Page 19 of The Slapshot and the Single Mom
Leaning in, I lower my voice to a loud whisper. “I don’t think anyone’s recording our conversation, so you can rag on yourboss all you want. I promise I’ll never tell on you.” I mime zipping my lips and throwing away the key, and she laughs again. I really like making her laugh.
“That man takes up enough of my time as it is. Much as he might deserve it, I don’t want to devote any of my precious free time to him, even if it is to call him names.” She picks up her sandwich and takes a big bite. “Thank you so much for this.”
“My pleasure.” We both eat in relative silence for a moment, and I mentally review my idea of asking her to commit to going out with me several times in a bid to rehab my reputation. That guy—I don’t know if I can really call him a fan given his opinion of me—makes me wonder if it’s a good idea or not. Would it even make a difference?
Maggie looks at me, raises an eyebrow, then narrows her eyes at me as she takes a sip of her soda. “What?” she asks, covering her mouth with her hand. “Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?” She sets down her sandwich and picks up her napkin, wiping her mouth.
Grinning, I shake my head. “No, no. Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare at you and make you feel weird. It’s just … uh, I wanted to ask you a question.”
Her expression turns even more wary. “Okay,” she says slowly. “What’s your question?”
I pause. Am I really doing this? But my plays here are limited. And even if I sue her boss for defamation, that won’t alter public opinion. I need to do something that puts me in the public eye in a positive way, that makes me look good to people so that they forget about my party-loving past. I need a public apology fromher boss that gets picked up by all the major networks too, but I need to help with my own reputation rehab.
Decided, I lean forward. “I have a proposition for you.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Maggie
My brain sortof short-circuits as he talks, and I blink a few times, my blood rushing through my ears. Did he just …
“Wait, wait, wait,” I cut in, holding up a hand to stop the flow of words coming from his pretty face. “I’m sorry. Wait. Are you asking me out?”
He gets a funny look on his face. “Kind of. I know you’re really busy and don’t have a lot of free time. But I think that’s why this arrangement would benefit you as well. I would be happy to pay for any childcare expenses you need help with, both while we’re out together and just in general as long as we’re …” He trails off, moves his head from side to side in an ambivalent movement. “Dating, I guess? At least as far as the public is concerned. You made it clear last time that you aren’t really interested in a relationship, so I’m happy to keep things friendly between us. But we would go out to dinner and whatever else you’d like to do, not worry about people snapping photos of us so that we’reseen out together having fun, and let the public reach their own conclusions.”
“So …” I swallow hard a few times, looking around as I let my brain piece together his words, picking up each sentence and examining it before adding it to the whole picture. “You want me to be your … fake … girlfriend?”
I’m not sure if I should be insulted or not. I’m good enough to date but not for real?
He shrugs. “If you want to put it that way, I guess you can. I prefer to think of it as my friend who goes out with me. You’d get to go out and have fun and get some time off where you’re not in charge of everyone twenty-four-seven. And I’d get to be seen as a stable grown up instead of as an asshole who parties so much that a story about me showing up hungover to the playoffs and tanking my team seems plausible instead of the ridiculous lie it is.”
I bite my lip, studying him. And here I thoughtthiswas a date. Maybe lunch dates aren’t that exciting, but I thought he liked me. Maybe all my baggage did scare him off, just not entirely.
“Plus I get childcare expenses covered.” I narrow my eyes. “Why not just hire someone outright? Surely there are plenty of attractive women you could find who’d happily go out with you for however long you paid them.”
His eyebrows raise. “You mean like an escort?”
I shrug.
“Yeah. And that wouldn’t make it back to the press,” he scoffs.
I lean forward, putting on a condescending smirk. “And why do you think this won’t? I work for the guy who’s responsible for the story you just mentioned. I could tell him all about this.”
He blanches, his throat working as he swallows. That thought clearly never occurred to him. Then he shakes his head. “Because you hate your boss, and you think what he did to me was wrong. Yeah, okay, I like to have a good time. Who doesn’t? But I’d never show up hungover to a game. I’ve never done that. I never would. And you know it.” He lifts one shoulder, seeming more relaxed. “And I don’t want to pay an escort or some random person. I like you. I had fun the other night. Didn’t you?”
I freeze with my mouth open, then snap it closed and dip my head in a nod, filling my mouth with another bite of my sandwich as an excuse not to answer in words.
“Okay,” he says like I just agreed to something important. “I had fun. You had fun. I’m not trying to put you in an uncomfortable position. The truth is, I’d like to see you more, but I get the feeling that if I wait for you to reach out to me, it’ll never happen. But if we agree that we want to keep seeing each other—with no pressure to do anything but go out and have fun—and that I’ll make sure you have what you need so that your son is taken care of while we’re together, what are the possible drawbacks?”
What are the possible drawbacks?
Wait, whatarethe possible drawbacks?
I don’t think I read him wrong before, but I think I’ve given him enough signals that I’m not really interested that he’s offering this option. Chewing my sandwich, I consider the issue from all angles—or I try to anyway. It’s really hard to think about itrationally while he’s sitting there staring at me with those pretty hazel eyes, lips that are far more pouty than it’s fair for a man to have, and gorgeous hair that hangs down about even with his chin. He likes to run his hands through it, and part of me wonders what that would feel like …
Shaking myself out of that line of thought, I refocus on the offer in front of me. He’d take me out—as friends—and we’d do fun things.
Planting my elbow on the table, I hold up a finger. “Hang on. You said we could go out and do whateverIwant?”
