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Ollie made a face. "I'm not that good looking," he muttered.
"Handsome and humble," Chase said. "No wonder women like you so much."
"They like me and I'm not humble," I said.
"Or handsome," Chase said, before I realised I'd walked myself right into that joke.
I flipped him the finger. "Whatever I have, women like it," I said, while the other guys laughed.
"Only you don't like them anymore," Chase said. "If you really put that woman in a taxi." He narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. "You have spent a lot of time with Grace lately. Maybe it's luurrrvve."
I raised a single eyebrow at him. Single, like I was single, and happy to stay single.
"Maybe it's work," I said, more blunt than I intended.
"She doesn't work here anymore," Hawk pointed out. He was watching me like, well, a hawk.
"We're hatching something," I said. They'd know about it soon enough. For one thing, I'd need their help. For another, I expected them to be there. Which they would, once they got the details.
"I've never heard it called that before," Chase said jokingly. "I suppose it works. She opens her hatch and you poke on in."
"You know what your problem is?" I asked him. "You have no class. We're not sleeping together. We're not even dating. No one is gettin' into anyone's hatch."
"Sure," Chase said. "Yet."
I shrugged at him and turned away to sip my coffee.
Problem was, I'd like to get into Grace's hatch. I'd thought about it a lot in the last few days. Too much, probably, especially since she didn't even like me. I don't know why she agreed to work with me, but she had. I texted her before the meeting this morning to remind her, and ask when she was available to get together again.
I was looking forward to it, more than I should. If we pulled this off, it would be legendary. More than that, it would change lives. More than playing football ever could. Carson Thomas would sit up and take notice of Grace's abilities then. She'd have job offers right and left. She'd be fighting them off.
If we didn't pull it off…
I put that idea out of my head. Failure was not an option. We would rock this so hard people would talk about it for years to come.
I found myself smiling, and stopped. I didn't need those clowns thinking I was smiling about Grace. Just because she was smart, hot and classy, didn't mean I was into her.
No way.
Okay, a bit, but it didn't count because she wasn't interested. I could deal with it. I would deal with it. Somehow, I'd stop thinking about how soft her hair looked. How much I wanted to kiss her lips. The way she smelled like some kind of flower.
I'd stop thinking about how badly I wanted to run my hands all over her body. I wanted to kiss the hollow of her neck and find the places where she was ticklish. I bet she had the cutest giggle. She certainly had the cutest ass I'd seen in a long time.
Yeah, see, I wasn't smitten at all. Okay, just a whole damn lot. The question was, what the hell was I going to do about it?
CHAPTER 14
GRACE
Rubie gave me a funny look.
"So this prick got my dad to fire you, but you want to help him organise a big charity event?"
I hid my grimace behind my coffee cup and took a sip.
"He didn't exactly get your dad to fire me," I said. "He seems to feel pretty bad about it."
It didn't surprise me at all when she said, "Dad never mentioned it."
