Page 80 of The Thing About My Rival

“Needs me to not get this job so she can have it.” I finish his sentence for him and gaze up over the top of my beer bottle. “And I needherto not get it, soIcan have it.”

“Yup,” says my wise, wise friend. “Now you really have slept with the enemy.”

“The really fucking hot enemy.”

Tom lets out a chuckle as he takes a long, slow draw on his drink and looks out over the pitch, as if it will provide inspiration for a solution to this baffling conundrum. “It’s a tricky one, that’s for sure.”

“Of all the shit I’ve gotten myself in over the years, this has to be the most ridiculous.”

“And you know what?”

“Go on, treat me to another pearl of Dashwood wisdom.”

“You can’t run away from this one.”

“Sure I could. I could get on the plane to LA with you tomorrow and never come back here again if I wanted to.”

“And you’d be very welcome to do that. Dylan’s beating me when we have a kickabout now, so I could do with someone to put him in his place.” Tom’s face lights up when he talks about his soon-to-be-stepson who’s thirteen, or fourteen, or something.

“Really? I thought you were worried he didn’t get outside enough, what with all his guitar playing and music mixing.”

“I was. So I kept dragging him out, and now he’s beating me. The bastard.” He leans forward on the tableagain. “But my point is, when you’ve gotten yourself tangled up in tricky situations before, you’ve always been able to walk away. But you want this job so fucking badly that you can’t this time. And I assume she wants it really badly too and won’t walk away from it either. So you have to figure out how you’re going to deal with it now you’ve…you know…” He waves his bottle around in a manner I assume is meant to convey “banged her on the bar of an Irish pub.”

“You mean I need to apologize for being an interfering, overbearing dick?”

The sound of water spraying onto the pitch comes to an abrupt end when the sprinklers turn off and their rainbows vanish.

Tom raises his eyebrows as he sips from the bottle, swallowing the amber nectar slowly and deliberately before shrugging. “There’s a first time for everything.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

DREW

The tip of my not-quite-dry ponytail chills the back of my neck as I open the office door. The hairdryer in the women’s gym changing room is completely useless. I bet the one in the men’s works perfectly. If there were more women around, maybe I could justify lobbying for a replacement.

When I step inside, my heart sinks.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” The words leave my mouth as much in disappointment as in annoyance.

I know this is hardly the most luxurious office in the world, but is someone seriously treating it even more like a trash can than usual and leaving their empty coffee cup on my desk now?

Sighing, I walk around and pick up the Found Grounds cup to toss it in the trash. But it’s instantly clear that not only is it full, it’s hot. And it’s not coffee. There’s a tea bag tag dangling down the side—a tag that says it’s jasmine green. My favorite.

Who the hell put this here? I turn it around to see whose name is written on the side. The scrawl looks like “Laya.” Did someone place an order saying they were Princess Leia and the person behind the counter couldn’t spell?

I study the name some more, tipping my head as if somehow that will help me decipher it.

Hang on…

Oh.

My stomach swirls as it drops.

I flop into my chair, staring at the writing.

Hugo.

It saysHugo.

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