CHAPTER 1 #3
“Just that. I’m a bit of a serial dater. Although I’ve been seeing this bloke Devon for a while now.”
“Devon, the guy who messed up the phone number for the car service?”
“Yup,” Maxie said, wrinkling her nose. “Sorry again about that.”
Scarlett waved her hand. “It’s no trouble.”
“So, you’re not going to miss being so far from home? I don’t know if I could be away from my mum for nine months. I drive out to see her weekly.”
Scarlett, whose coffee cup was halfway raised to her mouth, paused before she put it down without taking a sip.
The idea of home was a strange one for some reason.
She had always considered New Jersey her home.
It was where she had grown up, but she hadn’t lived there for seven, almost eight years now.
And while she had spent the past four years in Washington, she hadn’t ever really considered the West Coast to be her home either.
“I’m good at adapting to places, I guess.”
Maxie’s brow lifted when out of the corner of her eye, Scarlett caught sight of a man with a close-clipped beard, in a full gray suit, white shirt, and black tie, sitting two tables away.
At first, she thought he was staring at her and she gave a little half smirk, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
He was wearing squarish, wire-rimmed glasses and had short, curly dirty-blond hair that was cropped in a stylish coif.
He reminded Scarlett of an NFL player dressed to the nines before walking into the stadium before a game, but as she kept stealing glances at him, she realized he wasn’t staring. He was glaring at her.
She frowned and refocused on Maxie. What the hell was his problem?
After another minute, Scarlett stood up to pay the check and grab a cup of coffee to go while Maxie threw out their trash. They’d made their way toward the front doors when Scarlett turned abruptly, having forgotten her phone on the table, and slammed her whole body into a solid human being.
“Oh God!”
She had bumped into someone. Someone tall. Glancing up, she saw the same man with short, curly hair and glaring gray eyes, whose pristine white shirt was now stained, sticking to his skin. In a panic, she went to check that he hadn’t been burned but then, thinking better of it, she sort of… froze.
“Lord above,” a deep, gravelly voice sounded.
“Oh my God, I am so sorry—”
“It’s fine.”
“No, no it’s not. I can’t believe I did that. Are you hurt?”
The man’s dark brows cinched together. “Hurt?”
“The coffee? It was scalding.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, but I—”
“Look, there’s not much helping it now, is there? Maybe next time you should watch where you’re going.”
“Yes,” Scarlett admitted, instantly rankled at his words. “Um, again, I’m so sorry.”
“Yes, you’ve said as much.”
“Excuse me,” Maxie said. “She said she was sorry. Maybe ease up a bit?”
“Bloody American… I don’t have time for this,” he said, walking directly in between them as he left the café.
Scarlett cringed as she glanced at Maxie. “Good God, I’m such an idiot.”
“It was an accident and he was a jerk. He sort of looked like a disgruntled Cupid, didn’t he? With that curly hair. Anyway, don’t sweat it.”
“I doused him in hot coffee.”
“Still,” Maxie said, noticing a card on the floor. She bent down to pick it up. “He dropped something.” She squinted. “Theo Ross, manager of—”
“Oh no.”
“—the Manchester Bees Football Club,” Maxie finished. She blinked and looked up. “Oh no. You don’t think you’re going to have to work with that guy, do you?”
Oh yes, she was. Theo Ross was the manager of the Manchester Bees men’s team, and she was certainly going to have to interact with him on the daily.
“I think he’s sort of going to be my coworker for the next nine months,” she said, recoiling. “Shit. What a lousy first impression.”
“Uh oh. Maybe he won’t recognize you when you start?”
Scarlett made a face. “Well, even if he doesn’t, it sounded like he isn’t too fond of Americans.”
“Let me tell you something, the Brits who hate Americans can shove it.”
Scarlett shook her head as her phone buzzed in her pocket. Taking it out, she scrolled to see that it was a text from Mr. Wrong Number.
Hope your day is going better than mine.
She let out a breath.
Oh, I don’t think I could get much worse.
Bad first day in the big city?
You can say that.
What happened?
She typed out, Besides almost maiming my new coworker with scalding coffee? but deleted it. She didn’t want to admit that she was clumsy, and so sent something vague instead.
First-day jitters, is all.
When Mr. Wrong Number didn’t answer right away, Scarlett pocketed her phone and followed Maxie out of the café as they walked back to the car.
Before opening the passenger door, she glanced down the road and saw the corner of the stadium looming over the brick buildings of the neighborhood.
Maybe she had made a mistake in taking this job?
No. No, all she needed was for Theo Ross to have some sort of sporadic amnesia whenever they met again. Or maybe they wouldn’t meet again for a while? The team was massive, as was the stadium, and it was completely believable that she might be able to avoid him over the next nine months.
Absently, she reached for the small number 9 charm around her neck and rubbed it between her fingers. Yes, she would keep out of his way, and hopefully, he’d reciprocate.
Hopefully.