Page 12 of Her New Billionaire Bosshole (The Billionaire’s Bidding #2)
ELLIOT
M y nap only lasts for fifteen minutes, and when I wake up, Sophie is settled in next to me, looking like a toddler with a tablet in her lap. If she could, I bet she’d be kicking her feet.
Except she’s not playing games — she’s watching film.
I stay completely still, eyes on her as she reviews the footage, takes notes, then returns to the game.
Several times she reverses, sliding her finger along the bottom of the screen, watching the same play over and over again until she’s satisfied and can move onto the next one.
I realize, after a few minutes of watching her, that she’s watching through each moment while focusing on a different player.
Her notes are organized by player, with her specific recommendations for them based on what they did, what they didn’t do.
How they can improve their performance for the next game.
When she finishes watching through the entirety of that match, she taps over, switching it from her own team to Miami’s, repeating the same process. Watch, take notes, rewind.
Her notes are already robust — I imagine they’ve been prepping for this game the entire week — but she continues to add to them, scribbling things down and nodding to herself.
I wish I could see inside her head, hear her thoughts. Without meaning to, I hear myself speaking, my voice a bit rough from disuse.
“What does that mean?”
Jumping, Sophie whirls around, her elbow flying up and knocking into my forehead, her headphones slipping off her ears.
“Holy crap, Elliot,” she gasps, her hand to her chest. “You scared me.”
I can’t help it — I’m laughing, despite the way my forehead has started to throb. I raise my hand to my head, wondering if I already have a goose-egg forming in the shape of her elbow. Of course, Sophie has to get startled with her full strength.
“ I scared you ?” I ask, squinting at her, my palm against the forehead. “I’m pretty sure you just assaulted me.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” she says, but her hands are shaking as she untangles her headphones from her hair and lays them flat around her neck. “Here, let me see.”
Before I can stop her — or, before she can think better of it — she’s pushing my hand aside, sitting up in her seat, pulling my head closer to her so she can look at it.
Her hands are small and warm on either side of my jaw, and I can’t stop myself from sucking in a breath — which fills my nose with the scent of her perfume.
Time stretches out. Just like before, when she was looking at me, prodding at me. I’ve never met another woman who can antagonize me like her.
Her voice replays in my head: Maybe it’s because you’ve realized I’m an essential part of the team, and without me, you won’t make any money?
That’s true, sure, but not the reason I was asking her about the plane. Not the reason that I’d started to feel a nagging, consistent want for her approval.
Not the reason that my body is reacting to her touch, to the way her thumb moves, almost absently, skimming the line of my jaw and making sparks run down my neck and to my collarbone.
She startles, as if realizing she’s been touching me for a long time, and drops my head so suddenly that I nearly face-plant into her stomach, which would have been much worse.
“You’re fine,” she coughs, turning away quickly, looking back to her tablet. Without facing me, she says, her voice oddly tight, “If it’s still hurting, you should go ask Molly to look at it for you.”
“If she says I’m really injured, do you think I should file charges?”
“What?” Sophie blinks at me, looking flustered, and I hate how much I like it. The flush in her cheeks, the rosy pink of her slightly parted lips, the way her hair is still mussed from her headphones falling down to her neck.
On her tablet, the game continues playing, little athletes running around on a little field, but she’s not looking at them. She’s looking at me.
Not for the first time, I think of Sophie as one of those athletes. Of her strong legs; what she might look like, windswept and sweaty. Her flexibility.
There’s something incredibly appealing about seeing someone do something they love. Knowing they’re totally lost in it, and that they’re good .
“Sophie,” I say, tipping my head toward her, smiling in what I hope is a reassuring way. “I’m just messing with you.”
“Oh.” She glances at her tablet, lets out a quick laugh. “Okay, yeah. Great. I’m just going to get back to this.”
With that, she’s snapped her headphones back over her ears, her eyes glued to the screen. But I can tell she’s not really paying attention anymore, because she hasn’t taken a single note, hasn’t paused or rewound the game, like she was before.
I want to lean into her, ask her more questions, see just how much I can make her blush. This is a game I’m good at, and after all this time, it feels good for me to be getting a rise out of her, instead of the other way around.
But before I can tap her on the shoulder, or point something out on her screen, the pilot’s voice comes over the intercom.
“All right, Dallas! We will be arriving in Miami in just about ten minutes. This is your last chance to use the restroom before the seatbelt sign will be on again and we’ll be going in for our landing.”
Behind us, the players jostle and get out of their seats, but Sophie doesn’t even blink, her eyes still glued to the screen, cheeks a shade of pink I’ve already committed to memory.
Now this is a stadium.
The Miami Shells share a stadium with the men’s team, and it has much nicer amenities as a result. This time, instead of sitting out in the sun, I find the VIP section indoors, with floor-to-ceiling windows.
I’m just finding my seat when I hear a familiar voice.
“Well, if it isn’t the old suit and tie.”
When I look up, I see two older men — one short with a gray beard, the other taller and more lithe. Both wearing blue and orange scarves, their eyes bright and their cheeks flushed, beers in hand.
“Steven, Rhett,” I say, shaking each of their hands. “It’s good to see you guys. Wow, you really are committed, aren’t you?”
“We don’t go to all the away games—” Rhett waves his hand, then points to Steven, “—but he had a business trip out here. Figured we kill two birds, and all that. I have to say, we’re more shocked to see you here!”
The laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it. “Well, I may have…” Before I tell them I own the team, something in my mind tells me not to, and I redirect, “…caught the soccer bug.”
“I thought you were some sort of reporter,” Steven says, eyebrow raised, looking me up and down. “You don’t seem the soccer type. Still can’t figure out why you’re dressed like that to come to a game.”
“Don’t listen to him, man,” Rhett says, laughing and slinging an arm around my shoulder. “You can wear whatever you want. You look good in a suit! Where are you sitting?”
When the game starts, Rhett, Steven, and I are sitting together. I surprise myself by missing that smell from the Dallas game — that mixture of grass and water, food cooking for the concessions. This VIP area smells like nothing — just new carpet and glass cleaner.
I stick an earbud in, listening to the announcer as the action starts up on the field.
“Welcome back everyone to another game here with the NWSL. Today we have the Miami Shells taking on the Dallas Bolts. Dallas’s defense is on lockdown, but the question is — can they hold up against Miami without Athens?”
“My answer to that is no,” another announcer says. “The Bolts had a tough task ahead just getting through the Shells’ flexible play style, but without Athens? It’s going to be interesting, for sure.”
“Sold-out crowd here in Miami! Here’s the whistle and the game is underway!”
The players explode on the field, drawing in tight around the ball and moving out again like a firework, the orange of Dallas bright against the green, Miami’s white jerseys blinding in the bright Florida sun.
Dallas gets the ball early, bringing it down the field, and works the goal. I track the ball the best I can, watching as it goes across the box, then?—
“…forward Cascarino floats it across, sends it straight toward Smith and— whoa!”
We leap to our feet, shocked when the ball rockets right into the net, past the hands of the shocked goalie.
“We’re on the board!” Steven says, mouth open like he can’t believe it.
“All right,” Rhett says, and when he claps his hand on my back, I clap mine right back on his.
Nobody expects the Bolts to win this game, and yet they hold strong, keeping Miami out of the goal. They respond to every move, Sophie rallying them visibly.
As the seconds tick down at the end of the game, we watch Dallas hold them off still. The game ends three to two — we’ve won.
I’m on my feet, Rhett cheering, his hand on my shoulder jostling me around as I laugh, beer sloshing out of my cup. I can’t believe it — somehow, the Bolts managed to pull it off.
We beat Miami in an upset.
Down on the field, the team celebrates, even Lena Athens running into the huddle, jumping up and down with them, laughing, tears running down their face.
“Holy shit,” I say when Steven claps me on the back. He looks over at me, grinning, and says, “In deed .”