Page 76 of The Thing About My Rival

“Do you have a spare he could borrow if I sign him in?”

She rolls her eyes and rummages in a drawer.

“Sure you want to see it?” I ask Tom. “It’s not exactly Wembley standards around here.” I point to the chipped Formica along the edge of the front desk counter.

“I don’t care. Show me. I want to see where your whole new career in coaching has started.”

And, if Wilcox has anything to do with it, where it might end.

“So that side looks out over the stadium and the other over the training field,” Miller says, proudly walking Tom from one side of the owners’ office to the other.

This is the final stop on my grand tour, during which I judiciously left the locker room and the coach’s office until I was as confident as I could be that Wilcox would have left for the day.

It was a relief when the coast was clear.

“Thanks for letting us stop by,” I tell Miller. “Now it’s time for us to retire to a bar for the rest of the evening.”

“Oh, I can do better than that,” he says, striding over to the rattly old fridge behind the desk.

“How about you take these.” He pulls out a six-pack of Toasted Tomato pilsner and plonks it on the desk. “Go enjoy the best beer in town with the best view in town.”

“And what view would that be?” Tom asks.

“The one from the owners’ box of course,” Miller says with a smile like a kid who’s showing his favorite toy to a new friend. “I find beer always tastes best with a view of the glorious green Commoners’ turf.”

Tom looks at me and raises his eyebrows. “Would you prefer a bar? Somewhere with stuff going on? Louder? And with, you know, people?”

“Fuck no.” I scoop up Miller’s beer. “Thanks for this. And the box is the perfect spot. It’s a nice evening. And we’ll be able to hear ourselves think there.”

“Christ,” Tom says to Miller with a grimace. “Did you kidnap the Hugo I know and love and replace him with a man who likes a quiet night in?”

Miller slaps him on the back. “The Commoners is the sort of club that gets under your skin and into yourbloodstream. Before you know it, you never want to leave and it’s given you a whole new purpose and outlook on life.”

I’m not sure it’s the team that’s done that. The woman I’ve been avoiding all day, maybe.

“Not that much has changed,” I tell Tom. “For a start, I’m going to order us a curry. So a takeaway and beer in the box it is.”

I move toward the door, swing it open, and stride through with a purpose and energy fueled by the prospect of imminent beer drinking, curry eating, and chatting with my best mate.

And slam right into Wilcox.

Or rather her fist.

Or rather her fist slams into me.

My chest to be precise.

She was clearly about to knock at the exact moment I yanked the door open and was too far into the action to stop.

“Jesus.” I clasp my non-beer-holding hand over my chest where there must now be a dent the precise size and shape of a Wilcox knuckle.

It’s hard to know the exact cause of the giant lurch in my heart and the spike in my pulse—the fact I was just punched in the chest, the shock at seeing Wilcox when I thought she was long gone for the day, or how amazing she looks.

Not that she’s gotten changed into a cocktail dress and heels or had her hair and makeup done. Nope. She’s in a perfectly ordinary pair of leggings and an oversized Commoners shirt that reaches to mid-thigh, her hair’s tied up in a ponytail as it always is at work, and there doesn’t seem to be a scrap of makeup on her face. That flush in her cheeks is entirely natural.

And she’s fucking gorgeous.

“Shit.” She jumps back and rubs the side of her neck right where that cloverleaf birthmark is. Mr. Happy immediately shifts to half mast at the memory of my lips on it.

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