Chapter 57
FIFTY-SEVEN
olivia
“Hey, Olivia. Did you hear the news?” Jacob Stern, another agent from my brokerage, approached me.
“Hey, Jake. What news?” I tried to focus on Jake, but Nate was close enough to distract me.
“The Lambert House is coming on the market.”
The Lambert House was a sprawling Victorian that had been meticulously remodeled over the last two years. Every agent had been dying to get in there to see what had been done. I made this house a home, but it wasn’t my style. Too cookie-cutter.
“Oh, man. That house is a dream.”
“Yeah, I’d love that commission,” he said.
“No, it’s my dream house.” Not that I would ever be able to make that happen. “Who is the listing agent?”
Jake gave me the agent’s name, and I committed it to memory just in case I had a buyer who could actually afford it, and thanked him for the heads-up.
Sneaking a smile at Nate, I lifted a glass to him, letting him know I saw him watching me.
Earlier, I’d watched him chatting with Mackenzie; maybe her presence had been the driving force behind our frantic fucking earlier. I’d never been known to be the jealous type, but there’d never been a man I valued enough to keep.
I saw the way women threw themselves at my brother and his teammates.
The message boards were filled with women sharing locations and trying to steal the attention of these men—even the married ones.
They tore apart the WAGs, and while I’d only shown up to events as Austin’s sister, they had left me alone.
Here I was, ten years older than him, and thinking I could hold his attention.
“What are you thinking about?” Sophie asked. She’d mingled with some of my co-workers, and Bran had gone to college with one of the baseball dads. I never worried about them blending in at this event. But that meant we barely had a minute to relax together.
“Oh, you know. I can’t get past the fact that I’m too old for Nate. Look at Mackenzie—”
“She’s gay.”
“What?”
“Yeah. She told me, I think she told Nate, too. Have you been able to talk to him at all?”
“Umm—”
“Judging by your blush and the fact that you’ve changed into a different bathing suit, there wasn’t a lot of talking.”
“Can you blame me?”
“No. You deserve the world, my friend.”
“Back to Mackenzie—”
“Her words, ready?”
I nodded.
“She’s more into you than Nate. But Maddy doesn’t know—don’t out her.”
“Oh, hell no. Never.”
“But that brings us to the issue, Liv. There are going to be a ton of women throwing themselves at Nate. You’re going to need some thick skin, here.”
I thought about some of the comments I’d seen online about Kelsey Drummond when she and Sam were first together. Between the way she met Sam and the news that she’d had a son with a professional hockey player, she’d been torn apart in the press. Could I ignore that?
Looking over at Nate, surrounded by the boys on Cooper’s team, as he talked to them about baseball. He tirelessly worked with them on their stances, talked strategy, and maybe even had promised to run a clinic in the off-season.
Yeah, I’d put up with the mean fans for him. I’d deal with Jason’s scorn—for him. And if Austin was a dick? I’d handle that, too.