Page 17 of Gross Misconduct

When the server set down my drink, that was when I noticed that Tangi and Ethan had disappeared from the dance floor, the little shits. Whatever they thought they were accomplishing, it wasn’t going to work. I was about ready to walk out on Jill and leave her sitting at the table all alone.

“Last time I checked, you were the one sleeping around with your teammate’s wife.”

“We weren’t sleeping together.” That lie was rolling off my tongue easier and easiernow.

“So you say. Now I don’t know Clay all that well, but I figure he’s expecting you to come through on your end of the bargain.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Wait a second here, do you want this to happen? I’m starting to wonder if you want to be on my arm.”

She scoffed at that. “You flatter yourself.”

“Then why are you so anxious to keep this fake relationship going when you treat me like the shit you stepped in? Do you think I’m interested in taking your abuse? Unless …” Then it hit me. Why hadn’t I seen it sooner? “You’re into me.”

She laughed, and a part of me thought she looked hot, the way she threw her long neck back … and it wasn’t the part in my head.

“You don’t know me at all. I view this as a fun challenge. That’s all.”

Then maybe I needed to call her bluff. “And since I don’t view this as fun at all, and I don’t want to be your punching bag, I’m out. I’ll let Clay know in the morning. Tell Tangi and Ethan that I had to go. Or just tell them the truth. Whatever you want.”

I downed my beer and stole a glance at her. She looked confused. I loved having her in the hot seat and on edge.

“Are you going to quit?”

“Yup,” I said, slamming down my bottle and standing up. “I’d rather ruin my career and have every guy on the team hate me than put up with another five minutes with you.”

“You are such a baby,” she said, standing up too. I knew she was tall, but I hadn’t noticed how tall she actually was. She was a few inches taller than Tangi, but now that we were standing close to each other. And her legs … I had to stop noticing that kind of shit.

“How does that make me the baby here? You can’t even be nice to me.”

“I am being nice to you!”

I laughed. I laughed so hard I had to sit down. And when I looked up at her, and she was all serious, I laughed even harder. She was fucking insane.

“This is not that funny,” she said with no hint of amusement.

A wiped a stray tear that had fallen down my face. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time. When I finally pulled myself together, I took in a few deep breaths. “Shit, you are scary. If that’s you being nice, then me walking out of here is the best thing for the both of us.”

She seemed to digest that. “Okay, fine, I could be nicer. But you are a tool.”

“You can call me names, but if you can’t be civil to me, then I’ll take my chances with Clay. How about that for a challenge?”

She bit her lip, and I couldn’t help but smile. I finally had the upper hand on her because she wanted this a hell of a lot more than I did.

“I can be civil, but there is no way I’m going to treat you any differently than I treat everyone else. If you do something stupid, then I’m calling it out. And since this relationship needs to be genuine, maybe I should do all the social planning.”

She really was a comedian. “Yeah, if we want genuine, then I should probably do the planning. You don’t strike me as a social butterfly.”

“Who is embroiled in a PR disaster right now?”

She had me there, but I’d finally made her smile. “We’ll share those duties. How about that?”

She was about to answer, but my phone chimed, then Jill’s chimed. I looked down and saw that Ethan had sent me animage. I tapped it open, and it was a picture of me laughing and Jill looking at me intently. Huh. That was when I’d made fun of her, but she was still looking at me like she found me interesting. How odd. The second photo was of us both smiling at each other.

Jill swiped at the pictures, then looked around for the culprits. When she couldn’t find them, she turned back to me. “These are good,” she said. “If you’re okay with it, I’d like them to slip out on social media. Maybe along with some pictures of the four of us, so it’s not so obvious.”

“So you’ll be nice?”

“Yes. Even if it kills me.”

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