The Thing About My Rival (The Boston Commoners #1)

Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

HUGO

It’s hard to tell, because there’s almost no bloody light in this place, but I’m pretty sure Wilcox just blushed. I’m also pretty sure the blush has extended down her neck and onto her chest, because it always does, but I’m trying really hard not to look.

The glimpse of the swell of her breasts on either side of her low neckline is very distracting.

There’s silence for a moment while she tastes the wine.

She’s obviously stalling while she decides how to play this. She’s easier to read than she thinks—at least it’s easy for me, like there’s some part of me that instinctively understands some part of her.

But I can’t believe she hasn’t decided long before now what she’d do when the subject of that night in Paris came up. I mean, it had to come up at some point. Wilcox might be into yoga and sharing circles, but she’s also great at tactical strategy. She would have thought this through.

She obviously wasn’t expecting it right now though .

And it’s even more fun to catch her off guard than I’d expected when I decided, on the way here, that we need to address it and move on if we’re to have any hope of making it through the season without one of us being relegated to a leave of absence.

Since I’m the loosest cannon, that one of us could very easily be me. And I can’t risk losing this job.

It’s every man for himself here, and if the only way for me to stay is to work with her then we have to get along. And if that means putting myself through the torture of talking about whatever the hell it was we did that night, then so be it.

Finally, she puts her glass down, the print of her lips left behind in the pink on the rim.

She looks at me. A bold move. Admirable play.

The round light thing in the middle of the table catches gold flecks in her eyes, making them look like sparks from a fire.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she says with a dead straight face.

A laugh is out of me before I’ve even realized it’s happening.

“Oh, good one, Wilcox.” That was definitely not the response I was expecting. But then she is a very unexpected person in general. “Since the whole point of this evening is to encourage us to get along better, I thought we should probably start by addressing the elephant in the room. Or rather, the cleaners’ closet.”

She picks up her menu and opens it. “If we’re going to talk about anything, we should talk about how to nurture Ramon into the best striker the league has ever seen without his head being turned by the trappings of fame and fortune. ”

She glances back up for a second, her face firm. “But you’re probably not the best person for ideas on that.”

I clasp my hands on the table and lean toward her. “I’d have thought you’d want to talk about it. Get it out in the open. And deal with it so we can get past it and move on. You’re the one who’s into talking things out, after all.”

She puts down the menu and mirrors my action, lacing her fingers on top of it and angling toward me. Toe to toe. It’s her pattern.

“I’ve already moved past it. Because it was a stupid drunken mistake. One you probably barely remember.”

“Didn’t remember it at all, actually.” I sit back and pick up my glass.

“Precisely.” She lifts her menu again. “Total ass,” she mutters as her eyes slide over the offerings.

“Well, I mean, I vaguely remembered the incident . But I didn’t know it was you until my friend Tom told me.”

“Is he the nice guy who got his driver to take me back to my hotel?”

“Sure is.”

“How do you have nice people as friends?”

“Erm, because I’m a nice guy.”

“Nice guys don’t…well, they don’t do what you did.”

“And what did I do exactly? Or rather, what did we do? I’ve been wondering about that.” My eyes accidentally slip to her cleavage. “It’s all a little, you know, foggy.”

“It’s more what you didn’t do.”

“Are you saying I didn’t make you co?—”

“Shh.” Her head jerks forward as her lips pucker to shut me up, lips that look like they would feel very good on mine. Christ, I wish I could remember what that was like.

Wilcox’s eyes dart around the room to check whether anyone’s looking. She has some shimmery stuff on her eyelids. That’s new.

“Well, I can’t believe that even in a drunken stupor I wouldn’t make sure my lady’s needs were met.”

“Your lady ?” She looks at me like she’s just noticed a dreadful stench. “Anyway, that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“Oh, are you pissed off I didn’t call you the next day or something?” She flicks over a page of the menu and bores holes in it with her eyes. “You are, aren’t you? Ha. You wanted me to call.”

Well, screw me sideways. Does Wilcox actually like me?

“No, I did not.” Her eyes don’t leave the menu, but it’s obvious she’s not actually reading anything because they’re fixed to one spot.

The server reappears out of nowhere. “Are you ready to order?”

I look at Wilcox. “Do you need to convene a therapy session or meditate on it before you can decide what to get?”

She ignores me and looks up at the server with the sweetest of smiles. “Yes, please. I’d like the?—”

“Need a couple more minutes please,” I tell him.

She drops her menu on the table with a thunk and glares at me. “Can’t you just choose something?”

“Come on, Wilcox. This is a romantic spot.” I gesture to the room. “You don’t see any other couples sniping at each other.”

“Other couples ?” She looks up at the server, clearly horrified he might think she would choose to be here with someone as appalling as me. “We are not a couple. Definitely not. ”

“I’ll give you a minute,” he says, before wandering off to safety.

I rest my elbows on the table. “If your problem is that I didn’t call you, perhaps you’d like to remember that I didn’t get your number.”

“You knew where I worked. And even if you couldn’t remember, your friend definitely would have. I felt bad that he had to make polite conversation with me while you were slumped against the wall. Snoring.”

“Now you’re making things up. I don’t snore.”

“You’ve probably never spoken to anyone the next day to find out.”

“See? That is your problem. You wanted me to call you. To ask you on a date.” How very satisfying. I settle back in my chair and fold my arms. “Wilcox wanted me to ask her out.”

“I did not .” She does that thing where she lifts her chin a bit. “But you could have apologized.”

“Apologized? For what? Oh, right, yeah, for not making you co?—”

“Shut up.” She looks shocked by the loudness of her own voice.

A few faces do turn to look at us this time.

I can’t help but chuckle. “See, now who’s attracting attention?”

“Christ, you know how to ruin everything, don’t you?”

And instantly my warm sense of satisfaction is gone. The pleasure at teasing Wilcox wiped away by the words that slice through me like an ice-cold blade.

You ruin everything . The phrase I’ve heard a thousand times. If I could remember the first words anyone ever said to me, odds are it would be those three .

To help shut out the flashbacks and calm the tightening in my gut, I take a sip of wine.

“I’m sorry,” Wilcox says, her eyes shifting from my face to the base of her glass as she turns it around and around. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was needlessly cruel.”

Perhaps she could see the pain etched in my features. Or perhaps she’s just a good person. Actually, I already know she is. She fucking loves that club and is only bringing in the maintenance methods that annoy me so much because she cares deeply about the team. The game runs through her veins exactly as much as it runs through mine. Just in a different way. It’s something we have in common.

“No one deserves that.” Her gaze slides back up to mine, a glint in her eye. “Not even someone who’s stratospherically annoying.” A mischievous smirk plays at the corner of the mouth I dearly wish I could recall kissing.

It’s a flash of the little I do remember seeing in her at the club that night—a flicker in her eyes that sparked an instant flicker in mine. That part of the night six years ago did come back to me. As did the dancing and me jokingly grinding against her hip and being worried she might have felt Mr. Happy getting jolly.

“Look,” she says, “after that talking-to we had today, it’s obviously in both our interests to work together so they don’t put one of us on administrative leave.”

“So they don’t put you on it, you mean.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” She slumps back in her chair, causing the neckline of her dress to gape a little. “I was trying to be nice, be the bigger person. But if you simply refuse to call a truce, there’s nothing else I can do.”

Her long blond hair, curled from about halfway down—also new—falls forward over one shoulder, pointing the way to her left breast. A breast I might very well have held, a nipple I might have thumbed or even had in my mouth.

Fuck, what did she feel like? My best guess would be firm with baby-soft skin.

“Well?” She stares back at me in an I’ve-totally-had-enough-of-your-bullshit type way. God, she’s cute.

She’s also right.

“You’re right,” I tell her.

She slaps her palms on the table, sits bolt upright, and looks around the room. “Hear that, everyone?” she says in a whispered mock announcement. “Hugo freaking Powers thinks I’m right about something.”

Unfortunately, I think she’s probably right about a lot of things. And that’s dangerous for my job prospects. I need to be the Fab Four’s choice at the end of the season. If I screw this up, I’ll be even more unemployable than I already was.

I rest my chin on my hand. Maybe that’s flirtatious, but what the hell. “You’re hot when you’re being superior.”

“Then I must be hot all the time.”

She’s not wrong.

“Okay, then. You win. This game anyway. If you don’t want to talk about Paris, we won’t talk about Paris.” I make eye contact with the server and give him the we’re-ready nod.“Let’s order dinner. And keep the conversation to how we can best prep the team for Saturday. Then we can get this evening over with, relatively pleasantly, and go home.”

She raises her glass in agreement. “Deal.”

Jesus. Now I have to actually work in harmony with my rival for the job, whose methods are the opposite of mine, and who I once did God knows what with in a Parisian closet.

There was me thinking I had problems when I had no job.

As the server returns to our table, there’s a smattering of applause across the other side of the room. We all turn our attention to the clapping. A man is on one knee in front of a woman who has both hands on her cheeks and is staring down at the small box he’s holding up to her.

Bless them for thinking they can make it work when millions don’t.

“Do men still do that?” I ask the server. “The one-knee thing?”

“Happens in here about once a month,” he says.

Wilcox watches the happy couple, a faint smile on her lips. Why do girls love that shit?

No one will ever catch me on one knee, that’s for sure. Unless I’m doing up my boots.