field. He was a well-known family man, the poster boy for “squeaky clean.”
Which meant Stephen needed to keep his ass in line, or he’d be gone before he could mouth the words “sobriety.”
Stephen snorted. “Trey, did you bring your Clark Kent glasses?”
Trey raised a brow. “No. It’s two in the afternoon. Nobody’s here but us.” And at the restaurant they’d chosen, a local sports bar, the servers were used to the Bobcats coming in that the squeal-factor had long since died off.
“Not anymore,” Stephen muttered, then smiled a genuine smile over Trey’s shoulder. The smile he used when he saw adoring fans—usually of the hot, college-age girl type—coming.”
Aw, shit.
“You could always go out the back. You know they’ll let you through the kitchen,” Josiah said quietly.
“Let him fight his own battles.” Stephen, who loved the attention, grinned at the first squeal. “Too late, anyway.”
And when the first pair of breasts squeezed in against his shoulder for a selfie, Trey let his mind drift back to a simple picnic on a parking garage rooftop with a woman who didn’t squeal or take selfies or give a flip about his passing yard percentages from the last season.
He wanted Cassie.
If only she’d freaking call.
Chapter Nine
“Remember, please, just don’t wear that shirt again. It’s cute and all, but . . .” Simon Poehler, the PR guy Cassie had been working with, raised a brow at her Come to the nerd side, we have Pi shirt. “It just doesn’t say ‘responsible, mature adult.’”
She glanced down at the shirt, which she had found hilarious when she’d ordered it online. Her co-workers back home loved it. But it didn’t look like it came from the J.Crew catalog, so it was a banned item. As was a great deal of her daily wardrobe. Appearance was everything, after all.
“Of course, thank you.” She pasted on the glassy smile she’d been practicing, and Simon nodded in agreement. Cassie waited for him to close the door behind him, then slumped down in the chair. The slump, as she’d been told, made her look like an irresponsible teenager.
Sometimes, a girl just needed to slump.
After a moment, she checked her watch. Nearly noon, which meant it would be time for her lunch with Ken.
Cassie popped her head out the conference room door and looked around. No Coach. “Hey, Frank?”
Frank, Ken, and his assistant head coach’s shared executive assistant, whom she’d come to know pretty well the past few weeks, grunted. It was, she knew, his favorite method of communication.
“Is Coach Jordan around anywhere?”
She’d debated what to refer to her father as around the office. The PR people knew her relationship to the head coach, and she was pretty sure Frank knew as well. But there was no sense in letting the cat out of the bag early from eavesdropping ears.
“Coach called ten minutes ago with a message.” Frank kept typing, and Cassie waited, knowing the drill. When he was good and ready, he’d pass the message on. And not a moment sooner.
After another thirty seconds of furious typing, he looked up. “He had to cancel.”
She continued to wait, but Frank just watched her with those steely eyes. “That’s all? That’s the whole message?”
Why would she expect more? He’d cancelled seven out of the past ten lunch dates they’d scheduled. He was a busy guy, yeah, but she’d told him repeatedly she didn’t mind eating on the fly and watching him work. She could eat while watching a practice, or in the car on the way to a meeting.
Work wasn’t the reason. That was just a stupid, unimaginative excuse. He wasn’t comfortable with her. Whether that was because she asked too many questions, she looked too much like her mother, or her sheer existence and the impending fallout made him more uncomfortable, she wasn’t sure. Probably a combinatio
n of all three.
Ironically, at least twice he’d ditched her for some Eyes on the Family meeting or conference call. Keeping his eyes on the family, indeed . . .
Too. Damn. Bad. She wasn’t leaving Santa Fe until she had all the answers to the questions she had. Including the question she wasn’t even sure existed yet.
Frank was already back to typing, so she ducked back into the conference room to grab her bag. She was on her own—again—for lunch. Maybe she’d try that deli a few blocks down. The one she and Trey had split his sandwich from . . .
Her hand itched to reach in her bag for her phone and open his contact again. For the past two days, she’d stared at it, thumb hovering over the “call” button, daring herself to take that next step. It wasn’t rebellion that kept her coming back to his name, but desire. For more physical contact, yes. But also the companionship. The ability to just talk with someone not criticizing her wardrobe or her posture. Someone not avoiding her.
She stepped out and closed the conference door behind her.
“He said to call Tabitha.”
“Hmm? What?” She turned to Frank, who never looked up from his computer screen. He was like the gruff old troll who guarded bridges. The thought of him sitting next to a bridge, typing on his computer, made her smile.
“He said to call Tabitha and see about a girls’ day or something. I think she had a charity luncheon, but you could tag along. His words,” he added, looking up for a fraction of a second before returning to his monitor. “Not mine.”
Call Tabitha.
For some reason, the suggestion felt more like a slap in the face than just not showing up for lunch himself. As if he assumed she would accept the substitute for his presence in the form of another awkward, socially painful meal with a woman she had nothing in common with, and who seemed put off by Cassie’s existence.
She hadn’t come here to get to know her father’s wife. She came for him.
Cassie pasted on her Tabitha-approved smile and shrugged one shoulder, ready to walk out.
He glanced up, and for once his fingers stopped typing. The lack of the keys hit her ears as harsh. Frank’s typing had become like a white noise machine in the outer office. Its absence was almost as shocking as a bomb blast.
“I can’t control him.”
Cassie’s brows rose in confusion. “I know that.”
“I don’t like what he’s doing, but I can’t control him.”
Then he was back to typing again. Understanding what the moment was, Cassie smiled more genuinely. “Thanks Frank.”
He grunted, and she felt a little better as she walked down the hallway of past coaches and past team members. More than once, Kristen had tried to give her a Bobcats history lesson on past coaches, past NFL Hall-of-Famers . . . but Cassie wasn’t interested. The only coach who mattered didn’t care at all about her.
So maybe it was time for some independence. Her father wouldn’t make time for her, so she would make time for things that brought her a little enjoyment. Things that kept her sane while he ignored her.
As she walked out the side door, her hand crept to her cell phone again, and this time she let her thumb hit the dial button.
* * *
“Ever notice how you always leave this game broke as a joke?” Stephen rolled his dice and moved his silver car three spaces, rolling his eyes when he landed in jail.
“It’s a warning sign.” Trey rolled and landed on a new property. “Buying it.”
“Of course you are.” Stephen stared longingly at the kitchen. “You know, a beer would make this game more tolerable. Oh.” His eyes lit with hope. “Drinking game. Every time we land on each other’s property, we take a shot.”
“Impossible. Nothing’s better than a bottle of water and a little Monopoly.” Trey took a swig of water and grinned a toothpaste-commercial grin.
Stephen flipped him off.
Trey’s phone buzzed on the table. He started to ignore it—he was on Stephen duty, after all, and it was the ringer for a call from someone not in his contacts, which likely meant it was a wrong number. But his friend grabbed the phone first.
“Trey’s Porn Palace, how can I direct your call?” Stephen’s smug grin morphed into a disbelieving face. “Cassie? Are you shitting me?”
Cassie? Trey’s head snapped up and he held out a hand. “Phone.”
Stephen settled back against the couch cushions. “This is Stephen. Remember me? I was with Trey the night you two met. The big, handsome bastard overshadowing Trey with my rugged good looks. Yup, that was me.” He covered the phone and winked at Trey. “She remembers me. Probably because you were her second choice.”
“Give me the phone.”
His friend’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Now, Cassie, I have to ask . . . is this a genuine booty call, or more of a feeler?”
Shit. “Give me the phone!” Trey dove over the coffee table, upending the game, and landed on Stephen with a grunt. There was a quick tussle, resulting in an elbow to the ribs and a curse from Stephen before he relinquished the phone. Trey stood up and backed away quickly out of arm’s reach. “Cassie? Are you there?”
There was a long pause, enough for him to double check his phone screen and make sure he hadn’t hung up on accident.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
Sweet Jesus, thank you. “Hold on just a second, let me step out.” As Stephen made sick, kissing noises behind him, Trey ignored him and wandered to the deck off the kitchen. Sliding the glass doors all the way shut, he sat on an old lawn chair. “Sorry about that. Stephen’s an asshole.”
She laughed. “Friends are meant to be jerks. If they aren’t teasing you, something’s wrong. It’s okay.”
“Yeah.” He raked a hand through his hair and let his head fall back. “Okay, good.”
“I hope you don’t mind me calling, but—”
“No,” he said quickly, then added in a more even tone, “I don’t mind. Of course not.”
“I wasn’t sure if I’d catch you or just leave a message. Anyway, I have the rest of the day free and I was thinking about your offer to see the city.”
She left that hanging, obviously wanting him to pick up the ball and run with it.
Luckily, Trey had quick hands. “Absolutely. I’ve got the rest of the day free myself. I could just . . .” He trailed off as he glanced back through the sliding glass doors.
Stephen stood, refrigerator door open, staring blankly into it. Though he couldn’t see in the fridge itself, Trey could easily guess he was staring longingly at a bottle of beer.
Damn. Shitfuckdamn. He’d forgotten to move the beer to the garage fridge this morning.
“Uh, Cassie . . . I hate to do this.” Really, really hate. “But I have to pass. I’m sort of . . . babysitting.” He winced at the words, but how else to explain it?
“Oh.” Her voice was neutral, and he wasn’t sure if that was a simple surprised oh or an I think you’re a lying sack oh. With women, one could never be entirely sure. “Do you . . . that is are they . . . uh, hmm.”
After an awkward second, he realized what she was dancing around. “I don’t have kids.”
Her nervous laughter told him he’d hit the nail on the head. “No, that’s none of my business. It doesn’t matter if you’re babysitting for a friend or whatever.”
“More like babysitting the friend himself.” He paused, then decided to go for it. “Do you want to come over here and keep us company? You’d have to put up with my obnoxious friend Stephen.”
“The big handsome bastard?” she asked with amusement.
“So he likes to think. But if you can manage double the testosterone, he’s actually a decent guy.” Don’t prove me wrong, dude. “We’re just chilling at my place for right now.”
“Okay.”
Just . . . okay? That was easy. “Great. I’ll text you the address. You have a GPS?”
“Sure do.”
“Okay, I’ll see you soon.”
He hun
g up, then stood and mimicked Josiah’s end zone dance. Which turned out to be a bad idea when the toe of his running shoe caught a loose board and he fell flat on his ass mid-slide.
Stephen slow-clapped from behind. “With smooth game like that, how could she refuse you?”
“Get it all out of your system now, fuckwit. And be a normal human being when she gets here. I beg of you.”
His friend lifted one shoulder, as if to say maybe. But Trey knew Stephen would behave himself . . . at least marginally.
Because if not, he’d just have to murder him.
* * *
Cassie stood on the doorstep of a decent-sized house. Good Lord, did everyone here live in mini mansions? It wasn’t quite the McMansion Ken and Tabitha lived in, but it was definitely larger than the average size house in Atlanta most of her friends were purchasing. Maybe housing prices in the area hadn’t recovered yet and he’d gotten a deal . . .
She reached for the doorbell a second time when the heavy oak swung open and revealed Trey. He looked a little out of breath, like he’d just run a marathon instead of running to the door from somewhere in the house. And he wasn’t wearing his glasses again.
“You came.”
“I came,” she said, then flushed a little at the double entendre. “So . . .” She stuck her hands in her pockets and spun to look at the front yard. “Nice place.”
“It works. And it’s big enough for my family to stay in when they come down.”
The idea made her smile, that a bachelor would buy a big enough house to accommodate his family for visits.
“Come on in. Stephen’s here, sorry about that.”
Stephen, the friend who required babysitting. She itched to ask what the story was there, but it was none of her business. “Gotcha. He sounded like quite the jokester on the phone.”
“A real comedian,” Trey muttered, then walked her into what she assumed was the family room. The flat-screen TV and comfortable, broken-in couch and recliner screamed Bachelor Alert. There was no color . . . anywhere. Browns and tans and some black were all the color she could see. “What, no color?”
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