Page 33 of The Goal

It takes me a minute to regroup. I sip my beer, take a breath, and then answer her with,Meet me at the restrooms?

This time she responds right away.

Her: 5 min.

For the next four minutes, I have to force myself not to stare at my phone. Or set a timer. Impatience bubbles in my gut, intensifying with each passing second. By the time I rise to my feet, I’m tense as fuck.

“Hitting the head,” I mutter, but the guys pay me no attention. Hollis and Brody are too busy shoving dollar bills in a stripper’s G-string, while Fitzy watches them with a bored expression.

I thread my way through the crowd of mostly men toward the doorway on the other side of the dark room. Boots & Chutes has gone overboard with the western theme—saloon-style doors separate the bathrooms from the main room, and the wooden signs on the restrooms readGunslingersandFillies. From behind the Fillies door, I hear the muffled sounds of female moans intermingled with male grunts. Classy.

“So, did you?”

I whirl around at Sabrina’s voice. She stalks up to me, her arms crossed tightly over her chest in a way that causes her cleavage to spill over her bra.

“Follow you here, you mean?” I flatten my lips. “No, darlin’, I did not.”

She studies me for several seconds before nodding. “Okay. I believe you.” Then she turns to walk away.

Oh hell no.

“Sabrina,” I say in a low voice.

She stops. “W-what?”

Something inside of me melts when I hear the crack in her voice. She keeps her back to me, her spine like a metal rod. By the time I reach her, any indignation I felt over her unfair assumption has faded away. I gently touch her arm to shift her around so we’re facing each other.

“Sabrina?” I keep my voice soft, safe.

She visibly swallows. “This is where I work.”

I give a slow nod. “This is where you work.”

“That’s it? You’ve got nothing else to say about that?”

I stroke her bare shoulder with the pad of my thumb, gratified to feel her shiver. “This is your place of employment. You get paid to work here. You use those paychecks to pay your bills, I’m assuming. What else do you want me to say?”

But I know what she expected from me. Judgment. Contempt. Maybe a lewd comment or two.

I’m not that man, though.

She keeps watching me, until finally a small smile plays on her gorgeous lips. “I’m waiting for the part where you tell me younevercome to these places, your friends just dragged you here against your will, yada yada.”

“I’d be lying if I said I’ve never been to a strip club. But I kind of did get dragged here tonight—I voted for the sports bar. And the only reason I even came to Boston was because…” I trail off, because the last thing I want to do is scare her off again.

“Because what?”

Fuck it. I shrug and say, “I was hoping maybe I’d run into you.”

Sabrina laughs. “Boston’s a big place—you really expected to randomly run into me?”

“Expected, no. Hoped? Abso-fucking-lutely.”

That gets me another laugh.

We stare at each other for a beat. My voice comes out gravelly as I murmur, “You unblocked my number.”

“I unblocked your number,” she agrees.

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