Chapter Seven
Sawyer
“Have you gotten him out around the island yet?” Alex asks, rocking back in the highbacked leather chair behind his expansive wooden desk.
“That’s what you called me here for?” I glance between him and my father. “You said it was important.” I’d been neck-deep in planning my test session with Logan when I was literally summoned to the palace and accompanied by a royal bodyguard.
“Our star player’s happiness is important,” my father says with a scoff. “The most important thing, actually.”
Just like my father to not even consider my time or my happiness.
The only reason breaking up with Dalton had been acceptable to him was that I then took this job.
My mother is probably still pissed that I let such a big political fish off the hook.
She loves lording her advantages over other people on the island, and having a daughter married to a substantial figure would have been a coup, especially since Dalton wants to become first chair on the council at some point.
A tiny part of me might care at least a little about my mother’s opinion, if we were still on speaking terms. It annoys me that she trained me so well from childhood to care what she’ll think, even when I’m trying so hard not to care.
“He got here three days ago, and Tamiko said Logan’s not a party guy,” I say.
“Go see the sights,” Alex says, gesturing around the room and then toward the window. “Show him how entertaining Bellerive can be. The ocean, the mountains, take him to Cal’s campground. He seems like the outdoors type.”
“He’s in training mode. I get the sense he’s not going to want to just hang out with me for fun.”
“You’re a pretty girl, Sawyer. And single,” my father says, raising his eyebrows. “Lots of ways to entertain a man.”
“That’s disgusting,” I say, turning from him to Alex to make sure they both didn’t have this expectation. “I feel ill right now. For real.”
Alex gives my father an exasperated look that’s at least a little reassuring.
“It’s a hectic playing schedule, and I don’t want him to get to the end of the season and still not feel connected to the island.
He was already asking for a trade. There are a few people involved in the organization who believe a trade would benefit the team.
Your father and I aren’t on that side of the debate. We want him here.”
“Okay,” I say. Whether Logan Bishop stays on the team and on the island doesn’t exactly matter to me.
The only thing I care about is proving to Logan that I’m capable of making him better.
That’s what I want out of this deal. To know I made him better.
If that leads him elsewhere, that’s not my problem.
“I know I originally agreed to fulfill multiple roles, but I also didn’t know you’d lied to him. ”
“We didn’t lie,” my father says quickly, visibly bristling.
“You told him I was a trainer.”
“Physiotherapist, trainer—no difference.”
“To him, there’s a big difference.”
“Are you able to train him?” Alex asks, cutting in.
“According to him?” I ask. “No.”
“He fired you?” My father has raised his voice, and his brow is furrowed.
“Sort of,” I say. “He’s agreed to keep me on a trial basis while he looks for someone else.
Or, I guess he’s not looking, but he has one of his ‘people’ searching for someone else.
” That part of our verbal agreement rubbed me the wrong way.
He was fine for my father and Alex to find him someone, probably with little guidance.
If I’m not good enough, maybe he should be doing his own looking.
He obviously has a very specific idea of what’s acceptable to him.
“A trial basis?” My father scoffs. “What horseshit. He’s not going to find anyone better than you on the island.”
At least I’m pretty confident that part is true. Though, I’m still mystified how my father can make the claims he does when he’s never stepped foot in my physiotherapist space.
“He’s probably got his staff wooing people off island,” Alex says with a grimace. “Which is a problem with our visa and immigration laws. Getting someone approved now would be difficult.”
“Another reason you should be taking him out,” my father says, flicking his wrist. “Entertaining him. Maybe he’ll forget this trial nonsense.”
“Or I could just be really good at my job,” I say. “Which I am.” I try not to seem surprised at how confident I’m coming across. There’s still someone else’s voice in the back of my mind that keeps butting in with an “are you sure” every time I make a claim about my abilities.
“Doesn’t solve the fact he wants off this island,” my father grumbles.
“I’ll work on being a good trainer. You two work on ‘entertaining’ him.”
My father opens his mouth, and Alex holds up his hand, a ghost of a smile on his face. “Ava’s actually volunteered to lead the welcoming committee for the team.”
“Ava?” I say, barely holding in my disbelief. “And you’re considering that?”
“I’m sure she’d really throw herself into the role,” Alex says.
“Throw herself at him, you mean. And every other player, married or not.”
“Unlike your father, I’m not suggesting that’s a good strategy. But I firmly believe, and so does my wife, that the key to Logan Bishop staying on the island is connection. Connecting with people. Connecting with places. Rory thinks he’s a kid who likely craves connection, given his upbringing.”
The fact that he’s called Logan a kid in the same breath he references his wife, who’s barely older than him, is almost laughable.
However, Aurora Summerset has excellent instincts when it comes to people.
She, somehow, managed to turn Alex, a man who was once an arrogant ass, into a tolerable human.
I never would have thought he had it in him, and it’s one hundred percent why we only ever went on one arranged date when he was seeking a wife.
“A little amateur psychoanalysis,” I say, pursing my lips.
“Giving him roots is worth a shot,” Alex says, splaying his hands. “You’re good with people. You were excellent at working a crowd during Dalton’s bid to get on the Advisory Council. I was sorry to hear you two had split. Seeing you together, I thought it was the real thing.”
I swallow, and I gather my thoughts. “You never really know from the outside.” Even inside the relationship, I didn’t know until it all came crashing down.
“But I’m not mixing business with pleasure where Logan is concerned.
I’ll figure out how to train him in the way he wants and needs, but I’m not his personal source of connection.
” I give them both a pointed look, a little proud of myself for maintaining firm boundaries.
Alex sighs. “Ava it is then.”
“She is very good at throwing parties,” my dad agrees. “I’ll get her to put something together for tonight. At Wino Wine Bar. A little mixer. Get Bishop to go, will you?”
I run my fingers along my forehead and down my temples. “I can mention it to him.”
My father gives me a satisfied nod, and when I see Alex and him exchange a glance, I sense my firm boundaries were nothing but a mirage.
“Did you get everything you need?” Logan asks, wiping sweat off his forehead with a towel, his bicep flexing, after I jot down the last set of numbers.
He’s shirtless and glistening. I’ve been so focused on making sure I didn’t screw up this evaluation, that right now is the first time I’ve fully absorbed the glory of his professional physique.
Really athletic guys haven’t set me on fire in the past, but there’s something about the way his muscles ripple with the simplest movement, the fact he absolutely demolished all these test sets, that’s sinfully sexy.
It’s an unfortunate time to realize I might have an elite athlete kink.
At least I’m sure it’s not him I’m attracted to—not really—it’s his talent.
And maybe his physical appearance, which is a result of his talent.
My phone on the bench in the workout room lights up, and I glance at it. Ava, again. She’s been sending a flurry of voice memos to the family group chat for the last hour. I’m guessing Dad told her about his Wino Wine Bar plan for tonight.
“Do you need to get that?” Logan nods at my phone.
“Nope.” I scan the clipboard to make sure I’ve gotten all the essential tests done to establish a baseline. “It’s just my sister.”
“Which one?”
His question registers a beat later, and I glance up, surprised. “You know I have more than one?”
“Season’s just starting. I was bored. Looked you up. Two sisters. Two brothers. You’re the second oldest.”
“You googled me?”
“Yes?”
Then I register that he said he was bored, and my earlier conversation with Alex and my father rings in my ears. The fine line that I’ll have to walk makes me roll my shoulders with discomfort.
“My sister—Ava—is hosting a party at Wino Wine Bar tonight.” When I see his disinterested expression, I adjust my sales pitch. “Not even a party. A gathering. Of a few people. Help the team and their partners get acclimatized to the island.”
“You going?”
“I am. Do you want to go?”
“Not really.” He tosses the towel toward the bench. “Just the team?”
“I’d have to check Ava’s eight thousand voice memos to be sure before I make any promises.”
“Ah,” he says, a hint of a smile. “So it might be more of a party than a gathering.”
“I mean, a gathering is a low-key party.”
“Is it?”
“For sure. A gathering is an entry-level party.”
“For the inexperienced?”
“Or for those who would prefer not to have the experience at all.”
Another ghost of a smile. “I feel like you’re calling me antisocial.”
“Selectively social.”
“I’m indifferent to most people.”
“I did get that impression.” From his interviews, from our conversation, from the little Tamiko shared with me about his past. Unlike him, I’ve resisted the lure of searching the internet for tidbits about his life.
He doesn’t say anything, but the way his gaze trails over me makes me think that the column he’s slotted me in doesn’t have “indifferent” at the top.