Page 165 of Vegas Heat

“I promise you didn’t scare me off. I’m in Chicago with Cooper,” I explain.

“What are you two doing in Chicago? Spending lots of time at the Bean?” she asks, referring to a mirror sculpture thatresembles its nickname—though her suggestive tone makes me think she’s referring to something else entirely.

“You let me worry about the bean,” Cooper says, wiggling his eyebrows at me, and I laugh. “My brother had a heart attack while I was in Boston, so I flew here.”

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry. Is he okay?” she asks.

“He’s fine. Probably getting out of the hospital today or tomorrow,” Cooper says. “Troy couldn’t come with me so he asked his lovely daughter to be a good friend and make sure I was doing okay.”

Kaylee lets out a low whistle. “Damn, that man has no idea, does he?”

“Nope,” we say at the same time.

“Wow. Well, I won’t bug you with SFK stuff now then,” she says.

“Please, bug away. We’re just sitting up in a hospital waiting room, well…waiting,” Cooper says.

She launches into some details about how she feels like they’ve stalled on new memberships, which is affecting the way SFK runs in the fitness clubs. I listen intently as I pull on my marketing hat.

“I have a few ideas,” I say once she finishes. There’s a pause, so I jump in with more. “From what it sounds like, you’ve relied solely on Ben’s popularity to grow the clubs, and that’s great. It obviously worked well, and his fans are members. But now you need to attract a different sort of clientele. Have you run any ad campaigns that don’t star Ben?”

“No,” she admits. “Everything we’ve done has his face plastered all over it. Or his abs. Mm, those abs.” She takes a moment of peace for her husband’s abs, and then she says, “Do you know anybody who could pitch some ideas?”

“Uh, hi. I’m a marketing major and your new best friend, remember?” I tease.

She laughs. “I fucking love you, Gabby. Send me some ideas when you get a chance and we’ll go from there. And honestly, if you’re too busy, we can look into hiring out.”

“Look no further,” I say. “I’ll sketch out some ideas to see what you think, but last I heard I was all set up to work for you anyway, so let’s get the ball rolling there. I can totally handle maybe ten to fifteen hours a week between the internship and my classes.”

“That’ll be a huge help,” she says, and Cooper just stands by listening as we hash out the details. “I’ll get a contract to your inbox in a bit, and you can just fill it out when you get a sec and shoot it back over to me. I’m going to hire you on as my assistant for now, but we can change the verbiage as needed.”

“Deal.” I nod even though she can’t see me, and Cooper grins.

“And I can share some ideas for ad campaigns, too,” he offers.

Kaylee laughs. “I think we’re good. We don’t need ads with beef sticks and baseballs in them.”

I picture her rolling her eyes at Cooper as she giggles, but I already know I’ll be running everything by him before I send it over to Kaylee. SFK is, after all, important to him, too.

We hang up with her, and when I pull out my phone, I spot a text from my dad.

Dad:Everything okay in Chicago?

Cooper peers over at my phone. “He texted me, too,” he says, and he flashes me his screen.

Troy:You taking care of my girl in the windy city?

“Oh, I’m taking care of her, all right,” Cooper says suggestively.

I laugh as I text my dad back.

Me:Everything is going well. Looks like Cooper’s brother will be released soon, and you were right. He needed a friend. [smile emoji]

I watch as Cooper types out a text, too.

“What does yours say?” I ask once he hits the send button.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

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