Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Andi
“You invited Cam North to your place?” Pia practically shrieked down the line, right into my ear.
“It's not a big deal,” I told her.
“Suuure,” she said with a laugh. “You called me to tell me it's no big deal?”
“It really isn't,” I insisted. She was right though, I did call her. She'd headed back to Highball Creek that morning. I missed her already, in spite of her apparent attempt to permanently damage my hearing. I knew she'd read more into this, just like Rafe had. He'd tried to give me advice on what to wear and what to say.
I reminded him several times it wasn't a date. He gave me a disbelieving look, but left it at that. For now. No doubt he'd want a blow by blow description of everything that happened tonight.
Which would definitely not involve blowing.
“It's so he can teach me about hockey.” I held up a sage green sweater in front of myself. After a brief, critical squint in the mirror, I shook my head and folded it carefully to place back on the shelf.
I rejected an emerald green sweater and a sapphire blue blouse before deciding on a long sleeved white blouse and jeans. The casual outfit was perfectly adequate for this non-date.
I shrugged into the perfectly pressed blouse and adjusted the phone against my ear while I did up the buttons.
“What's to learn?” she asked. “If they hit the puck just right, it slides effortlessly across the smooth, smooth ice and right into the warm embrace of the goal.”
“Can you not make hockey sound like sex?” I grimaced.
“It's not my fault a game that's played with big, long sticks is provocative,” she said with a laugh. “It's not my fault you interpreted it that way either. Maybe your subconscious is reminding you how long it's been since you got laid. Otherwise, you would have heard something perfectly innocent. ”
“Bullshit,” I replied. “There's nothing innocent about you or most of the stuff that comes out of your mouth. You're the one who horrifies our parents as often as you can, just for a giggle.”
“Not true,” she argued. “I say stuff and they take it the wrong way. Can I help it if they have dirty minds? That must be where you get it from.”
I snorted. “If you're as innocent as you say you are, then I'm a yeti.”
Pia laughed. “That would explain a lot. Especially your crazy hair and huge feet.”
“I do not have huge feet!” I protested. I glanced down at them, just in case. Nope, perfectly normal, size seven feet.
Great, now I was remembering the conversation with Cam about pajamas with no feet. And the way I'd pictured him, with no pajamas, lying in the middle of my bed, cock jutting up invitingly. His brown eyes watching me move toward him, crawling across the mattress, my breasts heavy, body aching with need.
“Says you,” Pia teased. “This is exactly how people get nicknames, Bigfoot.”
“Shut up,” I said while laughing, and trying desperately to get the visual image of the big forward out of my mind .
You're his boss , I reminded myself for the seventy billionth time. We made it clear this was not a date.
I was physically attracted to him, but he'd done nothing to suggest he liked me.
Why was he coming here then? He'd said the team thought he should be the one to explain the game to me. That was all it was. He was taking one for the team. Spending an hour or two of his time with the boss, so the Sea Dragons didn't look bad when anyone mentioned the game to me.
The team had a good point. Right now, my response to questions about hockey would be a blank look. Sure, I could spout out stats, and I could give anyone a decent rundown of the Sea Dragons' finances, but I couldn't tell if they played well or badly on any given night.
Was that the point of my father giving me the team? Was it possible he was hoping I'd screw up? That for some reason, he was waiting for me to fall on my face? Why, I didn't know. He didn't explain himself to anyone, much less to me.
“At least Bigfoot is more original than Red,” Pia said. “Or Pea Soup.” Some of the kids at school thought that was a hilarious nickname for her. Soup for short.
“Now I want some pea soup,” I complained .
As hard as they tried, the nickname hadn't stuck. Mostly because Pia loved pea soup so much she used to bring a thermos of it to school. She embraced it, right up until they finally let up.
“Sorry, not sorry,” she said. “I should have invested in a soup factory.”
“You'd eat it all,” I said. “Or is that, drink it all?” What was the correct terminology for the consumption of liquid food? Whatever it was, the product wouldn't make it to the shelves.
“I predict you finishing this call and ordering some soup,” Pia said. “City slicker.”
“Country bumpkin,” I retorted. “For the record, Cam is bringing dinner.”
“So it is a date?” She sounded like she was bouncing up and down on the other end of the call. “Go Andi! You might get laid after all.”
“It is not a date,” I said firmly. “I am not sleeping with Cameron North. Not today. Not ever.”
“What if you sell the team?” she asked. “What if he retires from hockey and starts up a new job as a door to door soup salesman?”
I shook my head and laughed. “I don't think that's a thing. Even if it was, I know how much he gets paid. Unless he's blown it all, he doesn't need to go door to door selling anything. ”
“Andi said blown,” Pia teased.
“Pia might be the one who needs to get laid,” I said. “You seem to be seeing sex where there's no potential for it.”
There was nothing between Cam and I but a brief physical attraction. If I took a moment and thought back to the way he spoke to me in Shells, that should make it easier to convince myself of that. But while he was right when he said he was aggressive that night, I hadn't hated it. He seemed like the kind of man who knew how to take control and give a girl more orgasms than she knew what to do with.
And if I kept thinking that way, I was going to ruin my panties.
“I should have stayed in town,” Pia said. “If you don't want him?—"
“You're not going there either,” I said quickly.
Her words shouldn't have rubbed me the wrong way. It had nothing to do with my attraction to him. No way. It was just that…she shouldn't assume he was down for a fling with her either.
Just because she was smart, cute and guys always looked at her twice before they even noticed me, didn't mean he'd do the same.
A small voice in the back of my head said he absolutely would. What guy wouldn't go for a woman like my sister? She could snap her fingers and he'd follow her like a puppy.
For the first time since she left the city, I was almost glad she was gone. Why did I care though? Pia and Cam would be cute together. Didn't they deserve to be happy, if that was the choice they both made?
Why did a flare of envy ignite inside me? It was completely irrational. I had no claim to him. No reason to believe he thought of me as anything other than the owner of the team he played for. Someone who would embarrass the team if he didn't sit down with me and explain the game.
“You do like him,” Pia said.
“No, I don't,” I protested.
“Then why did you get all possessive just now?” she asked. “I could almost feel the daggers coming straight out of your eyeballs, headed right at the center of my forehead.”
“You have a vivid imagination,” I said. “There are no daggers. I was totally not being possessive.”
“And denial is a river in Egypt,” she said. “There's nothing wrong with being attracted to someone. You're both adults. He's hot. You're adorable and smart. Admit it, you want to know how big his cock is. ”
“Pia!” I scolded. “I shouldn't be thinking about any of his body parts.”
Yes, I wanted to know how big his cock was. Judging by the bulge in the front of his jeans, it was big. Big enough to fill me just right, while his toned body pressed me down onto the bed. While my fingernails grazed his muscular biceps.
“Now you're thinking about all of his body parts,” she said gleefully. “Admit it to yourself, even if you won't admit it to me.”
“There's nothing to admit,” I protested. “Because it doesn't matter anyway. We're going to be professionals, behaving professionally.”
“Over dinner that he's bringing,” she said persistently.
“I'm starting to think I shouldn't have told you anything,” I said.
“Of course you should have,” she said. “If you don't tell me, who are you going to tell?”
“I have friends,” I said.
“None whom you trust to tell them that he's coming over,” she pointed out. “Is that because they'd judge you, or because you know they'd call you out if they looked you right in the face?”
I chose option C, both of the above.
“It's because they're busy,” I argued. “And I wanted to talk to my baby sister. A move I'm starting to regret.”
Phone between my neck and my shoulder, I stepped into one leg of my jeans. I tried to step into the other leg, while keeping the phone from falling, but I couldn't hold the jeans in place and raise my foot high enough at the same time.
I took a breath and tried again. I got my foot inside the denim, but only half way down the leg. I tugged, trying to pull the fabric up and disentangle my foot at the same time. My toes got stuck somewhere near the hem.
All my weight on my right foot, I jumped up and down a couple of times and shook my leg, trying to push the left one through.
With a barely bitten back curse, I lost my balance. My hip hit the shelf beside me. I squeaked in pain and dropped my phone.
I tried to grab it with the hand that wasn't holding up my pants, but it slipped out of my grip. The device landed on the floor and bounced before stopping, screen down.
I shoved my foot all the way into the other leg and tugged my jeans over my hips before scooping my phone up and grimacing at the newest crack.
I put it back to my ear. “You still there? ”
“Yeah, you good?”
“I'm fine.” Mostly.
I stepped out of my bedroom and exhaled in the direction of my balcony. It was in darkness, but the city lights beyond that twinkled, like a thousand eyes winking at me and reading all of my inner secrets. Past that, the ocean was illuminated by a moon which would be full in a night or two. “What were we saying?”
“Something about you regretting calling me, but we both know you don't,” she laughed. “You love talking to me. Because I'm honest with you when other people aren't. And right now, I'm going to be honest and say you have a crush. Even if you won't admit it. It is what it is.”
I could almost see her nodding to punctuate the sentence. When she decided she was right about something, she was almost impossible to budge. She meant well, but her pushing wouldn't lead to anything. No matter how much she wanted to believe otherwise.
No matter how much I wanted to believe otherwise.
“It doesn't matter if I have a crush,” I said. “I couldn't act on it anyway, even if he was interested, which he's not. So do me a favor and let it go. Find some nice guy so we can gossip about you next time.”
“I don't think there are any nice guys in Highball Creek that are still single,” she complained. “Except Lenny. Rumor has it, he likes to peep into women's windows when the drapes aren't drawn all the way across.”
“He sounds like a catch,” I said dryly.
“He's a catch for the cops,” she replied. “Still, he's mostly harmless, in an I'm-not-going-there kind of way. I mean, he’s close to eighty years old.”
“Just think how experienced he’d be,” I deadpanned.
She responded with a gagging sound. “I'll give you his number,” she said. “You two could be cute together. There wouldn't be any issue with you being his boss. And you wouldn't have to worry about him biting, because he has no teeth.”
“That's very kind of you, but I wouldn't want to get between you and your true love,” I teased. Of all the things people might say about Cam North, I was almost certain he wasn't a peeping Tom. He seemed more like the kind of man who'd tear the drapes down, not peek between them.
“Don't let me get between you and yours,” Pia said. “Enjoy your night with Cam. I want to hear all the juicy details later.”
Before I could respond, she said goodbye and ended the call.
Not two minutes later, a knock sounded on my front door.
Cue a wave of nervous excitement. I tried to push it aside, but it persisted all the way across the room, until I opened the door.
“Hey.”