Chapter 10
Lucy
It’s Friday night, and naturally, I’m holed up in my room at Daisy’s Inn. The remainder of a container of orange chicken and rice that I got delivered is balanced on the corner of my chair. My phone is propped up on the base of the lamp on the end table nearby, my computer open on my lap.
It’s been exactly one week since the River Foxes Gala. One week since I met TJ Wilson.
“How’s the word count looking?”
I pan to where Cassie’s face stares back at me from my phone. I look at my computer and click out of the internet tabs I have open and over to my document. “Almost ten thousand.”
“Look at you go! How do you feel about them?”
“Good.” I allow myself a small smile. It does feel good to be writing again.
To be flexing and working an atrophied muscle.
It’s been painful, but the good kind of pain.
Something that used to be second nature now feels like I have to work a little harder at it, but I’m willing to put in the time. “I think they’re pretty decent.”
Cassie waves her hand in front of the screen. “They’re fabulous because you’re fabulous.”
I smirk. She loves talking me up, but she knows my writing well enough to know that it’s not always great.
We do a lot of slicing and dicing between the two of us when I finish a first draft, tearing the manuscript apart so we can build it back up and put the story together in a stronger, more compelling way. “Thanks for saying that.”
She closes her laptop and stands from her desk.
I watch through the screen as her office background changes.
She lives in New York City, so if it’s almost seven o’clock here in Wisconsin, that means it’s almost eight o’clock there …
and she’s still at work. I know I’m not her only client, but sometimes it’s easy to forget how much Cass juggles because we’re friends, and she gives me so much of her attention, both for work and my personal life.
If she’s stressed by her job, she doesn’t show it.
I’ve never seen her looking anything but calm, cool, collected, and ready to kick butt.
“Aren’t you glad you went last weekend?” she asks as she pushes her arm into the sleeve of her sleek, black winter jacket.
“I am,” I say slowly. It’s been a busy week for Cassie, and I haven’t talked to Bex or Philly about my night with TJ either.
I’ve wanted to call them. To go over every last detail of my time at the gala, analyzing it from all the different angles, but I’ve stopped short of picking up the phone at least a dozen times.
I don’t know if it’s because I want them to tell me it was nothing or if it’s because I want them to tell me they think there was an actual spark.
Cassie zeros in on my hesitation, her gaze narrowing. “There’s a story there. I can see it.”
“I, well …” I sigh. “Yeah, there is.”
“Give me thirty minutes to get home, put on sweatpants, and then we’re going to call Bex and Philly. Don’t go anywhere!”
Cassie ends the call.
“Where would I go?” I ask my empty room.
Because I have the very best of friends, they’ve spent the majority of their Friday night on a video call with me, dissecting everything that happened at the River Foxes Gala.
“You’re really not going to tell him who you are, Lu?” Philly’s eyes do their typical doe-eyed thing.
“What would be the point?” I say with a sigh.
“I told him I needed one night of fun. That’s what he delivered.
” Along with a lifetime of memories. Dramatic?
Maybe. I don’t get out much anymore, so it doesn’t take much to have me overwhelmed with emotions and sensations, and a slideshow of that night will play on a loop in my brain for a long time to come.
“He isn’t looking for more than that, and neither am I. ”
“But you bid on another date with him.” Bex pops a carrot into her mouth and crunches down hard. She screws up her face in disgust.
“Why are you eating vegetables at nine-thirty on a Friday night?” Cassie asks. “You’re more of a popcorn and chocolate chip girl.”
I nod, because that’s exactly what I was thinking.
Bex waves us off. “Richie and I started a new diet together.”
I frown, but I try to hide it with a yawn.
Richie is Bex’s fiancé, and there’s something off about him.
I can’t put my finger on it, but I don’t love how my feisty friend acts around the man who is supposed to be her biggest champion.
It’s like she shrinks herself down to fit the view he has of her.
Then again, who am I to talk or know anything about a relationship? I haven’t ever had one.
Which brings me back to the point at hand.
“Your loss.” Cassie pops a chocolate-covered blueberry in her mouth and hums with contentment.
Bex presses her lips together and tosses her carrot stick on her bed. “Anyway, Lu, explain yourself.”
“It was a mistake.” I shrug. “I got caught up in the heat of the moment.”
More like the heat of jealousy. I have never felt so territorial. I had a visceral reaction to the thought of that peacock-colored-dress-wearing woman spending time with TJ. It’s ridiculous. I acted on instinct. I know that now.
“Hindsight makes me see that I wasn’t being rational. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Or maybe you should listen to your basic instinct and recognize that you like him and you want to spend more time with him,” Cassie offers.
I flick my gaze over to my computer screen. A week ago, I would have agreed with her. Coming off the high of being in TJ’s presence at the ball, I came home and did what any normal woman would do: I scoured the internet for anything and everything I could find about TJ Wilson.
I meant what I told him last week. I don’t know football, and even though I’ve been living less than thirty minutes from Green Bay for the past several months, I haven’t followed the River Foxes or their season.
Turns out they’re at the top of the league. And TJ? Well, TJ is their star. He plays on offense, and he handles the ball a lot.
That tracks with how well he handled me.
The thought sends a blush screaming into my cheeks.
I caved and watched the game last weekend.
I had no clue what was going on, but I had tunnel vision on number twenty-five when he was on the field.
He ran into the endzone thing at one point, and then in celebration, he knelt and pretended to put a shoe on the foot of one of his teammates.
It took me point two seconds to realize he was reenacting the glass slipper moment in Cinderella—for me.
I admit, it made me a little dizzy to be remembered by him. The fact that he kept his word and followed through was another indication that he’s a genuinely good guy. None of that changes that he’s not a good guy for me.
“Look at you. You’re bright red.” Philly presses her face closer to the screen. “You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?”
I roll my eyes and grab for my computer.
I flip it around and show them the tabs I have pulled up.
They’ve been up on my laptop all week. Am I torturing myself?
Maybe initially. But the longer I looked at the pictures of TJ, and the more articles I read about him, the more certain I became that what happened on Friday night is all that’s ever going to happen between us.
“I’m only thinking that my relationship with TJ started and ended last week.
I mean, look at this, you guys.” I start scrolling through pictures of TJ.
There are shots of him in sinfully well-fitted tuxedos, out at different events, always with a different woman on his arm.
Always laughing and being the life of the party.
There are the photos of him in uniform at games, and then some of him wearing more casual athletic gear for what I assume are practices.
In those, his white tank top looks painted on.
His biceps don’t look real. And no one—I repeat, no one—should have leg muscles like that.
They’re tree trunks. We’ve already established his impeccably peach-shaped derriere.
I’ve spent the week studying his face—solely because I need to describe the male main character in the book I’m drafting.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
I may or may not have also spent an hour gazing at his chiseled upper body, my eyes drinking in the ink he has tattooed across his chest and his upper arms. They’re intricate tattoos, and I want to know the meaning and significance of each and every one.
I hovered over a link to an article that promised to give me Everything You Need to Know About TJ Wilson’s Tattoos, but in the end, I didn’t click on it.
It feels too personal. Unfair that I know his identity and he doesn’t know mine.
I’d want to hear the stories behind his tattoos from the man himself, which is my crazy-train brain talking, because I’m never going to see TJ again, except on my TV screen.
I ignored the article and stopped ogling pictures of TJ’s tattoos. Instead, I started dreaming up the backstory for my fictional lead character.
He’s who I need to keep top of mind. The man I’ve made up in my head who is going to steal the hearts of my readers with his sweet heart and playful sense of humor.
“TJ was the perfect man to give me a dose of inspiration. He got me past my writer’s block, and I’m grateful. But we’re not meant to be,” I tell my friends, turning the computer screen back in my direction. “Honestly, the thought of being in the public eye like him makes me break out in hives.”
“Understandable, given your history,” Bex allows.