Page 25 of Power Play

“Do you like pizza?”

“Who doesn’t like pizza?” I counter, laughing a little at the randomness of his inquiry. Where in the world is he going with this?

With a shrug, he says, “My brother, but it doesn’t matter. I’d like to know . . . would you want to get some pizza with me?”

My body jolts with awareness, and I swear a tingle zips down my spine when he touches his knee to my leg again.

“Do you mean pizza right now?”

“Yes. There’s a place that serves by the slice right around the corner from here. Maybe a five-minute walk, tops. Would you want to go with me, grab some later night dinner?”

All reason flees and I go with the first thought that enters my head. “I’d love to.”

Chapter Eight

“You look like hell,” Casey tells me the next morning.

Still staring at my computer screen, I rub my middle finger along my hairline with not a drop of subtlety. “A compliment,” I mutter dryly, “Hold me while I try to soak it all up.”

Casey’s laugh is loud in the quiet of the morning. There’s no one here but us—if you don’t count Josh, that is, who never fails to arrive before the crack of dawn. When I passed him this morning in the break room, he held up seven fingers and then strutted off like his job was done for the day.

Seven days.

“Seriously, though,” Casey says, her chipper voice drawing my attention to her side of the room, “You’ve got bags under your eyes and your shirt is on inside out. What gives?”

I look down, peel my sweatshirt away from my skin, and, sure enough, there’s the tag. No wonder I’ve been itchy all morning. I nod my head to the door, a silent command for Casey to shut it. She takes obvious pity on me and does my bidding.

As soon as the latch clicks, I slide my arms through the necessary holes, twisting the sweatshirt around like I’m a pig in a blanket. The itchy feeling fades as soon as I stick my arms back out, and the collar of my shirt settles against my breastbone like it was designed to do.

“Charlie.”

I sigh. “I met up with Duke last night.”

Wait for it . . .

“You didwhat?” she shrieks, skipping to my side of the office where she parks her butt on a stack of papers on my desk. A few flutter to the carpet, forgotten. “How was it? Is he as hot in the sheets as they—”

My hands fly up in a classic time-out signal. “Whoa, now. We didnotdo any sheets sharing. We met up to talk about the interview . . . and then we grabbed pizza afterward.”

Casey’s brows waggle. “Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?”

“We didn’t have sex, Cass. Do you hear me? No. Sex.”

Her elbow props up on her knee, and this new batch of shifting around sends another group of papers sailing to the floor. “Well, that’s disappointing.”

Since she doesn’t seem to be inclined to pick up the mess she has created, I scoot back my chair and gather the loose leafs from the carpet. I drop them onto my desk, far away from her. “It’s not that disappointing. Sex is not in our future. I need him for this interview.”

“What does he need from you, then?”

Her question is one that’s been darting through my head, too, for the last ten hours or so since we said our good nights. I’ve never been the sort of girl to make a move—I don’thavemoves—but I don’t think I’m out of line in thinking that he was interested in more than just work stuff. I mean, he asked me to dinner. Sure, it was a local pizza joint, but the cook knew Duke by name and made a fuss over me as soon as the bells chimed over our heads, signaling our arrival.

And the fact that he took me to a bar that caters to the Blades hockey team exclusively?

It’s hardnotto let my imagination run wild with an assortment ofwhat-ifs.

“Maybe he’s interested in you,” Casey says, clearly over my stewing silence. “You’re a catch, Charlie, and you don’t even realize it.”

Me? A catch? It’s almost laughable. I’m not one of those women who sadistically gets off on putting herself down, but statistically . . . I’ve never been a “catch.” Not in high school, when I suffered a bad case of unrequited love for my good friend, Adam. Cliché, right? Only this time around, Hollywood’s favorite love trope did not work out in my favor.

---