“Good. I’ll need the transcripts on my desk before you leave today.”
Somehow, I manage not to huff with annoyance. “Already done and in your inbox.” I give her my most chipper smile. “I’m going on my lunch break now. See you later.”
Pivoting on my heeled foot, I quickly walk away before she can say anything else.
Lark is waiting for me at the end of the hallway that houses all of the admin offices. “What are you doing up here?” I ask. “I thought I was coming to your room?”
She rolls her eyes and grimaces. “I had to drop off treatment reports with Mr. Cartwright.”
“You know you can call him Mike,” I tease. Even after being a member of the training staff for years, Lark still can’t call my uncle by his first name. Doesn’t matter how hard he tries to be approachable and accessible to staff, she’s got upper management on a pedestal.
“Nope. I can’t.” We get off the elevator on the lower level that houses the gym, batting cages, and rehab area where Lark has her private room that often becomes our lunch spot.
“Oh my.” Lark stumbles to a stop just outside the glass doors that open into the gym facilities. “Is that the new guy?”
“Aren’t you in a relationship?” I tease, refusing to turn my head and see what I can all too easily picture. After all, I’m intimately acquainted with how Ronan looks with his muscles bulging, a sheen of sweat covering his skin.
Oh shit, now I’m getting turned on. For fucks sake, this is going to be a problem if I get horny every time I see the man. Or in this case, someoneelsesees him.
“Well, yeah, but I’m not blind. Look at him.” Lark gestures behind me, and reluctantly, I turn around. Sure enough, there he is, standing by the weight rack, doing bicep curls that make me remember how easily he picked me up and moved me around in bed.
Gah! Stop it, Willow! Bad girl.
“He’s hot. Even you have to admit that.”
I shrug my shoulders and take a step down the hall, desperate to get away before he notices us here. But of fucking course, I’m not that lucky. Ronan turns at that very instant, catches us watching, and the fucker winks. Winks!
“Woah. Okay, yeah, we better go before I start having thoughts I shouldn’t be having.” Lark laughs, shaking her head as she joins me and we continue down to her treatment room where we planned to have lunch. “But really, what was with the wink? That was most definitely directed at you, girlfriend.”
I shoot her a glare, silently imploring her to stop talking until we’re in private. Thankfully, she seems to get the hint, going quiet until we reach her treatment room and I close the door behind me. I stare at my friend, hoping she realizes the trust I’m about to place in her.
“What I’m about to say doesn’t leave this room, got it? Cone of silence.”
Lark’s eyes grow wide as she sits down and opens up her lunch bag, nodding solemnly. “Got it.”
I snatch up the mini package of Skittles that I tossed in with my lunch as a treat, open it up, and pick out the lemon ones, passing them to Lark before I start to pace the small space. “Okay. Remember when I went to Hawaii last fall?” I hear her mumbled agreement and keep going. “Right. So. Guess who sat next to me on the plane.”
“No way.”
I turn to face her and nod. “Way. And guess who was staying at my hotel.”
“Oh my God,” Lark whispers, her face lighting up with excitement.
I decide to skim the details of how he charmed me, the time we spent together, and just give her the highlights. “Let’s just say I thought I’d never see him again, so I gave in to temptation. I mean, there wasn’t even the faintest whisper of a trade for him. I don’t know what came over me.” Dropping down into a chair, I slump down until my head hits the back of it. “Lark, I fell for a pretty face and then I got dick drunk. We fucked more times in one night than I had in the previous month.”
Lark snorts, water shooting out of her nose. Grabbing a towel out of the basket on the counter behind me, I pass it to her, stifling my laugh before tossing a couple more Skittles in my mouth.
“Good Lord, warn a girl before you say something like that,” she manages once she’s cleaned up. “But also? Damn. Well done. So, are you guys together? Keeping things on the DL? Oh my God, is that why he winked?”
Lifting my hands up to slow down her insanity, my head is already shaking back and forth. “No, no, and I don’t know. We’re not together, did you miss the part where I said we never thought we’d see each other again? I mean, obviously I knew there was a chance we could run into each other, but I never expected this.” My head falls back again. “I can’t be with him, Lark, even if we both wanted it. I can’t date a player. There’s an unspoken rule about it, you know that.”
“That rule is just an urban myth, not contractual, and it’s a pile of misogynistic bull crap,” she scoffs. “So when you saycan’t, do you really mean that? Or do you mean you won’t?”
“Both.” I sit up slightly. “Anyway. Enough about me and Ronan. Bottom line, there will neverbea me and Ronan. So let’s eat lunch and figure out how you’re going to get out of Baron’s next family event.”
Lark grimaces. “Lord help me, that man’s family is next-level insane.”
“You realize if you ever take things further with him, they’ll be your family.” From what I know, Lark’s boyfriend has the kind of conservative, snobby family you think only exists in movies. But no, the Hazelwood family brings every rich cliché to life.
