Page 9 of One Night with the Player

“I’m probably going to regret this, but I’ll encourage her to go to the reunion with you tomorrow.”

“You won’t regret it. Thank you.” A huge smile spread across my lips as Shiva turned and walked down the hall. Olivia would be going out with me tomorrow night, even if I had to toss her over my shoulder and drag her out of the house myself. It might be more fun for me that way, but I’d prefer to have her willing, or better yet, even eager, to spend some time together.

That probably did mean some wooing was in order. I pulled up a search for florists in the nearby area. Being back in Broken Bend limited my options. As soon as I made a call to have something delivered to Olivia’s place, word would spread faster than a California wildfire. The best thing to do would be to have a few words with Ethan first, so he’d hear it from me that I was interested in his sister.

I returned out front to where the guys still sipped on drinks and cheered for the ladies taking the stage. Ethan had gone from sloppy drunk to totally wasted. There was no way we could have a serious conversation now. After my encounter with Olivia, I was ready to head home. “Hey, Ethan. I’m ready to bail. You want to stick around for a while or what?”

“Dude, this is your homecoming party. You can’t leave now.” He turned to me while clapping along in time to the music.

“It’s been a long day, and I’m beat. Let’s touch base tomorrow, okay? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

“Me?” He sat up straighter and looked around like I might have been talking to someone sitting behind him.

“Yes, you. Can we meet for coffee? Say nine?”

“Nine sounds good, but ten would be better.” Ethan gave me one of his dopey grins—the one I could never say no to.

“Ten, it is. See you then.” Then I walked out, already pulling up the definition of wooing on the dictionary app on my phone.

8

OLIVIA

Iwoke to the sound of the doorbell ringing. Immediately, I thought I’d overslept, but a quick look at my phone sitting on the nightstand showed it was only a few minutes after seven. The doorbell rang again.

“Coming!” I flung the covers back and reached for the robe I’d left at the foot of my bed. Weren’t there laws that prevented people from ringing a person’s doorbell before a decent hour? Glancing through the peephole, I did a double take. A man in a bright blue windbreaker stood on the stoop with a huge bouquet of flowers in his hand.

I cracked the door open.

“Delivery for Ms. Legend.” He thrust the bouquet at me as soon as the door opened wide enough for it to fit through. “If you can sign on the bottom line, I’ll go get the others.”

My brain wasn’t functioning at optimum capacity before coffee, so I just nodded and set the flowers down on the table in the entryway. “Wait, what others?”

He came back a few moments later with a long box holding more roses than I could count, a short basket full of cut wildflowers, and a few other arrangements of assorted blooms. “Somebody sure wanted to impress you. I hope you have a great day.”

I didn’t even answer. Just stood there, mouth gaping open wide enough to catch flies. This had to be Leo’s doing. After I carried the flowers inside and placed them in fresh water, I found a couple of cards attached to two of the bouquets.

* * *

180 roses - one for each month we were apart. Please give me another chance. Yours, Leo

* * *

Let’s let our love grow. Yours, Leo

* * *

They were beautiful.They also weren’t from a place in town. That meant either Leo didn’t want anyone in Broken Bend to know how he felt about me, or he wasn’t serious about making a real go of things this time around. Maybe both. I could have called my brother to find out if Leo had said something to him about asking me out, but on the off chance he hadn’t, I wasn’t ready to put Leo in harm’s way. At least not yet.

Even though I didn’t have to be up for another hour to meet up with Shiva for our weekly walk, there was no sense trying to get back to sleep now. Not with the aroma of freshly cut flowers filling my small apartment.

My phone pinged with an incoming text.

I heard you received my flowers. Just wanted to say I’m sorry about last night.

He’d never likedto lose. I wasn’t about to become another notch on his bedpost, though. He was the king of hook ups and I wanted forever. We’d never work out, not when we were both looking for totally different things.

The flowers are lovely. Thank you.

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