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

Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

DREW

I open the pub door and almost slam straight into Joyce, Mona, and Winston on their way out.

“Whoa, look at you!” Joyce steps back to take me in from head to foot.

“Give us a twirl,” Mona commands. “Let’s see the whole thing.”

With an affectionate sigh, I hold out my arms and spin around, wobbling a little. “And a very good evening to you folks too.”

“Knockout,” Winston says.

“Well, look at the snuggle puppies you’ve been hiding under sports bras and sweatshirts.” Joyce circles her finger in the general direction of my breasts.

“You do look gorgeous,” Mona says. “The dress, your legs in high heels, the hair, the makeup.” She makes a chef’s kiss.

“Garrett said you were out for the evening,” Joyce says. “So where have you been all dressed up like this? ”

All I want to do is wash my face, brush my teeth, and get out of these damn shoes, into my pjs and into bed. This evening has been exhausting, confusing, and, annoyingly, a little bit exciting. I really need to sleep off the delicious wine that’s clouding my judgment—the whiskey Hugo suggested we had at the end isn’t helping either.

But look at these three faces. How can I deny this bit of fun to the people who welcomed me into their clique like I was their favorite grandchild?

“Why, thank you, all.” I hold out the skirt of my dress and make a little curtsy. “I was at Pulacini’s.”

Winston makes a whistling sound. “Bet that cost a pretty penny.”

“So romantic.” Mona places a hand over her heart.

“A date?” Joyce asks. “Someone rich, if he took you there.”

Way too tired for this level of interrogation, I step around them into the almost empty pub. “Work meeting.”

“Ha, sure ,” Joyce says. “Everyone holds work meetings in the evening at the swankiest, sexiest restaurant in town.”

“So who was it?” Mona’s eyes are wide with interest—or maybe she had a second sherry this evening.

“Oh, the restaurant was meaningless. One of the owners booked it for us, because the press doesn’t hang out there.”

“The us being…?” Winston raises a bushy eyebrow.

Joyce’s mouth drops open. “It was him , wasn’t it?”

Mona gasps and adds the other hand to her chest.

“Oh, it was nothing.” I wave my hand in front of my face, batting the idea away as if it were a bothersome fly. “Just needed to iron out some things and talk through some training stuff. ”

“So it was him!” Joyce plants her hands on her hips. “You had a romantic dinner with that British hottie.” Her tone is somewhere between accusation and extreme delight.

I move farther into the room, toward the bar and the stairs behind it that lead to the safety of the apartment. “It doesn’t mean anything. We just needed to figure out the path forward. That’s all.”

“ Sure ,” they all say in a three-part harmony.

“Sorry I missed you earlier.” I take a couple more steps and yawn dramatically. “Must get to bed. Early start tomorrow.”Which is all true.

“We won’t let you avoid the subject next time,” Joyce says, her bracelets jangling as she waggles her finger at me.

“Leave the poor girl alone,” Winston says, opening the door and ushering the two women out.

How the hell am I supposed to sleep?

Refluffing the pillows hasn’t helped.Counting slowly backward from one hundred hasn’t helped. Not one of the five different sleep sounds on my meditation app has helped.

The bedroom is cozy and comfortable, so it’s not that. There’s no light leaking in around the blackout blind to disturb me. And there are no noises from anywhere.

But there is Hugo Powers. And his vise-like grip on my brain.

If there was an app guaranteed to get incredibly sexy job rivals, whose face you once drunkenly kissed to within an inch of its life, out of your head, I’d download that sucker right now.

It wouldn’t be so bad if I was lying here hating him.

But once we’d decided it was in both our interests to actually work together until the end of the season, it made me wonder whether we have more in common than I thought.

Not that he’s changed his mind about drilling the players until they’re fit to collapse—he’s still all-in on that particular brand of nonsense.

But he is on board with my plans for more PT sessions and bringing in a nutritionist.

And I’m on board with his idea of getting some giant tubs for ice baths. There’s plenty of evidence that they can reduce post-match fatigue, cut the risk of injury, and speed up recovery. Hugo’s old club used them, and he swears they made a huge difference for him.

As we started chatting, or as I got the first glass of wine inside me, talking with him was much easier than I’d expected. I ended up being able to relax and, dare I say, almost…sort of…kinda…enjoy it. When he ordered us the whiskey nightcaps, I didn’t even object. And, thinking about it now, he wouldn’t have done that if he’d been desperate to get out of there and away from me.

I roll onto my side and ball up the pillow, like that will help me nod off.

But all I can see behind my eyelids is Hugo’s face smiling at me across the restaurant table, a glint in his eye from teasing me. That’s the face I saw in Paris. And the glint that made my chest flutter then, made it flutter in exactly the same way tonight.

“Don’t be so fucking stupid,” I mumble into the pillow, and screw up my eyes and grit my teeth—neither of which is going to help with the whole nodding-off process.

The only important thing I have to focus on, the only important thing, is winning our first game as head coaches on Saturday. That way, we might take the Fab Four’s minds off sending one of us home to be paid to do nothing for the rest of the season. Because I’m absolutely certain that person would be me.

So tomorrow, I have to show up, smile, get along with Hugo like our lives depend on it—which they actually kind of do—and get this team in a winning frame of mind.

I reach for my phone.

Let’s try “Gentle Jungle Rain” one more time.