I smile. “Have I mentioned you’re a most excellent pretend girlfriend?”
“Have I mentioned you’re a most excellent pretend boyfriend?”
“Why, no. You haven’t. Do tell me what an amazing fake boyfriend I make.” I kick back, lifting my sneakers onto the seat in front of me and crossing my ankles.
She sighs happily. “My salon is packed again today, and every single stylist is booked solid for the next few weeks. Suddenly, everyone wants a cut from here, or a holiday up-do for an event.”
I run my palm over the back of my head. “Speaking of, my locks are getting shaggy.”
“You are welcome here anytime,” she says, then laughs. “My God, if you were in the salon, I’d sell out appointments for the year.”
I sit up straighter. “Yeah? And the landlord would be off your back?”
“Probably. But you don’t have to do that. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
I scoff. “First, you can take advantage of me anytime. Second, you’re helping me with this whole boyfriend–girlfriend deal. If cutting my shaggy hair helps you, I’m all yours.”
“I like the sound of that,” she says softly, and my heart threatens to kick into overdrive.
I rein it in. “One more thing. Do you want to sit any place special on Sunday? I can get you tickets with the players’ wives and girlfriends in a suite, which is cool but it’s kind of cliquey. Or I can get you tickets on the fifty-yard line with Trent and Holly and my mom.”
She inhales deeply. “Gee. I don’t know. Sit with a bunch of women I don’t know, or sit close to the action? I just can’t decide. Okay, if I have to, I’ll be at the fifty-yard line with pompoms.”
I laugh. “Now that’s a sight I eagerly await.”
“You have a little quarterback-cheerleader fantasy I need to know about? Because I’ll have you know I don’t have an ounce of cheerleader blood in me.”
“I know that about you. Trust me. I do.” Violet was never the ponytail and pompoms girl. She was into fashion, indie music, jewelry, and her friends. In high school, I’d run into her tangled up in a group of girls, laughing, listening to their iPods, trading tunes, and looking out for each other. She’d wave and say hello. I’d always give her a hug, wrapping my arms around her, inhaling her hair, enjoying her softness against me. The memory is so visceral.
Whoa.
I liked to touch her back then?
Of course you did, dickhead. She was a babe then, still is, and you like babes. Doesn’t make you the Sherlock of Romance to put that together.
“Hey, Vi?”
“Yeah?”
“Since high school,” I say, firmly.
“What do you mean?”
“If anyone asks when I first had a crush on you, that’s what I’ll say.”
“Oh. Is that so?” she asks, and I can hear the smile in her voice. The invitation, too. Like she likes this idea.
“We can’t very well have the same answer, can we? So, since high school sounds about right.”
When I end the call, I don’t need anyone to tell me what our conversation means. It means she’s coming to my game this weekend, and for a guy like me, there’s something a whole lot of awesome about playing in front of the woman you like. Every guy wants to show off for their girl.
“Hello there, handsome.”
I startle, sitting ramrod straight.
“Hi, Maxine.”
16
Her dark brown eyes glint with mischief as she flicks a shock of black hair off her shoulder. She sits next to me, closer than the seats should allow. Maxine is a bit like a cat on a laptop—she has no sense of personal space. Or really, no regard for it. Her elbow brushes against me, her knee touches mine, and I inch away.
I’m a huge fan of personal space.
“How are you?” she purrs.
“I’m great,” I say, as chipper and cheery as I can be.
She studies me, concern etched into her features as she purses her lips, slashed with a wine-red lipstick. “Are you sure? I watched practice yesterday. You seemed a little off. Is everything okay with you and your . . .”
She trails off, but I know exactly what she’s getting at. She’s hunting for trouble in paradise, so I stick to what happened on the field. “Off? We were off for like five minutes,” I say, thinking she’s referring to the botched throw to Jones.
“You were better today, though. So smooth and agile,” she adds.
If she knows my practice improved from one day to the next, that means she’s watching me. Has she planted bugs on me? A dart of worry hits me as I wonder if she heard my call with Violet. I didn’t notice her come over, but a quick peek at her ballet flats tells me she might simply be quiet in those shoes. Maybe she was slinking through the stands furtively for a while. I offer a quick plea to the universe that she didn’t hear the “pretend girlfriend” conversation.