Page 77 of The Thing About My Rival

“Sorry.” Her eyes dart from side to side, then settle in the middle distance over my shoulder. “I got halfway home and remembered I hadn’t dropped off this paperwork for Miller to sign so I came back.” She holds up a bunch of forms.

“Hi,” Tom says to her, appearing beside me.

“Tom, this is Wilcox. My co-coach and rival for the permanent job.”

“Yes, I know,” he says. “We’ve, er, met.”

Enough blood drains from Wilcox’s face to allow her to pass for an anemic ghost.

“Yes. Yes.” She walks backward while looking at the floor and rolling up the forms with both hands, forming a scroll that makes it look like she’s about to have her graduation photo taken. “We have, yes. Met. Yes.”

For some reason she starts tapping the side of her head with the scroll as she continues to babble at Tom, her gaze still somewhere around her feet. “And thank you for. All. That. You know. Before. In Paris. Again. Thank you.”

“Why are you hitting yourself with those forms?” I ask her in an attempt to be normal—I mean, if everythingwerenormal and we hadn’t banged each other to kingdom come, I’d give her a hard time for this particularly comical, and it has to be said, totally adorable behavior.

So I do my best to ignore the yearning in my gut and my groin—and the twinge in my heart at how uncomfortable she is—and take the piss. “Are you hoping that whacking your brain might help it form complete sentences?”

“Anyway,” Tom says, trying to move things along. “Time for us to go enjoy those.” He nods at the bottles I’m carrying and moves past me through the door.

That makes him two for two in the helping-Wilcox-out-of-an-embarrassing-situation-with-me stakes.

“Nice to see you again,” he tells her.

When he’s out of her field of vision he widens his eyes and jerks his head—a visual expression ofget the hell out of the poor woman’s way and end her suffering.

“Yes,” she says, now tapping the forms against the palm of her hand instead. “I’ll just drop these off.”

As I follow Tom, she skirts around me and into the office.

I turn back just in time to glimpse the finest sky-blue arse known to humankind disappear through the door.

I’ve never been in the position before where I’ve wanted to grab someone so fucking badly but they didn’t want me to. Literally no woman I’ve wanted has ever turned me down.

But that’s exactly what Wilcox did yesterday when I tried to stroke her arm, but she kept on walking out of the locker room.

I wish this ache in my chest was just wounded pride. But I’m absolutely bloody certain it’s something way more dangerous.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

HUGO

I crack the caps off two beers and set one down in front of Tom on the high-top table looking out over the pitch.

He picks up the bottle and taps it against mine as I take the seat opposite him. “Cheers. Miller was right when he said this is a great spot.” He nods toward the turf, which is a particularly vibrant green in the early evening sun. “Glad I stopped by.”

“So it was the grass you came for? Not my scintillating company and dazzling repartee?”

“Yup. Thought to myself, I could go see something setting down roots, bursting with life and growing into a bright future, or…I could go see Hugo.”

I rest a forearm either side of my drink and groan. “Guess LA hasn’t made you any funnier.”

He peers at me as he takes a swig. I know with absolute certainty he can tell that I’m still shaken from the surprise encounter with Wilcox—something no one else would ever notice. Well, I’m sure Wilcox would have. Ifshe’d stopped bashing herself on the head with rolled-up papers for long enough, that is. The corners of my mouth start an involuntary journey upward at the memory, so I yank them back into place.

“That was a bit awkward back there, huh?” Tom places the bottle on the table and gazes out toward the pitch as if trying to save my embarrassment by not looking directly at me.

“Nah, it was okay. She’s just fucked off with me. I’m sure it’s temporary. I mean, you know what they say, ‘Once you’ve had Mr. Happy, everything else seems crappy.’”

“Literally no one has ever said that.” He’s looking at me now, with a knowing smirk. “Anyway, why is she pissed off? What did you do?”

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