“That might be the point. Wait. This press release says he’s coming to campus,” Layla says, gesturing to the screen like a game-show hostess. “You’re not just doing a phone interview. You’re talking to him in person, aren’t you?”
“Yes! It was his idea!” The temptation to squeal rises again, but I dial it down. I’d better not squeal when I’m with Holden in person. “He’s doing an alumni roundtable event with some other former student-athletes, so he said he wanted to do it face-to-face.”
“Do it,” Tia snickers as Layla opens the door for us.
“There truly is a twelve-year-old boy inhabiting you, isn’t there?” I ask.
Layla waves for attention. “Hello? I can be perverted too.”
“I’m well aware. But you’re not as bad as her.”
“I guess that gives me goals, then,” Layla says dryly as we walk into the café.
I glance around at the simple decor—dark reds and golds with a few sparse flourishes, like teapots with curved handles, and soft music to set the mood—then say hello to the woman at the counter. “This place looks great.”
“Thanks. We just opened a few weeks ago. Let me know when you’re ready,” the waitress says, then steps aside and presses some buttons that make the spaceship-like coffee machine whir to life.
As I consider the options on the menu above the counter, even though I’ve memorized it from the website, I notice Tia studying me like I’m a science experiment.
“Is there something on my face?”
Her dark-brown eyes lock intensely with mine. “Wear your red blouse,” she pronounces decisively. “The cap-sleeve one with the black pearl buttons.”
“It’s an interview, not a date,” I say, like she’s suggested something crazy.
Tia laughs. “Duh, that’s why I’m telling you to wear the red one. It’s professional.”
Then she cocks her head and studies me again, and Layla joins her in staring as if she can see right through me, the way best friends can. “You’re blushing,” Tia says with a hum of satisfaction.
Layla cackles, pointing at me. “You have a crush on Holden ‘Arms of Steel’ Kingsley.”
“I do not,” I say, vigorously denying the accusation. I don’t have a thing for an athlete, and the heat rushing to my face is not a blush. That’d be ridiculous.
Tia shoots me an I caught you grin. “Are you sure? Because that pink in your cheeks seems to say you’re getting a little hot and bothered thinking of a certain ballplayer.” She glances around and then lowers her voice. “Do you think he might be the one?”
My eyes pop, and I stare at her, aghast. “He’s certainly not the one,” I whisper vehemently.
“But, if you like guys,” Layla says, “he’s an appealing option for punching your V card, right?”
Oh, hell no.
That’s not happening.
For a ton of reasons.
I shush them frantically and mime zipping my lips. We are going to shut the hell up about my V card in this public place. “It’s an interview for my podcast,” I murmur as low as I can. “Not for the job of chief deflowering executive.”
“Maybe not yet,” Layla says.
“He definitely seems like your type,” Tia adds. “Why wait for love when you could just get under that smoking-hot bod?”
“I can’t take you two anywhere,” I say, tossing up my hands in defeat.
“That is true,” Layla adds, “but we’re glad you brought us here for half-price fries.”
We order said fries, along with the hummus and baba ghanoush plate to split, and find a table.
Once we sit down, Layla drops the teasing tone. “This could really be your big break.”
“I know.” I flush, proud that I didn’t need to call in favors from Dad to do it. “A break I need. Some of us aren’t going on to play professional volleyball.”
“Sì, this is true,” Tia says, laying on a heavy Italian accent, since Layla’s been recruited to play in the land of pasta and Renaissance art next year.
“Listen,” Layla says, softening and patting my hand. “I was just having fun about him being the one. I know that’s important to you, and I know, too, that this interview is an awesome career thing.”
“Certifiably awesome,” Tia agrees, adjusting her bandana. “But it doesn’t change the fact that he is smoking hot—if you’re into that whole tall, dark, handsome, tatted, and athletic look. And who isn’t?”
Layla raises her hand, sarcastically poker-faced. “But if you like muscles—and we know a certain someone does . . .” She trails off, pitching up at the end to egg me on. “Admit it. He’s so your type.”
The heat returns to my cheeks. “I don’t have a type.”
That’s mostly true.
In high school, I dated one guy, and he was the class clown. He made me laugh, plus he was taller than I was. In college, I went out once with a science geek, twice with an exchange student from Greece, and three times with a history major who was uber-intellectual.
They all had one thing in common.
None of them had sex with me.
Call me old-fashioned, but I want sex to mean something.
They also had another thing in common—none were jocks. I’ve avoided athletes entirely.
So, sure, I can appreciate a firm AF physique, but I can’t imagine that Holden Kingsley is even my speed.
The first time I fell in love was with volleyball.
I’ve always been good at the sport. A natural, even.
But I also knew that college was as far as I was going to go. But something else, something more, came of my love of the game—a love of other sports and a voracious hunger to learn everything about them.
Their history, their opportunities, their place in the sporting pantheon . . .
I became a sports scholar as well as a sports lover, and that has served me well in my strategy for the future.
Planning ahead is something I learned from my mom, along with some other gems.
Don’t forget to send a thank-you card.
The answer is always no till you ask.
And then this one: know your limits.
She learned that from experience, and I did too, right along with her.
That’s why I’ve been so goal-oriented since I stepped foot on campus. The podcast is part of that.
And so, the next week I take Tia’s advice.
Buttoning up the short-sleeved red blouse with the cute black pearl buttons, I consider my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
The blouse is professional enough, but also it doesn’t make me look like I’m playing dress-up. I look like who I am—a college woman who takes herself seriously, but who isn’t pretending she’s at the helm of a news desk already.
I pair the blouse with jeans, then slide on flats.
There.
I look dressy, but casual too.
Trouble is my hair.
I can’t decide what to do with it.
I snap a selfie and send it to my BFF for life. Grant and I grew up on the same block, and since our grandmas were besties, naturally we were too. Grant is also the catcher for the San Francisco Cougars, the team we rooted for religiously in high school.