In the restroom I blotted my face and listened to the voicemail I had just gotten. Might as well pile on more bad news.
Except it wasn’t a bill collector.
“This is Carson, assistant to Coach Brandon Macnamara. He’s scheduled a meeting with you for tomorrow, Thursday, at three p.m. Please check in at the front desk downstairs and you’ll be shown to his office.”
What the hell? I was being summoned? By the man who had ghosted me?
Rude.
That made my cheeks burn with anger. I freshened my lipstick and went back to the table, fired up. “Listen to this,” I told the girls. I put my phone on speaker and played the message. “That’s the call I just got. What does that even mean?”
They both looked as bewildered as I felt. “I mean, he wants to see you. That’s good, right?” Savannah asked.
“Is it? I have no idea.”
“That assistant really gave you no information. And like, excuse me, what if you’re busy?” Isla looked annoyed on my behalf.
“Well, sadly, I’m not, but I totally agree.” I sipped my drink and grimaced. Stupid vodka tasting like vodka. I like my alcohol masked. “It feels like it should have been a request, not a done deal.”
“Are you going to go?” Savannah asked.
“I don’t think I have a choice if I want to stay on the cheerleading team.”
“True. How are you going to approach it?”
“How sexy of an outfit do you think I can get away with at three in the afternoon without looking like a call girl?” I asked. “I want him to regret not giving me his number.”
He’d had fun with me that night. I knew he had. He kept coming back for another round. Which made it even more inexplicable as to why he would give me a fake number. I wanted to remind him that we’d had great sex. Amazing sex. All-night-long sex.
“Seems like a bad idea,” Isla said. “But I doubt anything I say is going to stop you.”
“You are correct, sir,” I said.
She laughed. “Sir? Oh, God, you’re getting giddy. I can see it. You like this guy, don’t you?”
Yes. “I don’t know.” I swiped through my phone. I may or may not have saved the picture of him with his daughters. “Look at this. Him with his kids. How cute is that?” I showed them the picture.
“Aw, that’s so sweet!” Savannah said. “They’re cute girls.”
“Yep, you’re down the rabbit hole,” Isla said. “I wish you well.”
“I literally have nothing to lose at this point,” I told her. “I’m wearing a super short skirt and heels. With a blazer, so it’s professional.”
“Oh, and have a plunging neckline to your shirt,” Savannah said. “Very rock star.”
“It’s at three in the afternoon,” Isla said.
“Hence the blazer,” I told her with great dignity.
Dakota came into my office wearing a black skirt that could have been professional if it had another eight inches added to it. My mouth went dry. That was a lot of leg and the skirt was so short, one false move and I would see her panties. And I knew from experience what kind of panties she wore. Ones that covered exactly nothing.
Her top was ivory, a soft classic material. But it had cleavage that plunged nearly to the waistband of her skirt. A black blazer did cover some, but not all, of her breasts. The thin ribbon of flesh between her breasts was visible from neck to navel. Her shoes were also black, but the heel was high and made her impossibly long legs seem even more so. The blond hair that I had run my fingers through and tugged was swept back into a sophisticated ponytail. She had on minimal makeup.
It was all together a mind fuck. I didn’t know what Carson had told her, presumably something about the charity, so it looked like she had come both prepared to discuss a charitable venture, and to drive me insane.
Look at what you can’t have again, Brandon.
It was definitely working.
I stood. “Hi, Dakota, thanks for coming.”
The double entendre was unintentional. But we both seemed to become aware of it at the exact same moment. Her eyebrows rose. I thought about her coming beneath me and got an instant hard-on.
“It didn’t seem like I had much choice,” she said. “Your assistant commanded me to appear.”
Oh, fabulous. Fucking Carson. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply you had no choice.” I came around the desk. “How have you been? You look amazing. I have to admit, I was shocked to see you on the sideline Sunday.”
“I was shocked too. I didn’t know you were the head coach. Or maybe more like I didn’t know the head coach was you, Hater.” She tilted her head. “You know what I mean.”
Maybe? I wasn’t sure. “Of course.”
“I have a question. At what point did you realize you were there to attend my surprise wedding the night we met?”
“Honestly, when I finally got to the party. It was billed as a holiday party for the franchise, so I never even made the connection that your Dante was a player for the team.” I could see why she would wonder about that. If I had known and didn’t tell her, it didn’t paint me in the best light.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “You could have told me on Valentine’s Day.”
“You’re right. I could have. But we seemed to have better things to talk about.” Sex. We’d had lots and lots of sex. “I wanted to talk to you now about, um, discretion.”
Dakota made a face. “Gross.”
“Excuse me?” I stopped walking toward her, thrown off. “What’s gross?”
“Did you seriously summon me to make sure I won’t tell anyone you boned me? I won’t tell. I promise. It’s not a big deal.” She actually turned, as if to leave.
“Dakota. Wait.” I reached out and touched her arm. “Did I do something to piss you off? I thought we had fun and now you just seem angry.”
“I thought we had fun too. But if you didn’t want to see me again, that was totally understandable. It was a hookup. You didn’t have to leave me a fake number. What was the point of that, exactly? To make me feel shitty? Because it worked.”
My jaw dropped. “A fake number? I did not leave you a fake number. I wanted you to text me. I was hoping to hear from you for weeks and kicking myself for not getting your number. Again.”
“You did so give me a fake number. The number you gave me belongs to a guy who asked me to send nudes.” She pulled her phone out of the pocket of her blazer and started swiping angrily. “Here. Look.” She shoved the phone at me.
You know what I don’t like? Mornings. But I had fun last night.
“That’s the text I sent you.” She pointed to the timestamp. “At three twelve that afternoon.”
“I don’t understand.” Reading her words made me want to fuck her all over again. She had thrown it back to the night we met, when she’d given me a laundry list of things she liked. My nostrils flared and my gut twisted. God, she was so funny and sexy and confident.
“Some jerk answered.”
I scrolled through and saw his request for a pic. “Holy shit, I’m glad you didn’t send him one.” The very thought made me rage.