Page 9 of #Awestruck

Now he just looked amused. “Really? Why not?”

The man already had an ego so big that the mansion down in Lake Oswego was probably a necessity, just to have enough room for the both of them. I wasn’t about to add to it. Instead, I just made an indistinct gesture with my hand as my answer. “I think you know.”

Another grin, this time at my expense. “So ... do you always narrate games while you watch them?”

“Yes.” It wasn’t weird. It was what I wanted to do as a career, and I wasn’t going to let him make me feel dumb about it. “The announcers are who make the games entertaining.”

“Oh. Not the football players? The men out on the field doing the actual work?”

I did not want to banter with this guy. He seemed to think we were having some kind of adorable rom-com moment, and I was considering how far I could get after I hit him upside the head with that autographed Mickey Mantle baseball bat in the corner before the police showed up to arrest me.

“I stand by my statement.”

“If Bob Costas came in this room ...” Evan walked around the couch, keeping his left hand out of sight behind his back. What was that about? “You’d what?”

Jump up and down and scream like a total fangirl? Start crying hysterically? Lose my ability to speak? They were all distinct possibilities. “I would ... be excited. And there might even be some fainting involved.”

“And I’m not faint-worthy?”

Once upon a time, maybe. Now? Not even a little. I didn’t say anything, but my expression must have conveyed my thoughts as he began to laugh.

I heard the sound of ice hitting a glass, and I saw a glimpse of something pink near his hand. Possibly an umbrella. My curiosity usually got the better of me, and I couldn’t help but ask, “What are you drinking?” I knew that after he got out of high school Evan had stopped drinking. Another thing he was famous for in the media. Which made some sense, given that his parents had been killed by a drunk driver when he was fourteen.

If he’d started up again, that would definitely be newsworthy.

And given the embarrassed look on Evan’s face, my suspicion might not have been too far off. “Nothing.”

It was not nothing. “Let me see it.”

“No.”

Like I was a kid again and back home with my two sisters while we played Keep Away, I made a grab for the drink behind his back, but he easily kept it out of my reach. Frustrated, I made another lunge, but he switched hands and moved the drink around to his front, holding me at bay.

“You do realize the Jacks pay me a lot of money to keep things in my hands. Big hulking men have to tackle me in order to get things away from me.”

His words were hot against my neck, and I realized then just how close I’d gotten to him. How good he smelled, how broad and strong he was. I looked up at him, and those piercing blue eyes that danced with amusement were the only things that snapped me out of the spell he’d put me under.

What was wrong with me? Seriously? I hated Evan Dawson. I was working to ruin his reputation and get him publicly humiliated and then fired. Why hadn’t my body gotten the memo that we were not allowed to be attracted to him?

I stepped back, letting out a deep breath that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding in. “Fine. I don’t really care.”

And even though it was unintentional, my reverse psychology worked. He showed me his drink, which was, in fact, pink and had an umbrella. “It’s nonalcoholic, if you’d like to try it.” He held the drink out to me, and it gave me weird, traitorous little shivers to think about putting my lips on something his lips had been on. “I haven’t tasted it yet. I’d never live it down if the guys saw me with this.”

“Then why carry it around?”

He shrugged. “The bartender called it an Awesome Dawson. What was I supposed to do?”

“Try ‘no thanks.’ Like what you supposedly say to all women.”

“There’s no ‘supposedly’ about it.” He placed the drink down on the table. Then he undid the buttons on his suit jacket and sat on the couch, lounging on it like he owned the place. “I do say no a lot.”

So, so cocky and arrogant. I added it to the mental list of reasons I couldn’t stand Evan Dawson.

“Why so interested in that part of my life?” he asked, and I momentarily panicked. I was making all kinds of digs about his supposed virginity.Way to tip your hand, moron.

“No reason.” Yeah, that was real smooth and definitely threw him off the scent. I wanted to slap myself in the forehead.

“Is your boyfriend not measuring up?”

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