Page 24 of That Reunited Feeling

“Oh, wow. That must be big news. I mean, I know nothing about soccer, and even I’ve heard of him.”

“Yeah. The club held a press conference to announce it. It was packed with football,” he pauses and raises his eyebrows, “soccerjournalists from all over the world.”

He picks up his fork and stabs a corner off the cake. “Anyway, it was dragging on and on about all sorts of technicalities about Hugo’s ACL. I could see him getting more and more tense as they were showing images from the MRI and stuff. So I wassuper relieved when the press person called an end to the questions and Hugo, the manager, and the doc all got up from the table to leave.”

He waves the cake-laden fork around as he talks. “But as they were walking out of the door at the back of the pressroom, a reporter leapt up, chased after them, shoved a mic at Hugo and virtually yelled in his face, asking if the injury meant he’d be able to spend more time on his social life.”

“Ah.”

“Yup. Hugo snapped. Lumped him on the jaw.” Tom swings his non-fork-holding fist to demonstrate. “The guy went down like a sack of potatoes. And the manager and the doc scuttled Hugo out of the door.”

“Jesus. Was he arrested?”

“Thankfully, no. The reporter didn’t press charges.” Tom wraps his lips around the cake on his fork, slides it into his mouth and savors it for a moment. “Hugo asked the reporter for his favorite charity so he could send it a check. But the guy couldn’t even think of one. So Hugo made a big donation to a women’s domestic violence shelter.”

Wow, that is quite the drama. “Is that what your life in London’s like, then? Hobnobbing with big bands and star athletes?”

Tom nods at the cake. “I’m by no means the chocolate fiend you are, but you’re right, this is great.”

A shiver runs through me at the comment that hints he thinks he knows me. That I’m still the girl from way back when. But that girl’s been through a lot and is now a woman who’s probably nothing like the person he remembers. Maybe I’m now someone he won’t like. Maybe the only thing that hasn’t changed is the chocolate fiend part.

“But, no,” Tom continues. “That’s not what my life’s like. It’s more talking to lawyers, going over the spreadsheets I’m sobrilliant at now…” He quirks an eyebrow and one corner of his mouth at the same time, making something inside me quirk too. “And meetings. Oh, the never-ending fucking meetings.”

He rests his elbow on the table, twiddling the fork hanging from his fingers, the star tattoo that matches mine winking at me.

“So yeah,” he says, “I want to get back to doing more of the thing I love most, and the thing I’m best at—scoping out new talent.”

“And that’s what you were doing last night in the city?” He nods. “See anyone good?”

He blows a dismissive breath through his nose. “I was trying to see this band called Divine Justice, but I missed them.” He shakes his head at himself as he stabs at the cake again. “By a fucking week.”

“Aweek?” I can’t help but giggle at the ineptitude. “How did you manage that?”

“By being crap at organizing myself.”

“You might want to think about hurrying up the timeline for getting your new helper.”

“Hell, no. Whoever that is will be an executive assistant. Office stuff only. I’m drawing a clear line. Band scouting is too personal to me to have anyone else meddling. I don’t want a stranger telling me which events to go to, what to wear, who to be seen talking to, what I should say to them. No way.”

Well, Tom really knows what he doesn’t like, huh? “It seems you have a similar passionate hatred of personal assistants as you do of LA.”

“And avocados.” He points at me with his fork. “Fucking hate avocados too.”

“Noted.” A sip of wine cuts through the sweetness on my tongue. “Will be sure to not invite you on a PA-guided tour of Los Angeles avocado restaurants.”

I pick one of the white stars off the top of the cake and pop it into my mouth.

“Yeah. Anyway, that was super annoy–” Tom stops with his fork halfway through slicing off another lump of cheesecake and looks up at me, eyes wide, like he’s been struck by an idea as brilliant as the invention of the record player.

He drops the fork onto the plate with a clatter and laces his fingers together under his chin. The silver-and-black ring on the middle finger of his right hand clicks between two other chunky bands on the middle and index fingers of his left. “Want to be my interim assistant?”

“What?” The gasp sucks the star to the back of my throat, and I almost choke. Is he joking?

“Are you okay?” he asks as I cough and reach for my wine.

My cheeks burn from the wheezing and the embarrassment of it. A swig of wine solves the problem of the chocolate star, but it would take a whole vat to make what he’s suggesting look like a good idea.

“Fine. I’m fine.”

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