Page 27

27

Holt

Ziggy’s late.

I’m at the right Cod Pieces. I have her fries. Fish too—she texted that she was in the mood for something greasy after living on crackers and soda water for a month—but there’s no Ziggy.

“Do you think her mom found out?” Goldie murmurs as we huddle at a booth with as little view of the outside windows as you can get at a fast-food fish restaurant shaped like a fishbowl in a strip mall parking lot.

“Given my luck, probably,” I mutter.

“Why do people always say that?” Fletcher says. “My dude, you don’t have bad luck. None of us have persistent bad luck.”

Says the guy who arrived on the team furious and taking it out on the whole world when he was unceremoniously fired by one of the best teams in the most prestigious league in the UK and lied to about why.

Sounds like bad luck to me.

I frown at him. “When you find a dog, it loves you. When I find a dog, it’s the one dog in the entire city who hates men. Your sister saves people’s lives. My brother’s dead. You’re engaged to an absolute saint. The last woman I hooked up with” —before last night— “snuck out of my house with all my spatulas and sent me the Instagram page she set up to show their adventures. My spatulas have a spite spatula travels Instagram page. Plus she kept leaving cheeses of all varieties in my mailbox. You got fired from the club you’d played with for years, and now you’re shoving your success in their faces. I tried to make another team overseas, and I broke my foot. Don’t fucking talk to me about luck.”

Fletcher opens his mouth, but Goldie touches him lightly on the shoulder. “I think we need to let him have this one for now, yeah? Good. Glad we agree. Will you please go get me more tartar sauce?”

“Anything for you.” He leaps out of the booth like he wasn’t grunting and swearing and moaning I won’t be able to move tomorrow during weight training while I was having PT yesterday and heads for the condiments.

Knew it.

I knew he was whining for my benefit.

Or possibly to mock Silas. Goldie’s brother also whines a lot on leg days.

Goldie leans across the table and grabs my arm. “The hardest things in life are worth fighting for. If she’s worth it, she’ll be here, or she’ll let you know a real reason why she can’t. There’s probably traffic.”

“A car accident. ”

“Holt. Stop.”

“I fucking like her, and Coach sent that email, and we already knew it was dicey, and I like her . How the fuck did I find the one woman in the entire city who’d be off-limits to house-sit for me?”

Goldie smiles. “You’re down bad, aren’t you?”

“If I don’t hear from her in the next five minutes, I’ll?—”

I stop myself.

Because there she is, walking through the door.

Her hair’s tied up in another messy bun, and her cheeks are red like she had to park too far away in the heat.

I should’ve told her to pull up front and made Fletcher park her car for her.

Wary eyes scan the room, and her smile isn’t bright enough when she spots me.

My heart starts a slow barrel roll of doom.

She told her mom.

She told her mom, and now she’s coming to tell me she can’t be seen with me and she’s moving in with them until she finds a house and we’re going to never see each other again.

I’m bracing myself when she slides into the seat next to me. “Sorry I’m late.” Her gaze flicks to me, and the next thing I notice is the way her eyes are rimmed in red. “We ran into Abby Nora and Vitamin Guy, and I needed a minute. Okay, an hour. I needed an hour. And to convince my mom I was okay to drive after that hour.”

It takes everything I have to not wrap her in a hug and tell her fuck Abby Nora and offer to plant my fist in Vitamin Guy’s face. Or offer to have Fletcher egg their houses. I settle for squeezing her thigh under the table.

“You okay? ”

She shakes her head. Nods. Shakes her head again.

And Goldie squeaks. “ Oh my god , that’s where I know you from!”

We both look at her.

“You were besties with Abby Nora Ewing. In high school. We went to high school together. Heartwood Valley High? Same year, weren’t we?”

The color drains from Ziggy’s face. “Oh no ,” she whispers.

“What?” I slip my arm around her.

“You were on student council.” Goldie pauses, her smile fading. “What’s wrong? Oh, crap, was I a complete wanker? Please don’t judge me based on high school Goldie. Adult Goldie is a lot nicer, I promise.”

“You were a wanker in high school and never told me?” Fletcher says as he retakes his seat and dumps a fistful of tartar sauce packets on the table. “I call foul. That would’ve evened the wanker tables in our relationship.”

“Everyone’s a wanker in high school. Most of us grow out of it.” She winces. “But not all of us.”

Fletcher coughs out a your brother .

She elbows him while I toss a tartar sauce packet at him, hitting him square in the chest despite using my left hand. “I can still tell Coach to make you run extra laps.”

“Some of us don’t mind hard work.” He smirks.

Still taking digs at Goldie’s brother.

When he landed on the team, that annoyed me.

Now, I’d be amused—I was yesterday, when I was positive Fletcher was whining for show—except Ziggy’s still shrinking in her seat next to me.

My heart starts that slow slide toward panic.

Did Ziggy and Goldie hate each other in high school?

Is this a bad idea ?

“Ziggy?” I murmur.

“Abby Nora dumped me,” she blurts to Goldie. “We’re not friends anymore.”

Goldie makes like a goldfish and goes bug-eyed and slack-jawed. “Wait, wait, wait. You and Abby Nora—you were still friends? Holt said you had a friend breakup, but I wouldn’t have thought—never mind. Not important what I thought. Ziggy. Girl. I know it hurts right now, but trust me, this is for the better.”

“What kind of name is Abby Nora ?” Fletcher mutters to me.

“Both of her grandmothers,” Ziggy and Goldie say together, Goldie with an eye roll.

Pretty unusual if she’s not rolling her eyes at Fletcher or Silas.

Goldie doesn’t roll her eyes at anyone. She’s too rah-rah, you can do it .

So this is interesting.

“You weren’t at her baby shower, were you?” Ziggy asks Goldie.

“I don’t hang out with anyone from high school anymore.”

“No one?”

“The good ones moved away, and the Abby Noras stayed.”

“You don’t like her.”

Goldie winces. “How do I put this delicately…”

“Don’t be delicate,” Fletcher says. “Call her a fuckwanker.”

Goldie covers his mouth. “When people would rather hire a private chef to recreate a Cod Pieces meal so that no one can see that they like to eat fast-food fish and fries, they generally also have other life philosophies and habits that make me not want to be around them. ”

“Did she just use a hundred words to call your former BFF a snob?” I ask Ziggy.

She blinks quickly. “Yes.”

“Not too many hits to the head yet, Captain. You still got it. Way to go.” Fletcher holds up a high five to me, and I reluctantly smack his hand.

Ziggy reaches for a fry. “Was I stuck up too?”

Goldie shakes her head. “I don’t think so. And I could be wrong. I shouldn’t judge people. We were all at an exclusive private high school. I just get a vibe.”

Ziggy’s still frowning as she chews and takes three more fries. “Mom and I were pretty normal until she married Roland.”

“I was never normal.”

“Who needs normal when you’re perfect?” Fletcher says.

We all ignore him.

“You were overseas?” Goldie says to Ziggy, who nods.

“And home now permanently for the first time since high school?”

Ziggy nods again.

“It’s hard to keep up when you’re not home a lot. And I don’t know her well now, but she married into the Harrison family, didn’t she? The real estate family?”

If Ziggy nods much more, she’ll look like a bobblehead.

It’s freaking adorable.

“They were friends with my father, and they’re the absolute worst. It’s all about appearances. The facade. Don’t get me started on the sons. Eli was such a dick.”

“I puked on him,” Ziggy says. “About a month ago. That’s when Holt and I met.”

Goldie laughs. “Seriously?”

Ziggy nods .

And Goldie cackles.

Goldie.

Cackling over something bad happening to someone.

I squeeze Ziggy’s thigh again, and she covers my hand and squeezes back.

“Good,” Goldie says. “Guys like that deserve some discomfort.”

Fletcher grins at me. “Best date ever. Goldie never shit-talks people.”

“Hush,” she says to him while she takes a discreet glance around the room.

She’s a life coach. Semi-famous on socials. I’m not kidding about her you can do it, I believe in you attitude. She grew an entire business off of inspirational posts.

Really shouldn’t get caught shit-talking people in public.

But Ziggy’s leaning forward as she digs into her fish too. “I knew you were familiar yesterday, but I thought it was because you were friends with Abby Nora. I can’t even tell you how relieved I am right now that you don’t hate me like she does.”

“I don’t take social guidance from Abby Nora.”

“You played soccer, right? You were aiming to go pro. Did you make it?”

Goldie shakes her head. “Broke my hip my senior year of college. Ended my dreams.”

“Oh my god. I’m so sorry.”

“Life worked out.” She looks at me. “Even when it feels like it won’t, it always works out if you look for the good you can still find in the world.”

“Bad luck, my ass,” Fletcher mutters.

I take the opportunity to throw another sauce packet at him and get the reward of having a Ziggy smile aimed at me .

Goldie ignores us both and leans closer to Ziggy. “So here’s what we’re gonna do. You and I were high school friends, and I can’t imagine your family would be upset at you reconnecting with a good old friend instead of an Abby Nora. So we’re going to hang out, and that means you’ll be around Fletcher some. And probably Silas too. My brother.”

“You have a brother?”

“Four years younger. He wasn’t in high school the same time we were. I don’t think you would’ve known him.”

“Lucky you,” Fletcher adds.

“They don’t get along,” I murmur to Ziggy.

“I can clearly see how it must be completely her brother’s fault,” she murmurs back, which makes me snicker.

“I’ve quit telling them both to behave because I think they do it just to annoy me now,” Goldie says. “But this is good. This is really good. You and I can hang out. There will inevitably be interactions with other guys on the team since they’re at our place regularly. And no one at Pounders headquarters can possibly object because you deserve good friends and I have this reputation for being a pretty decent one.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Fletcher says. “She’s not decent . She’s the best.”

“Has Coach wrapped around her little finger,” I add.

“Because she gave the whole team therapy,” Fletcher continues.

I nod. “Helped us get along better when an asswanker invaded, thinking he was better than all of us.”

“Helped our captain see that the asswanker knew what was best.”

“The asswanker was always the problem.”

“The asswanker took the team all the way to the championship match one year and would’ve done it a second year if the asswanker’s girlfriend’s brother hadn’t pulled a fucking hamstring.”

“The asswanker forgets the team part sometimes.”

“The captain’s a dick sometimes who doesn’t appreciate having the stands full at home matches.”

“That’s because the captain gets tired of the asswanker’s bad mustache.”

Goldie’s cracking up.

Ziggy’s watching us both with a fascination that’s much better than the wounded wariness she walked in with a few minutes ago.

Smiling too.

It’s an I’m not sure I’m supposed to smile at this smile, but it’s still a smile.

I rub my hand over her thigh. “Fish settling okay?”

She leans closer to me, all soft curves and honey vanilla scent. “I want seconds.”

“On it.” Fletcher leaps to his feet. “Because asswankers have to make points that they’re not always asswankers sometimes.”

“Is he really your favorite teammate?” Ziggy asks me.

“Not even close, but he comes with Goldie, and he doesn’t need a second job to get by in the off-season, so it’s a default thing.”

“He’s obnoxious, but he’s very self-aware about it,” Goldie says. “But might I point out, Silas also doesn’t work in the off-season. You could be hanging with my brother instead.”

I grimace.

She grins, then turns to Ziggy again. “You worked cruise ships? That sounds exciting.”

Ziggy takes the opening and starts telling stories about her life before she came back to Copper Valley. It’s fun to realize I know some of these stories.

Most of them involve her friend Francesca.

No one asks about the baby.

No one asks if we slept together last night.

Ziggy asks Goldie about what she’s been up to since high school too, and by the time we leave for the movie, my girl’s bright-eyed and happy.

Yes.

My girl.

I licked her. She’s mine.

For as long as the world lets me have her.

The subtle cramping in my gut is warning me it won’t be long enough. That I should keep her at arm’s length. That I should acknowledge this is for fun, not for forever.

Eventually, I’ll consider admitting this could be just infatuation.

It might fade.

Probably for her first.

But today?

Today, I get to be with her. And that’s all that matters.

“Feel better?” I ask as I limp along with my crutches out to her car.

The smile she gives me makes me believe this could last forever.

That there’s still good in the world. That maybe my bad luck streak is over.

If we can prove to ourselves that this is worth fighting her dad over.

“You’re very good at knowing what people need,” she says to me.

“Tell that to Jessica. ”

“Not to brag, but I think Jessica’s pretty happy with the dog sitter you got her.”

“Accident. Good accident, but still an accident.”

“Was it though? Or do you have magic powers you don’t even know you’re using sometimes?”

Shit.

I think I’m blushing.

“Glad you liked Goldie.”

“I want to hold your hand right now so I can squeeze it to say thank you for introducing us.”

“We’ll be in a dark movie theater in a few minutes here.”

Her smile grows.

My dick twitches.

Dark movie theater with a pretty date—this was an excellent idea.