Page 12 of The Wedding Deal
He scowled at her, and she probably shouldn’t enjoy ruffling his feathers quite as much as she did, but she owed him after all his complaining about her forms, while being so useless at helping to fill them out. “Wouldn’t that be a violation of privacy?” he asked. “That’s gotta be in the handbook somewhere. I’m guessing you and your photographic memory even know which section.”
“I don’t have a photographic memory, but yes, yes I do know. I’m not going to spoil the read for you, though. You’re going to have to look it up yourself.”
He shook his head, but the corner of his mouth kicked up. Then his phone rang again. His brow furrowed before he answered it in his usual way. His posture tensed. He plopped into his seat and dropped his head into his hands. He was polite but short and made his apologies about needing to go.
“Another one?” she asked after he’d disconnected the call. Too late she realized that wasn’t any of her business, and asking was crossing a line she’d meant to keep firmly taut and far away from.
“Yep. Apparently my mom’s determined for me to have a date for the wedding, and her way of ensuring that was to give all of her friends’ single daughters my number.”
Charlotte laughed. “I’m sorry. It’s totally not funny,” she said, but then she laughed again.
His head tilt was slightly chiding, but a faint glint of humor lit his eyes. “I’m glad you’re enjoying this. Even though it’s cutting into time we could be using to fill out more of your ridiculous forms.”
“I do love me some forms,” she said, in spite of it being the least favorite part of her job. Under other circumstances, she might even agree some of them were overkill. “It’s just kind of nice seeing that even star football players have to deal with things like having their mothers attempt to set them up. Dating is…” She shuddered. “Last night my roommate convinced me to go to this speed dating event.”
“On a Wednesday?” he asked.
“She thinks the people out and about on weekends are fake single.”
“As in they’re in committed relationships but pretending otherwise?”
“More like they must not want a relationship enough if they only go looking on Friday and Saturday.” She waved a hand through the air. “I gave up trying to understand her theories a few months ago.” While her brain was saying this was another gray area path, her mouth kept on going anyway. “I’d say in those type of situations, the day of the week doesn’t much matter. Every time there are three times as many women as men. It’s like the datingHunger Games, and the odds were not ever in my favor.”
Evidently he didn’t read a lot of young adult novels or keep up on popular culture, because there wasn’t so much as a flicker of recognition. “So, no luck?”
“My roommate ended up with two numbers. I ended up with a headache.”
Instead of the laugh she’d hoped for after her awesome joke, his eyebrows knitted together. “Were there a bunch of idiots there? Or were they just too scared to ask for your number?”
“I think they were uninterested as opposed to scared.”
He ran his gaze up and down her, and the temperature in the room shot up a couple of degrees. “Doubtful,” he said. “Did you recite all the rules to them? Quote the dating handbook?”
“Oh, so you’re saying it’s my personality. Maybe I should’ve turned on the charm and told them the only first down they’d ever make was shoving their heads up their asses.”
He huffed a laugh. “Hey, if you’re into that type of kinky stuff, go right ahead.”
She felt herself blush, and with her pale skin, there was no chance he wouldn’t notice. “I’m…that’s inappropriate. I’d never discuss… Pursuant to section three of the handbook, any discussion that would make fellow employees uncomfortable is to be avoided.”
“Jeez. What were you, raised by robots?”
“Nuns,” she said. “And a gambler father who inadvertently taught me that it was much safer to follow the rules.” The nuns comment was an oversimplification, but he’d stabbed at a raw spot.
A flicker of some sort of realization, along with a hint of pity, flashed through his features, and she cursed herself for reacting too strongly, the same way she had over the Vegas suggestion he’d made earlier. She was revealing too much, things she was usually so much better at keeping in the vault.
Lance held up his hands. “I don’t want to have to file any more paperwork than I already do, so I’m officially surrendering on this. That doesn’t require any special forms, does it?” He patted his pockets. “I seem to have misplaced my white flag.”
“Ha-ha. And don’t tempt me, because I could totally draw up a surrender form, one long enough it’d make you cry before you got to the end of it to date and sign.”
“Of that I have no doubt. Just plenty of fear.” He gave her a teasing smile, one that reanimated the long-dead butterflies in her stomach. Solidarity butterflies aided by appreciation over the fact that he’d let the subject drop, that was all. “Now, where was that résumé you wanted me to look at?”
She sorted through her stack of papers to the college coach she’d spotted in the mix. Usually the general manager would be heavily involved in this process, but considering they didn’t currently have one…
Honestly, it felt nice that he was giving her input some weight. Although it added a bit of pressure, too. It was one thing to sit on her couch on Sunday afternoons and the occasional weekday evening and yell that she could’ve done a better coaching job, but it was another thing to actually help pick who would be making the hard calls.
Lance’s lips moved as his gaze skimmed down Sean Bryant’s résumé. It was kinda cute how he muttered to himself as he read—in abuddy ol’ palway. Not in adang, his lips are rather sexy and I like the way they moveway. Just to be clear.
“I assume you already read through his résumé?”
