Page 14 of Six Wishes

“Shouldn’t he be asking me first if I wanted to go out with him?” Chloe asks Hunter all while completely avoiding my eyes.

“I think he just did,” Hunter points out, then turns her eyes up to me. “Very alpha of you, Van,” she gives me a bright smile. “I approve!”

“I approve too,” Brooke squeals with happiness, hands tucked under her chin, and she is watching us like we are her favorite show. “I am so happy I came in this morning. This is great!”

“It is,” Hunter agrees. “Make sure you tell my brother that Van Boyd told you that you’re beautiful. That’ll get him going,” she starts laughing. “Also, make sure you’re ready to have another baby before you say anything though, because I’m positive he’ll try to get you pregnant again to assert his dominance.”

Brooke’s face looks stricken with horror. “Hunter, please don’t put a baby out into the universe like that! If you just jinxed me, I swear I will jinx you back,” she threatens.

They start bickering back and forth, but my eyes are stuck to Chloe’s face. She is giving me a shy smile now that is in total contrast with her teasing words from a little bit ago.

I move around these girls until I can stand right next to her, close enough to whisper in her ear. “What time should I pick you up?”

Her eyes go big in surprise. “Wait, you were serious?”

“Yeah, I was serious,” I can’t believe she even has to ask.

“I thought it was one of your lines,” Chloe shrugs apologetically. “They’re really bad,” she adds. “Your lines, they’re so bad,” she starts laughing now.

“Yeah, but they got you to go out with me, so they can’t be that terrible,” I nudge her with my shoulder.

My cell phone buzzes in the pocket of my shorts and I grab it to make sure it’s nothing important. My eyebrows go up in surprise when I see it’s my agent.

“Chuck,” is all I say in greeting. We’ve always been straight and to the point with each other.

“Donovan,” and he is always so damn official when talking to me. Literally the entire world calls me Van except for Chuck Reynolds here. And my mother when she’s mad at me. “How’s your summer?”

“Eh, you know,” I am staring at Chloe’s lips right now and have a hard time focusing on whatever he’s got to say to me. There’s just a little bit of sweat on her upper lip that I can’t take my eyes off of.

“Are you working out every day?” It’s like Chuck has a checklist he goes through every time he calls.

“Yes, I am actually at the gym as we speak.” I finally reach out and run my thumb across Chloe’s lips. Her eyes widen and dilate as she’s watching my every move. I am also noticing that her peanut gallery consisting of Hunter and Brooke is also observing us, going all quiet.

“Good, good,” I hear Chuck shuffling some papers on his desk, then he starts clicking on his keyboard. “And what’s the status on the knee? Any progress?”

That is a hard question to answer, and I don’t want to do it in front of witnesses. My knee is not so hot, but I will not have an official change of status with the team until I am back and their team of doctors and therapists can make an assessment. Also, I am not ready to give up on it just yet.

“It’s been better,” I am always honest with Chuck. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I can almost see him in my head nodding away at everything I got to say, his reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose. He is one of the goofiest looking people I have ever seen, and also one of the smartest. He is very old school about a lot of things, but that’s what made me a shitload of cash.

“Was there anything else, Chuck?” I ask when there’s a moment of silence. “Oh, hold on for a sec,” I say when I notice that Chloe is looking at something on her phone and she’s not happy. “What’s up?”

“Brian just texted.” Fuckin’ Brian again, I almost roll my eyes to the ceiling. “He and Lucas, our other player, are stuck at work so they won’t be able to make it. We’ll be two players down. Might as well just postpone the game,” she looks at her cousin with such disappointment, I can’t take it.

“I’ll do it!” the words leave my mouth without an actual direction from my brain. “I mean, I’m only one for the two,” I point out the obvious, “But I’m as big as two,” I flex my arm and the girls start giggling.

“Are you sure?” Chloe is laughing but looks so excited at the prospect.

“Hell yeah! Hold on,” I put a finger up. “Chuck, I’ll call you back later when I get home. Thanks!” I don’t give him a chance to say goodbye before I hang up the phone.

“Let’s kick some volleyball ass, ladies!” I slap my hands together. Brooke and Hunter put their hands up for high fives, and I don’t disappoint.

“Let’s tell Eden,” Chloe refers to who will now be our fifth team member. She was late coming in so she missed a lot of the conditioning session. “We need to practice, get our team in sync!”

I put both arms up for some more high fives. “Let’s sync in, ladies!”

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