Page 52 of Pipe Dreams
“Do you think...?” Georgia’s eyebrows rose. “Maybe something happened between her and Nate last night?”
“In my dreams,” Lauren scoffed. She grabbed Becca’s case and set it near the door. Then she popped open her own pocketbook to leave a tip for the housekeeper.
Georgia grabbed her garment bag off the desk chair and then seemed to freeze. “Wow, Lauren! Did you do it?”
“Um, what?”
Georgia looked up with sparkling eyes, then pointed at something on the cabinet shelf. “Did you seduce a basketball player? You’re my hero.”
Lauren crossed to the desk to discover... a hastily discarded condom package on its surface. She picked it up and crumpled it in her hand.
It had been a three pack. There were none left.
She dropped the evidence in an otherwise empty wastepaper basket. Then she raised her eyes to find Georgia’s amused ones watching her. “Don’t laugh.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. As long as I get at least one juicy detail.”
Slowly she shook her head. “No can do.”
“Not even his position? Point guard? Center?”
“Goalie,” Lauren said quietly.
“Oh,” Georgia whispered.
“Yeah.”
“Wow. You were right. That dress has some powerful mojo.”
Lauren clapped a hand over her mouth. “I guess it does. Don’t tell anyone, okay? It isn’t going to become a thing.”
“Huh. Does he know that?”
“I hope so.”
“Maybe Florida makes people a little crazy,” Georgia speculated as the two of them headed out the door. “Leo and I did it in a hammock on the beach last night. I’ve never donethatbefore.”
Lauren gave a snort of laughter. “It is Florida’s fault. Let’s blame Florida.”
The two of them went downstairs, where the team milled around, looking hungover. At least Lauren wasn’t the only one who’d had a wild night. She kept close to Georgia and steered a wide berth around Mike Beacon. Though it was tempting to stare at him and relive the finer points of last night’s sexcapades.
Go ahead, she dared herself. The virtual replay was the only kind she was going to get.
She boarded the bus when it arrived, taking the seat beside Georgia. Lauren pulled out her phone and began to deal with the day’s e-mails. But the bus just sat there longer than it should have. Lauren looked up and waved over Jimbo, the youngest member of the operations team. “Is there a problem with the schedule?”
He was handing out paper sacks containing muffins, and small cups of coffee, which she and Georgia accepted gratefully. “We’re waiting on Nate,” Jimbo said.
“Ah.” The bus couldn’t really leave without the owner. And the jet would wait for him as long as it took.
She went back to her e-mail. From the back of the bus she heard Mike’s laugh. Who knew what he was laughing at—probably one of Doulie’s jokes. But the sound resonated inside her chest and made her feel fizzy inside.
Georgia nudged her. “Omigod. Look. Out the window.”
Lauren craned her neck to see what Georgia meant. Outside, Nate was leaning into the back seat of a hired sedan with tinted windows. Way in. “So?”
“Becca got into that car first—she’s flying back to New York out of the Lauderdale airport. Do you think he’s... kissing her good-bye?”
Lauren stared as Nate’s back emerged from the car. He snapped the door shut with typical Nate efficiency, his face unreadable. Then he walked out of her line of sight to board the bus.
