Page 21 of Mad Rivals
“Can you fire off their names and ages off the top of your head?”
I laugh. “I can. Dex, thirty-three. Everleigh is thirty-two, and Ford is twenty-nine. Archer is twenty-eight, Liam is twenty-six, and baby Ivy completed our family as a surprise just twenty years ago.”
“And you are?” she asks.
“Thirty-five.”
Her brows shoot up.
“Geriatric, right?” I ask wryly.
“Well, kind of.” Her neck is corded as she pulls a face as if to saysorry,even though I don’t get the impression she actually is.
I chuckle. “I know it’s impolite to ask, but what about you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
It’s my turn to be surprised as my own brows shoot up. “A baby,” I murmur.
“Hardly,” she says haughtily.
“And what were you doing before you started full-time at VBC?” I ask.
“Graphic design,” she says, and I almost think she’s about to give more to the story, but she stops. “So how’s this going to work when you have to go play football?”
It’s a valid question, and it’s one I’ve put some thought into—though I have to rethink it now that SCS split the project rather than handing it all over to me. “I’ll likely have someone else from the company step in when I’m not around, but all approvals will go through me.”
Thatsomeone elsewill definitely be a female. No way in hell I’m giving some other guy the chance to work closely with Kennedy.
She drains the rest of her coffee. “Well, I should get back to the office. You ready?”
No, I’m not. I’m rather enjoying this chance to sit and chat with her.
It started to feel like we were moving beyond that enemy energy and even toward friendly territory, but as soon as she realized it, she stiffened up on me.
I nod, and I stand and finish what’s left in my cup. We walk back toward her car, and I slide into the passenger seat.
Her car smells like her.
I noticed it the day I accidentally bumped into her that morning we met, and it’s more powerful locked in this small space with her.
It’s something coconutty and…full of joy or something. I’m not used to joyful scents. I’m used to locker rooms, to be honest.
It’s making me want to smell more of it. It’s making me want to run my nose along her skin as I breathe more of her in.
Fuck, I have got to get this under control.
These errant thoughts have to be because I haven’t had sex in a few weeks. I should flip through my contacts and find somebody to satisfy that craving so I stop acting like a horny bastard around this woman.
I won’t, though. Right now, she’s the focus of my interest, and I’m at that beginning phase where I don’t think anyone else will do.
As she starts the car, music comes blaring out of her speakers with Eminem and Rihanna’s “Love the Way You Lie” on full blast.
“Shit, sorry,” she says, clearly flustered as she moves to turn down the volume.
“It’s a good tune,” I say, turning it back up, and she laughs as she pulls into traffic.
When the song ends, a Megan Thee Stallion hit starts to play, and she turns off the radio altogether. Silence envelops us, and I break it by asking, “So you’re an Eminem fan?”
