15. CHAPTER 15 #2
“But true,” Birdie inserts, then turns my way with expectant eyes. “Juno had clear opinions on Crosby being hot despite a working relationship. So, spill it.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“It just—” I stop. “Fine. Locke is objectively attractive. That’s a factual observation about a person’s physical appearance and it means nothing.”
Molly looks at me with the expression she’s deployed since we started puberty and first noticed boys.
The one that says she knows exactly what I’m not saying and she’s filing it away for later.
The fact she doesn’t push here in front of everyone tells me she’s one hundred percent going to push for details.
I appreciate that discretion more than I can say.
“He’s so mysterious,” Juno says, steering the conversation forward. “I’ve been around this team for a while now and I still feel like I know almost nothing about him. He shows up, he does the work, he disappears.”
“Mystery makes a man infinitely more attractive in my book,” Birdie says.
“Yes,” Molly agrees, pointing her finger. “Add in a little hard to get, and my juices get going.”
“Eww,” I say, wrinkling my nose at Molly, who snickers. “But yeah… pretty sure there are studies done on the effects of mystery on attractiveness.”
And Locke Donovan is nothing but a big, shadowy ball of mystery.
After dinner we migrate to the backyard. Juno opens the wide glass doors, the night air cold and sharp, but she lights the outdoor fireplace and we pull chairs around it. We open Molly’s champagne and it’s one of those evenings that feels separate from everything else. Like a pocket in time.
“So, ladies,” Molly intones, her third glass of wine making her nosier than normal.
“Continuing on the hot hockey players… I want to live vicariously through you three. Let’s play Marry, Fuck, Kill, but I won’t give you choices since I don’t know them at all.
You tell me who you would Marry, Fuck, Kill on the team. ”
“Oh no,” I say, holding out my hands palm first. “I absolutely refuse to play that game.”
“Party pooper,” Molly says and looks to Juno.
She shakes her head. “Nope. Only interested in Crosby—”
“To marry?” Birdie exclaims with excitement, sitting up so fast her wine sloshes.
Juno blushes. “Far too soon to tell, but if I do feel that way, you’ll be the first to know and then you can push your brother to give me a ring.”
“Deal,” Birdie says, and the women tap their glasses.
“You’ll play the game, won’t you, Birdie?” Molly asks with a very tipsy and beseeching flutter of her eyelashes.
“Sure,” Birdie says. “I mean… I’m just a player’s sister. I have impunity on these things.” She looks up in contemplation. “Let’s see… even though I’m firmly against marriage, if I were so inclined, I’d marry Patrick Rowe because he’s rich and can support my shopping habit.”
“Shallow,” Juno says under her breath, but intentionally loud enough we all hear it.
We laugh and Birdie doesn’t look at all shamed. A coy smile breaks out. “I’m going back to my earlier observation that Locke is the hottest guy on the team, so he’s the one I’d fuck.”
My hand tightens on my glass and the smile that was there threatens to slide, but I force it to stay in place.
“And…” She looks up again. “I’d have to Kill Arch and happily do that over and over again.”
“Oh, stop,” Juno says with a playful push. “You love him.”
“Like a gnat that won’t leave me alone,” she replies, although I hear the affection in it.
“So you’re friends with him?” Molly asks.
“No, Crosby and Arch are best friends and so he’s like an annoying little brother to me,” Birdie clarifies. “And if it wasn’t for that almost brother-like connection, he’d probably be my pick for the hottest guy on the team.”
Now that gets my attention. “Really?” I drawl, totally intrigued.
“Oh yeah,” Birdie says, nodding effusively and slopping more wine. “He pushes all my buttons, but again… annoying little brother thing, so that makes him unfuckable.”
“Oka-a-a-y,” Juno drawls low. “That’s enough wine for you.”
“What?” Birdie asks, completely unabashed. “It’s the truth and you know I’d even say that to his face.”
Juno laughs, shaking her head. “Oh, yeah… I know you would.”
Interesting. I’m pretty good at reading people and I have determined that Birdie doesn’t have any interest in Locke at all. She thinks he’s hot, but it’s Arch Hewitt who has her eye. I don’t buy that pesky little brother bullshit at all.
“You’d never go for it with him?” I ask.
Birdie’s eyes meet mine, and I see the denial in them.
“No, I wouldn’t, and it doesn’t have a thing to do with him being almost like a brother to me, if I’m being honest. It’s that he’s too nice.
” She takes a sip of wine. “He’s the type who falls in love for real when he falls.
He’ll be someone’s whole world one day.” A small smile graces her lips. “And he deserves that.”
Molly, because she’s Molly, smoothly redirects. “What’s the plan for the rest of the season? Are you here through the whole thing, Birdie?”
“Through January at least,” Birdie says. “Possibly longer depending on what comes up. There’s a platform project in the North Sea that might have my name on it in the spring.”
“North Sea,” Juno says. “That’s not the Gulf.”
“No,” Birdie agrees. “It’s colder. Rougher conditions. Better money. I’ll miss you girls, though.”
“I’m really glad we did this,” Juno says, lifting her glass in a toast.
“Same,” Birdie says, and we all raise our glasses before taking a sip.
Molly reaches over and squeezes my hand once.
I look out at the dark trees lining the edge of the yard and think about sitting here with women I truly adore, a thousand miles from my old life.
“Same,” I say.
“Okay, bitch,” Molly says, which is her code for We need to have a serious talk. “You better spill the details on Locke Donovan and spill them fast. We have a twenty-minute Uber ride before I have to get out.”
I knew she could pick up more than just professional reticence with me when Locke came up. I weighed whether to fight her on it but decided to give in for a few reasons.
She’s my lifelong best friend. She’s more like my sister than anything, and she’s closer to me than to her own siblings. I need her perspective and I know she’d never tell another soul, not even Josh.
I don’t bother hiding anything. “It’s pretty complicated.
” I break it down for her that he’s supposed to see me for mandated sessions and he’s been bucking against it.
I fill her in on our bargain struck in Newberg (for which I got another glare for going to our favorite place without her) and all the way up through Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ house.
“He’s like a lost puppy,” Molly sympathetically.
“Hardly. He’s a standoffish, arrogant man who… kisses very well.”
Molly’s head whips my way so fast I’m afraid it might fall off her shoulders. “You kissed him?”
I rub my temples and groan. “It’s a mess, Molls. We were arguing and I kissed him to shut him up, and then he kissed me back, and I didn’t know what to do. And this morning, I called him into my office and told him that I can’t do that again, and well… he kissed me again.”
“Oh. My. God,” she wheezes. “Why didn’t you tell me as soon as it happened? And… wait… that’s kind of hot, am I right?”
I do have an inherent weakness when it comes to alpha men and she knows it. “That’s not the point. The point is I’m the team’s director of Human Performance and he’s a player I’m interacting with on a professional level. It’s unprofessional and unethical and I can’t ever do it again.”
I don’t fill her in on the agreement we struck about him giving me a session on his family life. That’s a personal detail I’m not willing to share with her.
“Why not? Juno and Crosby crossed that line and they’re accepted.”
“Apples and oranges,” I say. “I’m working to improve his performance. I’m learning personal stuff about him. I can’t let my feelings cloud my judgment.”
“Okay, put that aside… if you didn’t have that to worry about, would you go for it?”
I don’t have to think long about that. It’s a no-brainer. “Yeah… I mean, it’s like we said tonight. He’s mysterious, and objectively, the hottest guy on the team. It would be fun.”
“And you deserve fun after what you went through with Grant,” she says simply.
“But it’s not that easy and I can’t continue to breach that wall of professionalism.”
“Or,” she drawls, eyes lit up with a clear idea, “you just put it on hold. Do all your performance mojo on him, make him a better player, and once he’s done with that, you can go for it.”
I hadn’t thought about that. I don’t see that happening anytime soon. It’s true I told him he only had to do three sessions and I’m banking on the fact that I’ll be able to use these next two very wisely and make a crack within his wall so I can weasel farther in.
But maybe that is the right option. Even if it took weeks to work with him it doesn’t mean we couldn’t see what was there when we were done, right?