Page 9 of Here Be Dragons
Jack laughed. "Well, try to enjoy it while you're there. Maybe go down to the bar and flash your killer smile at some unsuspecting millionaire or something."
Been there, done that, had some mind-blowing sex afterward.
The knock at the door saved her from having to deal with this conversation anymore.
"Hey, I gotta go. Room service."
"Let me guess. I'm paying for that."
"It's an incidental," she said sweetly.
"Of course it is," Jack grumbled. "Go eat and I'll see what I can do for you."
She said a quick goodbye and headed for the door. Sure enough, it was room service. Finally.
"Burger and a beer, ma'am."
Ava nodded and moved aside to let the woman come in with her tray of food. It was going to be a long night looking over paperwork so Ava had decided to splurge on something that wasn't all that healthy. She took the receipt and quickly scribbled her name to it, splurging a little on the tip knowing that her brother was covering the bill. She gave the waitress the receipt and walked her back to the door.
"Have a good night," the woman said.
"You too."
The woman turned to head down the hall and Ava let go of the door, briefly making eye contact with someone standing in the hall before it slammed shut.
Shane.
He looked like he was a deer caught in headlights, staring at her in shock for just a moment before the door blocked him from view. Ava could be polite and open the door again, maybe say hello or something. Or she could be mature and just walk away and go eat her food. Or she could act like a teenage girl and quietly look through the peephole to see if he was still out there.
Sometimes, it was OK to not be the proper lawyer type so she chose the third option. Ava slowly pulled herself towards the door, trying hard not to touch it in case it gave away the secret that she was using the peephole to peep.
Shane was still standing in the hallway, still staring at her door even though it was closed. His hair looked disheveled and he was wearing workout clothes with sweat marks down the front of him. He had a water bottle in his hands and headphones on his ears. Definitely returning from the gym.
The thought gave Ava bad ideas like what he would look like in the shower after a long workout or what his sweaty clothes would look like in a pile on her floor. To be fair, she also liked looking at his workout clothes when they were on him. The track pants last night really made his ass look good and fit him perfectly around his sculpted waist. Whatever shorts he was wearing tonight seemed to be doing him some more favors, but she couldn't really tell because the peephole was kind of clouded over.
She should stop being an immature teenage girl and open the damn door already and have an adult conversation with another adult. But just as she started to reach for the doorknob, she could see Shane turn away and look down at the ground. He shook his head a bit and took a step forward, heading back to his hotel room down the hall.
Ava stepped back and stared at the back of her door. What the hell was all that about anyway? It was one fun night and that was it. She didn't owe him an explanation. She didn't need to talk to him about his feelings or something stupid like that. So why was she thinking about opening the door as he stood there?
This was not what Ava did. She hit it and quit it, at least most of the time. There were the occasional hook-ups that lasted longer than one night, but those were few and far between. She actually did have relationships sometimes, but her previous boyfriend broke up with her last year, complaining that she cared more about cultivating a merger between two auto suppliers than her relationship with him.
So why was Shane having such a pull on her?
Ava shook her head and rolled her eyes.You're making this into a bigger deal than it needs to be, she thought.Go eat some food.So she listened to herself, moving over to the tray to grab her plate and beer. They didn't fool around at this place, that was for sure. Cut fries with the potato skin still on so you knew they were fresh. Burger piled high with bacon, lettuce and tomato. A fancy beer in a pint glass. This wasn't some reheated stuff from the grocery store and a can of Pabst.
She went back to grab a napkin, knowing she would get crap all over the papers she had spread out over the desk in the room but wanted to minimize the damage. And yes, she was serious about spreading out the paperwork. Her beer was sitting on some notes about salary arbitration hearings, her burger was on top of a copy of the concussion protocol she talked the other lawyers into finally supporting -- against George's wishes.
Something was seriously up with him, but she thought he was just being a curmudgeon. She was pretty sure that being Jason Stewart's lawyer wasn't easy considering all the stories that Jack had told her. But there was something else going on. Jack seemed to hesitate when she told him about the money issues that George kept bringing up with every suggestion. Maybe it was just her being paranoid, but there was something else going on there.
The good thing was she at least trusted Jack. Sure, he seemed to hesitate and sounded a little cagey, but it wasn't because he was hiding something. Ava knew how he acted when he was hiding something. No, this was Jack being inquisitive and trying to put pieces together. She was very familiar with that Jack, starting with when they were kids and he was really getting into computers. His voice sounded a particular way when he started to put some code together or tried to crack a computer problem. He may have sounded dodgy on the phone, but Ava knew that was just him putting some code together. She trusted he would have an answer for her soon.
Meanwhile, she would try to put together more of the information in front of her. Aside from George and his little minions in the team owners' room, some of the other lawyers had actually been able to start piecing together an agreement. Neil gave her some paperwork when they headed out for the day, and now that she was looking at it, she could see where he and some of the other people in that conference room were going with their plan to get a deal. There was a good base to start from after all, which made Ava hopeful that things could get done quicker than she thought.
She was staring at some of Neil's work when a knock at the door interrupted her. She grabbed the last fry off her plate and stuffed it in her mouth as she walked over, her mind running over facts and figures too much to think about checking the peephole first to see who was on the other side. Instead, she just grabbed the doorknob and yanked it open.
Shane was standing on the other side, leaning against the wall near the door. He had changed out of his workout clothes and was now wearing a white t-shirt and dark jeans that she could tell had been tailored to fit his delicious thighs. His hair was still wet but more put together than before. She suspected he had come here right after taking a shower.
"Hey," she tried to say casually.
