Page 46 of Love Lessons
When the boat finally docks, I stand up so fast my knees pop. Ian shoves his phone in his pocket and gives me a secretive smile.
And then Neil ruins everything. “Okay, fellas. It’s poker night! Meet me in the den. I asked the caterer to leave us a card table and a bottle of scotch.”
“Wait, is this men only?” Charli yelps. “What thehell?”
“No way.” Neil puts a hand on his wife’s back, steadying her as she climbs onto the dock. “There are plenty of seats and plenty of chips. Let’s go, wifey. Ante up.”
Charli gives him a sly smile over her shoulder. “I guess I don’t actually want to play. I was just checking.”
“I’m not going to play, either,” I announce. “I’ll be up in my room, planning out that shopping trip for tomorrow.”
Ian is silent. I feel his eyes on me, and I like it. But as we file into the villa’s side entrance, Anton specifically asks him to play cards. “You’re in, right? I need a rematch after that bloodbath in Chicago.”
“Uh, sure,” he says. “Only for a couple of hands, though. I have to call my, uh, parents. See how they’re doing.”
“Yeah, let’s go,” Castro says, oblivious to my pain. They march off to the den, and I make my way upstairs to my bedroom.
Once there, I let my hair loose and brush the tangles out of it. On the one hand, this delay isn’t so bad. I’ll have a few minutes alone to make myself beautiful.
On the other hand, I’ll have a few minutes alone to have a fashion crisis. What does a girl wear for sex with a professional athlete? He’s the kind of guy that women proposition after every hockey game. He’s probably had sex in every US city that has a hockey team.
Don’t forget Canada, my inner voice says.
Right.
I open the top drawer of the bureau, where I’ve deposited all my underwear and night things. I pull out a simple little silk nightgown and give it the side-eye.
Not that, my inner voice complains.Too demure. You don’t even own the kind of lingerie that would turn his head.
I drop it again. Holy macaroni.What was I thinking? I didn’t pack right for this kind of adventure.
Now I’m spiraling. I actually pick up my phone and google:Ian Crikey girlfriend. I know he’s single at the moment. But self-flagellation is an art form, and I need to know what I’m up against.
My stomach drops as the screen loads a stream of results. There’s a whole smorgasbord of photos of Ian at various charity events with a different glamorous date on his arm in each one. There’s a leggy redhead in an emerald dress. There’s a stunning Black woman with model-worthy cheekbones, wearing a pleated Chloe maxi dress that I could never pull off. Next, we have a curvy woman with impressive corkscrew curls wearing a strapless ball gown. Her intricate shoulder tattoos curl artfully above the neckline.
Every one of those women is exactly the kind of kickass beauty that I would have expected to see on his arm. But then, as I scroll down even further, many of the older photos of Ian feature one particular woman. The captions read:hockey player Ian Crikey and Miss Jaqueline Everston. And they go back a few years.
Huh. Ian had a girlfriend before he became a man about town.
I zoom in on Miss Everston, taking measure of her wide, polished smile. It’s worthy of a toothpaste commercial. She’sverywell-dressed, even if her taste runs to the conservative—Chanel jackets and silk blouses.
And she’s super photogenic. The glossy hair. The perfect smile. The scarves tied just so. She’s sleek and well-accessorized, sort of the way I’m trying to be.
Well, almost. I’d never choose those pumps. Or that pencil skirt.
You’re too short for those clothes anyway, my inner voice chimes in.
Even so, Ian’s ex is not what I pictured. Maybe Ian broke up with her to date carefree, adventurous women. Maybe she was too boring in bed.
Gulp.
I can’t stop scrolling, though. And then it occurs to me that I can google her name by itself and find even more photos.
Boom. There she is in dozens of other pictures. She pops up in news stories about Connecticut politics. She works in the government? That explains the pencil skirts. And the confidence. And—wait—there’s a new man in a lot of these photos. She’s engaged to be married. To… the lieutenant governor of Connecticut?
Okay. Well. That’s not intimidating at all.
A muffled shout from the main floor startles me out of my reverie, and I guiltily toss my phone down onto the bed. I don’t hear footsteps, though. That was merely the sound of someone winning a high-stakes hand of poker downstairs.
