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His gaze narrows. “And you think having some drinks with a few teammates is gonna make everything all right? Yeah. Sure.”
“I think we need you,” I answer truthfully. “And you need us. So, yeah, you do what you can to help get the win. Suck it up and get your ass over to Palmers tonight.”
The tension goes out of his shoulders on a sigh. “All right, I’ll go.”
“Your enthusiasm overwhelms me,” I mutter, grabbing my bag. But then I pause and give him a good glare. “You bail, and I will hunt you down, newbie.”
He rolls his eyes but almost smiles. “I’m terrified.”
“I know. My tackle is a thing of fearsome beauty.”
Cal snorts as I leave. I’m almost out the door when he calls out. “Grayson.” When I stop and glance back, he gives me a nod of his chin. “Thanks.”
It’s not like I’ve done anything but be decent. But I nod back. “Buy me a beer and we’ll call it even.”
As soon as I’m out the door, my thoughts turn back to Mac, and I rub the small sore spot on my chest where she pinched. Tonight can’t come too soon.
Five
Ivy
“Where are you going tonight, sugar pie?”
Fi’s voice, garbled by her cold, cuts through the music that fills my room. I lower the bronze eyeliner I’d been smudging along my lids and glance at her. “Palmers.”
Her red-tipped nose wrinkles. “That meat market? No fair.”
Laughing, I pick up where I left off with the eyeliner, giving myself a soft cat-eye line. “Go there much?”
“Not recently. I hate being sick.” With that whine, she plops down on my bed, lying with dramatic flair among the many pillows. Her puffy eyes narrow onto my docking station where I’m playing songs on my phone. “SexyBack? Really?” A huge grin cracks her face. “It’s like that, is it?”
Shit. It is a deep, dark secret of mine that, when wanting to get my sexy mojo going, I’ll play SexyBack. I suppose my preteen lust for Justin Timberlake never died.
Flushed, I make a production out of selecting a red lip tint to blot on before my gloss. “Whatever. It’s set on random.”
But Fi knows me too well. She eyes my outfit, and her smirk returns. “Uh-huh. Nice top.”
I’m wearing a red silk halter top. It has a high, gathered neckline, but it’s cut so that my shoulders and back are exposed. A strapless, low-backed bra assures that my breasts aren’t swaying out of control, but the top is definitely sexy. Paired with black skinny jeans and high-heeled booties, the outfit is also fairly comfortable. And because Gray is tall as a tree, I can wear heels and not dwarf him. Always a bonus in my world.
“I’m not going to a bar looking like a schlub,” I mutter, dabbing on the red lip tint.
“Speaking of sexy,” Fiona drawls. “Is that mountain of man hotness coming to get you?”
I snort at her nickname for Gray. “No. I’m meeting him there. This isn’t a date, Fi.”
I don’t mention that I’m taking a cab. Gray got his truck back from Drew and promised to not only be the designated driver for tonight but to bring me back home as well. He would have picked me up, but he’s driving a few of his friends, and I refused to cramp their ride. I hadn’t wanted Gray to drive me home for that same reason, but he insisted.
“Trust me, Mac,” he’d said, “they’ll find their own rides home.”
Hooking up. It’s stupid that the idea bothers me. Or that I’d looked at Gray when he’d said that and thought of him finding a girl to hook up with tonight. Taking her home and…
Even now a shudder of distaste runs through me. Stupid shudder. I have no right to be upset. Hell, the fact that I am upset is upsetting. But I’d pulled up my big-girl panties and suggested to Gray that I might be a third wheel.
He’d reacted as though I was talking crazy, insisting that tonight was our night to hang out. So I let the matter drop. But eventually I’ll have to deal with seeing Gray pick up women.
Frowning, I detach my phone from the dock and slip it into my little clutch purse.
“You going to be all right?” I ask Fiona before I go.
She waves a lazy hand. “I’m almost better. Now go and have fun with the entire freaking football team of hotness, you hussy.”
“It’s not the entire team,” I say with a smile. “Maybe like half. Three-quarters at the most.”
Fi tosses a pillow at me, but if falls with a sad little thump far short of me. “So jealous. Go then, get your sexy on. And you’d better send me snaps of their arms!” Fi is an admitted lover of big biceps.
“Will do.” I wave and head out.
The bar where I meet Gray is filled with people, and apparently doing a retro night. Eighties hip-hop pounds from the speakers as I weave through the crush. My height has an advantage here, as does Gray’s; I easily spot him above the crowd, his dark gold hair shining like a beacon as he strides forward to meet me. I love that I can wear heels and he still has inches on me.
“Hey,” he says when we get to each other. “We’ve got a booth in the…” He trails off as he truly looks at me, and his lips part as if he’s taking a quick breath.
“What?” My voice is too loud, the music making it hard to hear anything, and I lean closer. Enough that I feel the heat of his body and catch his clean scent. Soap and man has never smelled better.
For a moment, we kind of just sway around each other. Like magnets in too-close proximity deciding whether to slam together or split apart. A strange little dance that has us both flustered.