“Fuck, Kean said please,” Brooker hissed beside me and I nudged him with my elbow.
“Okay. I’ll get Rosa involved. Just … don’t expect it to go quietly. All right? I’m not responsible for whatever nonsense she cooks up knowing we’re trying to get y’all together. Unless Kodi isn’t interested, Rosa will be planning your wedding. Like she’s nosy as fuck. There’s a reason I don’t tell her shit beyond Brooker being a manwhore.”
“Ouch,” Brooker said with a mock gasp.
“I don’t care. Just … I just need to know she’s … interested? That she doesn’t feel pressured? I don’t know, just something. I’m too confused to figure out what I need.”
“Maybe don’t tell her about how gone Kean is for Kodi yet,” Taylor suggested, patting my shoulder.
“Definitely not. She’d book a venue.”
A New Friend
Kodi
After I’d gotten some — literal — distance from Kean and could catch my breath, I decided that whether I wanted to fuck him or not didn’t matter if it distracted me from the job I wanted. Sure, I could theoretically become somebody else’s PA if Kean and I became a thing, but that would probably reinforce Hansen’s image of me being irresponsible and then I’d never become the media manager.
So before I crack and let Kean crack my back, I needed to get this job. Or at the very least make progress towards it. And since I’ve gotten to know the guys on the team better, I could make a more thorough social media road map for them that shows off how they’re all brothers constantly annoying each other with love. Once I showed that to Hansen, maybe even one of the owners at the gala, then I’d get the job.
It was a great plan that would surely solve all my problems.
I just had to make that road map first.
But no matter how long I stared at my laptop, no matter how much research I did, I just couldn’t get my vision down on paper.
And this week, I couldn’t even blame my brain fog on Kean overloading my schedule. The list of PA tasks he gave me was child’s play compared to my first week. Everything that didn’t need to be done on a specific day was completed by Tuesday afternoon.
So now I was sitting in the shared office with nothing to do but get frustrated at myself.
Maybe I just needed a break. Maybe if I hung out with some of the guys I’d stumble upon the perfect plan. Surely a few of them were in the gym or the med bay rather than running drills on the field. Though if I hung out with any of the first-string players, they’d probably spend the whole conversation selling me on Kean or whatever their cockamamie plan was.
And given that having Kean on my mind is what was causing all my problems, I should probably avoid them, too.
“Ugh,” I groaned, thunking my head on my desk, praying that’d jog some ideas.
“Whoa, what’s up with you?” a familiar voice asked. I looked up to see Rosa in the doorway and suddenly everything was brighter.
My adult life in Florida has been … lacking in the friends department. I mean, I had light friendships with folks I went to school with. We went out every once in a while, dinner, clubs, place where we could chat or stuff our faces if things got awkward. But overall, I’d grown apart from most of my local friends and as a freelancer, there weren’t many secondary spaces I could go to makenewfriends.
But talking with Rosa at the Nasties game, I got that giddy feeling that we could be close and I really,reallyhoped it’d stick.
“Hey, Rosa! What’re you doing here?” I stood up, mentally debating if I should hug her or if that’d be too much. I wasn’t ahugger-hugger but I likedahug or two.
But before I could overthink it, Rosa rounded the desks to hug me.
“Oh my god, do I have some gossip.” She squeezed me once before letting go to hop on a free desk. “Carmenfinallytold about what the boys are doing with you and Kean. Like, more than the make-Kean-look-good thing.”
“Seriously?” My eyes went wide. “What’d he say? Or did Jimenez tell you not to say?”
“Please.” She rolled her eyes. “One of the reasons he doesn’t share that kinda shit with me is because he knows I like to talk.Buthim telling me means he cleared it with Kean or the rest of the guys. And you know what that means …” She trailed off, looking at me expectantly.
“Um … that he trusts you?” I said uncertainly, completely at a loss as to what conclusion she was jumping to.
“Oh my god.” She slapped my arm with the back of her hand. “No. I mean, yeah, sure my husband trusts me, we have a healthy relationship, blah, blah, blah. That doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that theywantme to come blab to you.”
“What? You think they had a team meeting to clear how much of their ‘force me and Kean together’ plan they could share with you?” The idea of all the players gathered around to gossip and help each other out with their love lives was super amusing. And maybe something I could use for the social media road map? Nah, probably not.
“Exactly! You can picture it, right? Brooker being annoying and nosy and initiating the whole conversation. Christenson trying to balance shit out. Kean just grumbling. Taylor and my husband giving the best advice.”
