“Yeah, well, except Denise Owens was married.”
Me.
Fuck.
Fuck me.
“What?” I say quickly, my mouth growing dry and my eyes suddenly glaring a much angrier glare than they should.
“Yep,” Holden shrugs. “Definitely had a husband. Ended up breaking up the marriage when the whole thing got out. Then she tried to get with Landon, but the guy suddenly wasn’t interested once there wasn’t any drama for him to stir up. Denise ended up quitting and going to work for like, Minnesota or some place.”
The creeping feeling inside turns cold, chilling me to the core as the weight of what Holden’s just said sinks in.
“You okay?”
I shake myself out of it again, glancing up at him. “Oh, yeah! I just can’t believe that!”
“Right? What kinda guy does that.”
London sighs loudly. “You two are like my gossipy aunts, Jesus.”
“Well excuse me for making sure your best friend knows to watch out for the resident creep at Rattlesnakes HQ, babe.” Holden grins at my friend before he turns back to me. “Just watch out for him, Serena.”
Chapter Twenty
Landon
“What’s for dinner?”
“What do you want?” I reach down and scoop Emily up, perching her up on the tall stools around the kitchen island.
“McDonalds.”
“Vetoed.”
She makes a pouting face as I stick my tongue out at her. Historically, I’ve never let Emily eat crap like fast food. But a slightly less discriminating mom of a friend of hers the other week introduced her to Chicken McNuggets, and she’s been hounding me like an addict about them ever since.
“Alright, I’ll meet you halfway.”
“What’s that mean?”
I grin as ease down my elbows across the island from her. “It means we’re negotiating.”
Emily makes a face, and I laugh.
“No McDonalds.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s not real food, that’s why.”
“You can eat it, Dad. It’s food.”
“You can eat dirt too, ya know.”
She grins.
“No McDonalds, but how about pizza?”
Emily crows out a cheer.
“But, there’s one condition.”
I get the skeptical eye.
“We’re going to make it.”
My eight-year-old’s eyes go wide. “For real?”
“Sure, why not?”
“You know how to make pizza?” There’s a certain reverence and awe in her face that makes me grin, as if I’ve just admitted that I am in fact, a costumed superhero with the ability to fly and fight crime.
“Your dad is full of surprises, you know.”
Except thirty minutes later, up to our elbows in tomato sauce and flour, there’s one little surprise about myself that I can’t stop lingering on.
Serena.
The surprise I never saw coming, and the one that keeps pulling at something inside of me.
The one I can’t get out of my damn head.
And this is me we’re talking about. I’ve spent years cultivating one very straight and narrow modus operandi when it comes to women: I do not get involved. I don’t linger, I don’t ruminate. I don’t stay awake at night replaying everyday conversations with them, or remembering the way their eyes crinkled at the corners when they laughed at something I said after a particularly boring meeting with our coaching staff.
Except now I do, apparently.
Surprise.
It’s been a week since Serena came to my house that night. And whatever worries I had that night after watching her drive away? Gone. Because for seven days now, we’ve been nothing but formal and strictly business at the office.
It’s exactly what I could have hoped for.
And yet, seven days and seven nights later, it’s not what I want, and that’s starting to get to me. The cordial familiarity, the sticking to business only conversations? The not once letting a single flirty look, smile, or line dance between us? If you’d asked me before, I’d have said that’s an ideal situation.
That was before I slept with Serena again.
That was before the lingering scent of her hair on my sheets and the lingering memory of that night with her got in deep under my skin.
Now? Now I’ve spent the last week looking for ways to change the subject from goddamn quarterly expenditure accounts to something we can banter about, or looking for an opening to see if she wants to get a drink after work or something.
Nothing.
It’s like sleeping together again zeroed out all the issues and tension between us.
And it sucks.
“Is Serena coming over tonight?”
I glance up from the cutting board littered with the mushrooms. It’s the third time Emily’s asked me this since the other night.