Page 25 of Reserved
When she doesn’t respond right away, I add:
Me: I’m flying back to Monaco tomorrow morning, but I hope we’ll see each other soon. Good night, Nevaeh.
My fingers tap the side of my phone while I wait. Maybe I misinterpreted the way she seemed drawn to me. Fuck, what if I did? What if this was the worst way to go about this? What if I completely freaked her out?
My phone rings before I have a chance to spiral, a smile lighting up my face at the name appearing there.
“Nevaeh,” I say with a soft tone as soon as I hit Answer.
“I hope it’s okay that I called you,” she replies, causing me to sit up and play with the hem of my shirt nervously.
“I wanted to call you too, but I didn’t want to be pushy,” I admit, and she chuckles into the phone. I return it.
“So, you can’t stop thinking about me, huh?” she asks. I hear rustling as if she stood up to start walking around too.
“Why don’t we talk about you instead?” I suggest, trying to keep us from lingering onthatfact. “Tell me something about yourself,” I say. There is a bit of silence for a moment until she breaks it again.
“I wish you weren’t leaving so soon,” she admits, making my heart skip three beats. It’s more forward than anything I was expecting her to say.
“If you want me to stay, I will.”What the fuck is wrong with me? Why would I offer that?
“Don’t you have work responsibilities?” Yes, I have a million meetings to attend and workout schedules I have to stay on top of. Daniel, my performance coach, has already been on my ass to stay focused so close to the start of the season.
“I do, but they can wait another day so I can take you out to dinner.” I have no power over my words, none at all. They dance from my lips and turn around to flip me off before flowing through the fucking phone.
Somebody shoot me.
“Pick me up at seven tomorrow evening,” she instructs with a firm voice, causing a chuckle to slip out of me because dammit, I like it when women are bossy. It turns me on.
“Seven it is. Good night, gorgeous.”
I hang up before I can make more stupid decisions, although I doubt there are any left to make with Nevaeh at this point.
Telling her I can’t get her out of my head? Mistake.
Thinking about her constantly? Mistake.
Texting her? Mistake.
Almost kissing her? Big mistake.
Asking her to go to dinner with me? Biggest fucking mistake.
And yet, I find myself wondering when I can make the worst mistake of all. Kissing her until I’m sure I’m the only one left in her head, kicking Lincoln right out into the cold where the fucker belongs anyway.
Chapter 15
Nevaeh
WhatwasIthinking,agreeing to go on a date with Adrian after kissing Lincoln a few days ago? That’s easy to answer. I wasn’t thinking. I let my body and heart make a decision instead of my head for once. Adrian makes me feel like I’m floating on clouds. I don’t want Lincoln, that much has become very clear to me, but I would like to see where things with Adrian could go.
It was a very simple decision to make.
He might be a player, but I’m up for a good game.
Gillian hands me sample articles to look through and learn from, pulling me out of my thoughts. He instructs me to highlight lines I find striking, and, just in general, study every word on the page. I’m not quite sure what the point of this is, but I do as I’m told.
“Neveah, how would you feel about taking French lessons? Since Gabriel Biancheri and Adrian Romana are from Monaco and Kyle Hughes is half French, Ms. Martin is asking if you could turn your little knowledge of it into good enough for conversation,” Gillian says or asks, I’m not sure which it is.
