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I know I look different in a tuxedo than a hat and joggers. I’d probably look twice, too.
“Want a drink?” she asks as we make it to the part of the museum set up with large round tables. We’re sitting with Maggie and Aiden, and I’m sure that’s not a coincidence. “There’s a bar over there.”
“A drink sounds great. What’re you going to have? Beer? Wine?”
“I’m thinking bourbon or whiskey,” she says, and my mouth twists into a smile.
“A recent favorite?” I ask, and there’s a twinkle in her eye.
“You could say that.” She gives my arm a light tug, and we head for the long line of folks waiting for the bar. “They’re going to serve dinner, then Hannaford is going to give a speech. After that, the silent auction will be open for an hour and a half while everyone gets drunk and writes obscenely large checks.”
“My kind of party. Did you tell him what you were donating?”
“Not exactly. I mentioned it was something that would bring in a lot of money for the hospital, but he was leery without seeing the proof.”
“I would be, too. Sounds like a pyramid scheme.”
We inch closer to the bar, and Lacey tosses her hair over her shoulder. I spot a little red mark on her neck, a souvenir from earlier in her room, and I bite back a grin at the sight of it.
I want to leave a dozen more on her body.
“I know the hospital needs funding, but he’s so money hungry. I’m willing to bet he gets a cut of the earnings brought in from tonight. How is that fair? He has his employees working fourteen and fifteen-hour days while he sits up in a nice office and doesn’t get his hands dirty.” She pauses to take a breath and shakes her head. “Shit. Sorry, that was so unprofessional of me. Especially at a work function.”
“No, it wasn’t. Your career is your livelihood, and you’re allowed to not be happy with it from time to time. Hell, some days I really don’t want to be out on the football field.”
“Really? But you love football.”
“I do. I don’t always like it, though, and that’s okay.”
“Huh. That’s a good way to look at it.”
“There was this coach I had when I played in college—he only lasted a year before getting sacked—and I told myself I wouldneverbe like him if I decided to pursue a coaching role. He was lazy and mean. Didn’t give a shit about his players and only looked out for himself. It washim, notthe team. Your boss sounds a lot like that, and I’m sorry you have to put up with his shit.”
“Nancy? Is that you?”
Lacey looks over her shoulder, and the smile she plasters on her face is the fakest display of emotion I’ve ever seen from her.
“Speak of the devil,” she mumbles under her breath before rolling her shoulders back. “Director Hannaford, hi. Nice to see you this evening.”
A seedy-looking man with a tweed jacket and an obvious toupee approaches us. “I didn’t see your silent auction item on the table,” he says, and I can hear his disappointment. “Did you decide not to donate this year?”
Lacey brightens and looks at me. Her lips tug into the same smile I saw in her bedroom before we got here. It’s a little sly, a little mischievous, and it makes me want to kiss the red lipstick off her mouth.
“I wanted my donation to be a surprise,” she says. “Director Hannaford, this is my boyfriend, Shawn Holmes. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with D.C. sports, but he’s the head coach of the Titans. They’ve had a great season so far, and they have their sights set on the Super Bowl. When he was playing in the league, he won five titles with the Philadelphia Lightning, and he holds the league record for most yards on receptions by a tight end in a single season. Almost fifteen hundred of them, plus one hundred career receiving touchdowns.”
My mouth pops open, and I gape at Lacey. I’ve never heard her say a single football statistic in my life, and the fact that she knowsmynumbers makes me brim with pride.
She’s been learning the game.
I’dneverask or expect her to be knowledgeable on the sport; it’s not her thing. I know that, and I don’t care if she can’t tell me a single goddamn fact after tonight.
She’s trying, though.
For me.
And,fuck, that’s incredible.
Her director—Hannaford—looks me up and down. He blinks twice and pulls the wired-framed glasses off the end of his hooked nose. “Your boyfriend?” he asks, and Lacey nods like a bobblehead.
