Page 12 of Second Down Fake

“Is ten too early?”

Okay, dating definitely wasn’t in the cards.

Dates didn’t happen at ten in the morning unless they were a holdover from the night before. I brushed away the faint flutter of disappointment when, really, Diego was doing me a favor. Foxy pro quarterbacks didn’t date girls like me. Guys with questionable jobs and girlfriends dated girls like me.

“Nope. That sounds perfect. Where should we meet?”

“I’ll pick you up,” he said, his voice slightly distant, distracted almost. Clearly, I’d worn out my welcome.

“Great. See you then!” I hurried to hang up the phone when Diego’s voice stopped me.

“Hey, when you go inside, ask for David.”

“David? In the bar?”

“Yeah, he’s the manager. I told him to expect you.”

“While we were on the phone?” I asked. “Wait, you know the manager?”

He laughed. “I know the owner. Congrats on the new job! We’ll celebrate on Tuesday.”

FIVE

DIEGO

I sank into a fluffy pink beanbag chair on Rob’s living room floor. The tea party set in front of me didn’t distract me from the flood of notifications on my phone.

“This shit was supposed to die down,” I grumbled at yet another headline speculating about Zoey’s sudden silence.

“You can’t say ‘shit’,” Mila, Rob’s daughter, replied as she brushed out her doll’s hair in front of me. “Only daddy can say shit.”

She dropped the doll and her eyes widened as she turned in horror toward Rob.

“It’s fine,” Rob said with a wave of his hand. Unlike the rest of us, Rob got a free pass from sitting on the floor and playing tea party. “And Diego can say it, too. It’s an adult word.”

“It’s an adult word for adult conversations,” Noa, the Breaker’s center and Rob’s best friend, said as he carried a tiny tea set into the room, balancing the pale pastel cups and saucers on a metal tray. The set rattled as he lowered himself to the floor. The small pastel chairs around the table would never support his nearly 300 pounds of muscle, but he sat crisscross in front of the table with unnatural ease. “Some tea, my lady?”

Mila nodded, eyes alight, as Noa carefully poured “tea” into a cup.

“Mr. Salazar, would you like a cup?” Mila asked.

“I’d love a cup,” I said with a sigh, my eyes glued to my phone. I hadn’t planned to spend the afternoon playing tea with a six-year-old, but the gossip machine had been quiet and rather than die away, my breakup with Zoey had snowballed online. “There’s even a hashtag now. Diego Drama.”

Rob snorted, turning the page of the book in his hand. “They couldn’t come up with something more clever than that?”

“You’re not helping,” I said.

“No phones are allowed at the tea party,” Mila tapped my forearm.

“Diego Sycophant?” Noa said with a grin.

“Dickbag Salazar?” Rob countered.

“You’re not helping.” I pocketed my phone and picked up the green cup in front of me.

“I’ve got it! Diego Star-Fu—” Rob said.

“No name calling at my tea party!” Mila’s tiara wobbled on her head as she stood up from the table, glaring at her father.

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