Page 23

CHAPTER 23

ROSE

I probably sound like a hyena but I can’t stop laughing. The look on Logan’s face is epic—deep annoyance, yet no surprise that his teammates have targeted him for the next silly prank. I wonder if this makes him want to leave even more, or the opposite.

And that’s a sobering thought.

Not about Logan leaving. Rather, about him staying.

I guess that’s a possibility, especially since he didn’t jump to sign with any of the offers. But I don’t know what it would take for him to stay when he’s already made up his mind. I certainly can’t ask him to consider it for my sake.

He keeps looking at me, not at Lucky or the others. I can’t help but wonder if we’re going to get to do the SPORTY campaign together after all.

As my laughter ebbs away, my grip is steadier in recording the guys chanting wear them at Logan. I’d pay decent cash to see him put on the silly socks, but there’s no way he will. In fact, he wraps the long socks around his left hand and?—

Starts walking over.

I take a step back like that’s enough to blend me in with my surroundings, except that I do have a phone camera pointed at his face. That doesn’t make me inconspicuous at all.

“What?” I ask when he doesn’t stop.

My back bumps into a wall and suddenly I’m trapped. Logan braces himself against the wall with one arm, which brings him way too close. Closer than we’ve ever been.

My breath hitches. This would be so much easier if he smelled bad. Clearly he worked out since we last talked. That should be enough to make him reek of sweat and body odor, and yeah, I definitely detect the sweat. But there’s also something that is fogging up my brain and weakening my knees. Suddenly I’m real glad that I have a whole wall behind me to prop me up.

I stiffen as he touches me—wait. Not him. The socks. There’s enough space between us that I can look down. The balled up socks are pressed against my belly, right against my exposed skin.

Slowly, he leans down to my ear. “If you like them so much, you wear them.” His voice is raspy and soft, nonetheless deep.

Annoying. Now I have goosebumps all over.

The wear them chants morph into wolf whistling and hooting. Logan pulls away to look down into my eyes. My flaming face goes from could-boil-an-egg to fire-itself when I realize what he’s doing next.

Carefully, without touching my skin with his, he slides one end of the balled up socks into the waistband of my leggings.

Air rushes out of my lungs.

Before I can even formulate what to say, he pulls all the way off and turns his back on me. “Okay, that’s enough, assholes. We have a game to play,” he barks, clapping his hands.

Squeezing my phone against my chest, I keep my head down and make a whole dash out of the clubhouse before anyone starts divesting himself of clothes. I take one last peek at the door, and find Logan’s eyes on me until the last second.

They were blazing. I don’t know if from anger or, or…

Nah. Definitely anger.

Obviously I’m not the mastermind of the prank, we all know that’s a Lucky Rivera special. But I overheard him and Cade talking about it when I was returning from Audrey’s office, and they were sneaking out of the canteen. One thing led to another, and I agreed to record the whole thing for social media.

I touch my face with the back of my hands. Yep, fire itself.

“Hey, Rose.” I screech to a stop in front of Hope. She’s drying her hands with paper towels, clearly returning from the restroom. “What brings you around here?”

“Ah.” I clear my throat. “Your boyfriend and his bestie let me know they were pulling the socks prank on Logan, so I came to record it.”

“Aw dang it, I missed it.” Her frown clears away as quick as it forms, replaced by a smile. “So, you and Logan, huh?”

I give a strained laugh. “Wild, right?”

“Not really.” She wiggles her eyebrows. “We all saw the sparks that time at Cade’s place.”

“Sparks,” I repeat amid more of those awkward chuckles.

“I’m really happy for you. Logan’s genuinely a good guy, despite that bad boy persona of his.”

“He really is,” this I say with a lot more confidence, because it’s true. He’s far from perfect and annoys me too easily, but he’s a gentleman.

And he smells really damn good.

“Well I, uh… gotta go. To edit this. See you after the game.”

“Yep.” Hope waves at me and jumps back into the alligator’s den.

I breathe funny while I basically run for my life. It’s not like the guy is chasing me down, but I still feel the need to put as much space between us as I can.

*

I’m freaking exhausted. It must’ve shown bad enough for Dave to send me home early while the game was still going. He’ll cover the rest and even told me to go to the doctor tomorrow if I still look like gum someone stepped on. Geez.

I imagine myself walking into a doctor’s office and saying, “The reason I’m here is because my growing guilt over using a guy to advance my career, and lying to friends, coworkers, and the whole internet about it is making me sick. What can you prescribe for that?”

It’s close to midnight and I’m sure the game will be ending soon. While the guys duke it out in the stadium downtown, I sit in my room in front of my dresser applying all the products my hair needs to be happy. My lips are turned into a sad little arch as I work curl cream from my roots to my ends, which stretched out can reach the small of my back.

My chest expands and empties as I let out a big sigh. The Orlando Wild app pings with a notification that the team has won, three to one. Not bad. Maybe not enough for Logan to rethink his trade.

“Para, Rosalina,” I say in the language of my parents, with the same inflection Mom’s voice got that threatened with la chancla. I will throw a shoe at my own face if I continue.

It’s not like he doesn’t know what I’m doing. He agreed to participate of his own volition. I at least shouldn’t feel guilty about that. And perhaps I could tell Hope the truth. There’s no concern that she’ll run and tell the internet or anything. Rather, I don’t want to disappoint her for having lied.

“Ugh.”

I work a bit faster on my hair, switching to gel and scrunching. My phone pings again and I intend to ignore it, but something about the blur on the screen catches my attention.

Leaning over the screen, I all but get a heart attack when it turns out to not be a text, but a phone call. From Logan. For the first time in my life—what with only having exchanged numbers a few days ago. And right after a game?

The more I think about it, the stranger this feels.

My hands are goopy with products, though. I rush to the bathroom to wash them off and of course, when I return to my dresser the phone screen is completely black. Did I hallucinate Logan Kim calling me?

But then my phone goes off again, and this time I answer right away. “Logan? Hi? What’s up?” My voice comes out squeaky and choppy.

“Hey.” Meanwhile, his is all velvet as usual. “I was looking for you but your boss said you went home because you weren’t feeling well. Everything okay?”

My heart drops to the floor. I hate that he chooses this moment to show concern for me, when I’m drowning in worry and guilt.

“I—I’m okay. Just a bit tired.” I swallow hard and look at the Rose in the mirror, asking her for some extra strength. “Is, um… Is that what you were calling for?”

“Originally, no,” he responds with his shocking honesty. “Something else has come up. Something that’s pretty damn bad, not gonna lie.”

I gasp. “Did your fans caught on to the fact that we’re lying?” I rush to my window and peek out of the blinds, as though the backyard wasn’t right behind me and it was a busy street instead. “Are they coming for me now? Do I need witness protection services?”

Logan snorts and something like a laugh comes out of him, except I can’t be sure it’s really that because he stops it right away. “No, it’s a different kind of bad. Worse, I’d say.”

“Logan Kim, you’re about to give me a heart attack.”

“It’s my parents.” He sighs. “They just called me saying they’re coming to town tomorrow to meet my new girlfriend.”

Silence.

Silence except for my hair dripping on the hardwood floor.

Calmly, I walk into the bathroom again to get some paper towels. I drop them on the floor and wipe it with my foot as I speak. “Let me see if I get this straight. Your parents are coming to meet me . Tomorrow.”

“Right. I can buy you a plane ticket to go wherever you want tomorrow. Mikonos, Banff, the Maldives, Cape Town, Bangkok, you name it.” He sounds like he means it, too.

“So you don’t want me to meet your parents? What’s wrong with me? Is it because I’m not a Victoria’s Secret model?” I grouch.

“What? No. You are the one who doesn’t want to meet them , trust me.”

“Are you kidding me?” I pause talking because my jaw drops. “I would love to meet TJ Kim and Freja Lindberg. I’m sure my boss would murder me if I didn’t get some pictures and videos of them to use on our socials.”

“Rose, I—Listen, it would be so much better if you let me provide you with an excuse to leave town than spend a whole night pretending to be my girlfriend in front of my eagle-eyed parents.”

“Is that a pun because your brother is an Eagle?” I tease.

It takes him a surprisingly long time to speak again. “If you’d rather not go far, how about an all-expenses-paid stay at one of the spa resorts? Just for you. Or you can bring a plus one.”

“Why do you sound like you want to be that plus one?”

“Because I do. Desperately,” he rasps out, and my hormones titter in glee until he adds, “but they’ll figure out a way to find me because that’s just how they are. I’m trying to spare you from them setting their talons on you.”

“Talons?” I whistle. “I’m starting to get the impression that you don’t like your parents very much.”

“I don’t,” he says bluntly. “I really don’t.”

“Then…” I bite my lip and dare to glance at the Rose in the mirror. Her eyes are way too bright and she doesn’t stop me from saying, “I can’t leave you all alone to face them.”

“But—”

“Text me the address, Logan. I’ll see you tomorrow.” And I end the call.