Page 20 of Best Man
I’m his type!
But she knew better than to let her excitement show.
“This is crazy,” Paulina muttered. “Even if Niko was flirting with me—which he wasn’t—do youreallythink anything would happen between us? He’s here for what, one whole day? What could possibly happen?”
“I don’t know! That’s what I’m afraid of!” Piper replied. “I mean, if he likes you, who’s to say you don’t sleep with him just to say you’ve been with a pro athlete? And what if you end up falling for him and getting your heart broken?”
“Does thatreallysound like something I’d do?”
“Maybe.” Piper shrugged. “Youwerejust saying how you wanted a rebound, remember? A filthy, depraved rebound or something like that?”
“Pip~er,” Paulina groaned, a little embarrassed.
“Do you remember what you said to me, way back when Jax and I were still friends, and you were trying to convince me to sleep with him?”
Paulina giggled. “I’m sure I said alotduring that five-year span. Care to be more specific?”
“I’m specifically talking about when Jax and I were driving up to the spa hotel together, and you were texting me, trying to convince me to sleep with him.”
Paulina grinned. “Yeah, I sorta remember that. But what exactly did I say?”
“I’m quoting from memory here, but it went something like this: ‘You need to bone him, sis! Best-case scenario, you guys end up together. Worst-case scenario, you don’t end up together, but you do get some bomb athlete dick out of it.’ ”
Paulina and the girls in the back seat broke into a fit of laughter.
“Where’s the lie?” Paulina asked. “Youdidbone him, and now you guysaregetting married tomorrow, are you not? Sounds like I gave you great advice!”
“That’s not my point!” Piper said. She was trying hard not to laugh now, too. “My point is, I don’t want you chasing after some mythical athlete dick—”
Austen intervened. “Mythical? Oh no. Paulina isn’t wrong about that at all. The athlete dick most certainly exists, and it ishellabomb, indeed.”
Katerina and Emma immediately chimed in with concurringmm-hms.
“YOU GUYS!” Piper exploded into a bout of steering-wheel-slapping laughter. “You’re not helping!”
“Oops!”
“Sorry!”
“What are we trying to achieve here again?” Emma asked when the commotion died down. “I got distracted by the bomb athlete dick.”
“We’re trying to tell my sweet, innocent little sister”—she patted Paulina on the head—“why she needs to resist Niko’s wiles.”
“Ah. Right, right.”
Piper cleared her throat and put the conversation back on its rails. “Paulie, the point is, Niko is obviously good-looking and he can be a charmer. And he’s got this dark, mysterious, Russian vibe working for him, too. Soifyou had a little crush on him, I’d get it. Just be careful, because the last thing I want is for you to get hurt. That’s all I’m trying to say.”
“Your concern is duly noted,” Paulina said, semi-sarcastically.
But wait. There was still the question of his girlfriend—were they an item or not? Paulina was determined to find out.
“Anyway, even if IamNiko’s type or whatever, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “Didn’t you say he has a girlfriend? The supermodel from Spain, right?”
No one answered, but the stony silence that followed spoke volumes. Paulina bit down on her inner cheeks so she wouldn’t break into a smile.
Ah-ha,she thought.So he wasn’t lying. He really is single.
Piper begrudgingly admitted at last, “They broke up.”
