CHAPTER 8 #2
I pick up my wine and take a large gulp before setting the thin glass back on the table, my mind reeling with how he can be so nice to a child out of the blue but can’t treat me with the same respect.
And to be honest, I hate that for a moment, a very brief moment, I saw him as a decent human being.
I hate that I saw a kind side to him, because before that it was almost easy to just chalk up his behavior to a personality that makes him a constant dick to society.
But that’s not the case; he’s just a constant dick to me.
He leans back, twisting his pint glass as he stares me down.
“What?” I finally ask, breaking under his gaze.
“Are we going to proceed with why we’re here, or are we just going to stare at each other all night?”
“I’d rather stab my eyes out,” I say as I remove my phone from my purse and pull up my calendar.
“Hey, you were the one who wanted to have dinner with me. This is the company you chose.”
“Way to make it unbearable.”
“I can make it worse if you want,” he taunts.
“Please, restrain yourself and pull out your phone.”
He reaches into his pocket and retrieves his phone, unlocks it, then shoves his calendar in my direction. I partly want to push it right back at him and tell him to work in tandem with me, but honestly, what’s the point?
I glance down at his calendar and start pressing on the days that have events highlighted on them. I half expect them to be meetings, but they’re all training sessions and his zoo meetups.
“I thought you’d be busier.” Pure observation on my part.
“I will be when the season starts. So get in your precious time now.”
“You don’t do any like…commercials or filming?”
“Funny thing,” he says before taking a sip of his beer. “No one wants you slinging their product around when your team is trash.”
“Well, that makes sense,” I say as I scroll through his schedule and mine. “What do you have planned for me? Because how you plan to teach me will depend on how often I want to be at your training facility.”
“I have to be at your zoo, so you should match it with my football.”
“I can hardly see how they’re the same thing,” I deadpan.
“You’re right. Mine is more interesting.” He sets his beer down and pulls his bottom lip over his top lip, wiping away the foam from his beer.
I punch down the irritation that spikes up my spine. “If you actually have me training, it’s going to be much harder for me to keep up, whereas you just have to—”
“Wash dishes? My hands get pruney quickly, and you haven’t taken it easy on me.”
I press my fingers to my brow and say, “Can you just…God, can you just be nice for one second?”
“Did you want to work over a schedule, or did you want me to be nice?”
“Can’t you do both?”
“Never been good at multitasking.” He takes another drink of his beer, this one bigger.
“Fine, be a jerk.” I start typing away on his phone. “What time do you want me at your facility?”
“Whatever time it says in my phone.”
I check out the time, and my eyes nearly bug out of my head. “Some of these are at six in the morning—like be there at six.”
“Exactly.”
My nostrils flare because I know this is just him being a jerk and trying to get back at me for something that wasn’t even my idea in the first place. Trust me, if I had a choice in all of this, I wouldn’t have asked for him to be an advocate for my flamingos, but here we are.
“Fine.” I’m going to have to talk to Phil about my schedule to make these times work, and the early mornings are going to be a rude shock to my system, but a deal is a deal, so I plug in some dates for the next month and then do the same for him, including the fundraiser events.
“What are you adding?”
“We have a board of directors event this coming weekend that you need to attend.”
“Says who?”
“Says Gretchen,” I shoot back. “It’s on the list of events that you haven’t plugged into your calendar.”
“I thought those were optional.”
I shake my head. “Nope. Mandatory.” I push his phone back to him and smile. “Looks like you’ll be seeing me almost every day for the foreseeable future.” I circle my finger around my head. “Get used to this face, because I’ll be everywhere, even in your dreams.”
“More like nightmares,” he mumbles.
“Yeah, well, you’re going to be in my nightmares too.”
He lifts a brow in my direction. “Great comeback.”
I lean back in my chair, planning an exit strategy. I could ask for my food to go because sharing a meal with this man is the last thing I want to do, but guess who is just stubborn enough to stick around to make things uncomfortable?
This girl.
If I have to eat my meal in silence, I will.
I will sit here until every last bite of my meal is consumed.
And that’s what we do.
We don’t talk.
We just sip our drinks, quietly avoiding eye contact.
I grab a piece of bread and put some butter on it while he picks up his phone and starts looking through some emails.
I cross one leg over the other, studying him, wondering what possessed him to become such an asshole over the years of his life.
How old is he, anyway?
I lift my phone and do a quick internet search of Graydon St. John. One of the first pictures I see is of him with his shirt off, the same one Everly showed me. I ignore it and look up his age.
Thirty. Huh, my age.
Doesn’t seem like he’s thirty. From the crinkles next to his eyes—which most definitely are not laugh lines—I would have said maybe mid-thirties. Then again, doesn’t football age people?
Next thing I notice is his net worth.
Over $50 million!
What?
My eyes shoot up to where he’s sipping his beer, reading something on his phone.
Uh, he’s definitely buying dinner tonight. He probably makes as much in a minute as I do in a year.
I scan farther down and see that he was born in California, and his dad is a famous football player.
Huh, didn’t know that.
“Your dad played football?” I ask, causing his eyes to shoot up to mine.
“What are you doing? Are you googling me?” His eyes turn dark and menacing as his paw of a hand pushes my phone down to the table where he can see what’s on my screen.
His gaze lifts to mine, and for a moment, I feel like he’s about to flip the table as fire spews out of his eyes.
“Don’t fucking google me. If you have a question about my life, ask me. ”
Flustered, I exit the Google search and say, “I’m sorry, I just…I was curious about your age.”
“Thirty,” he answers.
“Yes, I saw that.”
“You could have asked.”
“You’ve been a jerk the whole time we’ve been here, so I’m sorry if I didn’t want to talk to you.”
His jaw grows tighter. “If you have a question about me, ask. Don’t fucking look me up.”
“Okay,” I say, feeling embarrassed.
Heat trickles up the back of my neck as I can feel a bout of tears spring to my eyes.
No.
Do not cry.
Not in front of him.
He doesn’t deserve to see how his words, his demeanor, and his overall assholery affect me.
I blink back the sting of tears and keep my head tilted down, my eyes studying the grain of the table as silence stretches between us.
He doesn’t seem to be moving either, and if I were even remotely brave enough, I would look up to see what he’s doing, but instead, I keep my eyes locked on the table. If I look at him, I know these tears will flow over, and I’m doing everything in my power to keep them at bay.
Why is he so…angry? Why does it matter if I look him up on the internet? He’s a public figure, there are probably a ton of things written up about him, and yet I get chastised for trying to figure out his age.
He’s just so…awful.
And even though I want to stick it to him and make him suffer through this dinner, I think it’s going to do more damage to my self-esteem and confidence if I stay.
Thankfully, the server brings our food to the table, and because I need to get the hell out of here, I ask, “Um, can I actually get a to-go box?”
The server pauses and looks between the two of us, as if trying to gauge the issue. Good luck, lady, bet you can’t even come close to guessing what’s going on here. Smartly, she nods and delivers a box almost immediately. If I were paying, I would leave her a nice tip just for how speedy that was.
“Thank you,” I say before she leaves, and I put my meal in the box as quickly as I can.
All the while, I hold back my tears, training my mind to focus on the smell of the food and not the embarrassment rolling through me.
When I’m done filling my to-go box, I stand and fit my purse over my shoulder.
“Well, it’s been a pretty shitty evening, and to be honest, I don’t want to share air with you any more than I have to. ”
His eyes are cast down at his food as he picks up a piece of pizza. “Same,” he says as he bites into a meat-loaded slice.
What I wouldn’t give to have the courage to kick him in the shin, right here and now. If he says one more mean thing, I very well might.
“Great, at least we can agree on something. I’ll be sure to start some social media accounts under Flock and Tackle tonight, and tomorrow, while we’re at your football thing, we can take a picture for our profile and introduce ourselves.”
“Just take a picture now.”
“Honestly, not in the mood. I don’t want to be scowling in my picture.”
“Can’t make any promises that I won’t tomorrow.”
Hold back your foot.
Do not kick him, Maple.
Do not freaking kick him.
“All right, then, please don’t have a good night. I hope you burn your tongue on your pizza.”
“Don’t trip on your way down the stairs.”
“Dick.”
“Bird lover.”
I look over my shoulder as I walk away, only to catch him glance at my ass on the way out.
Ugh, disgusting.