Page 47 of Most Likely to Score
“Sorry.” She adjusts her ponytail again, raising her chin, talking in that modulated, publicist voice. “Did you have fun?”
I swallow. “Yes and no.”
“Yes and no?”
I’m dangerously close to admitting I want her. The words tango on the end of my tongue.I want you. I need you. I can’t stand how much I think of you.
In this moment, I crave her more than a sponsorship deal, and I want her to know the reason I had a shitty time tonight is that she was out with some guy. But I trip on the words, and they fall out of my mouth like blocks tumbling. “I thought you were seeing someone. Like a boyfriend. That guy.”
She’s silent at first, then a sly smile spreads on her face, wider and wider still, until it turns into a belly laugh. “Andre and I bat for the same team.”
All my jealousy drains in an instant. I try to cover up my glaring misread with a forced and sheepish chuckle. “Well, that’s good to know.”
I push out another laugh so she knows I’m not the jealous ass I was seconds ago. But my laughter ceases when she speaks again.
“We were admiring the same scenery tonight.” Shewriggles her eyebrows, and that’s it. Evidently, I’m still the jealous ass, because I hate the thought of her admiring any scenery belonging to another man.
I’mthisclose to spilling my guts, but a scan right, a scan left, and a pool full of people swimming and lounging is the reminder I need to zip my lips.
She is controlling what these people think of me. She is helping me keep the sponsorship deals my agent lines up—deals that fund my parents’ retirement. My dad doesn’t have to drive a truck. My mom doesn’t have to work extra shifts.His dad moved to America from Ireland years ago to pursue the American dream, so to speak. It’s my job, and my fucking pleasure, to keep that dream alive for my parents now.
“I need to go for a walk.”
I turn around and leave. If I stay near her, I’ll try to kiss her in public. I’ll haul her over my shoulder and carry her to my room, tell her I can’t take this wanting anymore. It’s miserable craving a person this much and not having her.
I walk down the beach, and I try to burn off this frustration, but thirty minutes later I’m no closer to finding Zen without her.
There’s no Zen without her.
I go inside, take the elevator, and walk down the hallway, banging my fist on room 302. When she answers, I pose a question I’ve been dying to ask for a long, long time.
20
JILLIAN
His right arm rests against the doorframe. His big body fills the doorway.
Nerves skate over my skin. My throat is dry. I want to tell him he behaved like a jerk tonight at the pool, grunting out words like a caveman.
But I also want to know why he’s come calling at nine at night.
I try to manage ahi, what can I do for you, except he gets the first words in.
“What would it be like if we didn’t work together?”
His words hang in the air like sweet smoke.
Like possibility.
Inside, I’m shaking—with want, with hope, with an anticipation that thrills and scares me. He’s here at my hotel room, and his blue eyes are blazing. There’s a fire in them, a heat I haven’t seen before. Briefly, I glance down, trying to see me as he does—I’m wearing only a tank top and pajama shorts. My hair is blow-dried,since I just took a shower. I had to wash off the chlorine, along with my frustration over how he behaved at the pool.
I should still be annoyed with him, but it’s hard to stay that way since curiosity is eating at me. Carefully, in a low voice, I ask, “What do you mean?”
Blue lights along the floorboards glow faintly in the stylish room behind me, as Sam Smith plays from my phone. “Stay with Me” floats in the air like a call to him, a request for Jones to spend the night.
He leans a few inches closer, making me dizzy.
“What I mean is . . .” He takes his time answering, his voice full of a need I’ve never heard from him before. “What would things be like with you and me if we didn’t work together?”
