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CHAPTER 7

DECK

PRINCE PINK WINE

Lizzy the PR girl was oddly unruffled as we rode around the corner to the Teakhouse Tavern, one of the team’s usual hangs when we were in town.

We stepped into the bar, which was quiet since it was a Monday evening. I dropped a hand to Lizzy’s back out of habit—and partially because I wanted to touch her—but she sidestepped me and pointed to the back corner.

“Over there.”

I looked to the remote booth where she was pointing. I liked to sit at the bar—a little see and be seen never hurt anyone. But there was no one in here to see or be seen by, so I agreed. Plus, I was pretty curious about Lizzy.

“I’ll grab drinks and meet you over there?”

She nodded and then I watched her strut to the corner, making a survey of the entire bar visually before sliding into the far bench with her back to the wall.

She was quirky. I liked quirky, I decided. She also hadn’t told me what she wanted to drink.

Not a problem though. Since joining the ranks of elite athletes in the United States, I’d gotten a pretty good sense of what the average American woman drank when out at a bar with me.

“A white zinfandel and Macallan, neat.”

Lex, the bartender who’d been here since I started playing for the team, nodded and moved efficiently behind the bar, getting my drinks. I carried them over to the table and set them on the surface, and then slid into the booth across from Lizzy.

Before I could say a word, she’d picked up my Scotch and sipped. I waited for her to make a face and hand it back to me, laughing about how she didn’t know how I could drink that stuff. But that isn’t what happened.

Instead, she lifted an eyebrow, tilted her head toward the wine, and said, “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a pink wine guy.”

I shrugged. “Just trying something different, I guess.” I sipped the wine, working hard not to be the one to make a face.

So Lizzy drank Scotch.

Interesting.

“So,” I said, searching for something charming that might counter the idea she now had that I drank pink wine and didn’t conclusively prevail in parking lot fights with assholes. “Did you grow up here in Virginia, Lizzy?”

“Ah, no,” she said, sipping my Scotch again and appearing to savor it. She offered nothing else.

“So,” I started again, “been in public relations long?”

“Not long.”

“But you must be a killer when it comes to image or something. Or else they wouldn’t have sent you to the Wombats, right?”

“A killer for sure,” she said, and a smirk passed her lips. She stayed quiet another minute, enjoying my drink as I struggled through the wine, and finally I got a little desperate.

“Lizzy, I didn’t really mean to force you to come hang out. I have the sense maybe you have other things to do?” It was rare to be the more interested party on a date—if that’s what this was—but something about Lizzy’s ambivalence made me feel slightly desperate. Not a good look.

“You needed a glass of pink wine. I didn’t want to stand in the way of that.”

“I could have come to drink pink wine alone,” my voice sounded slightly biting, even to me.

She raised an eyebrow at me. Something in the expression gave me a flash of recognition. Lizzy reminded me of someone I used to know. A girl I played with when I was a kid, back in Murdan. My mom’s assistant’s daughter, Eliza. She sighed. “Yeah. I’m sorry. Maybe I’m more shook up than I thought.”

I stared at her, sitting there, completely put together and calm. If this was a woman shook up, I had a lot more to learn about women.