“Yeah.” I should just tell him to forget it. I don’t need to do this, not at his expense.
He nods slowly. “Alright, well. That’s probably a good thing.”
Is it? What doesthatmean?
“Look, I know she came home with you that night. I don’t really know the details of what happened there, or what happened after. I wanted to ask her to go along with this whole thing for me, but I won’t cross that line if you don’t want me to.”
Declan stares at me for a second before slowly breaking into a grin. He shakes his head, bringing his beer back to his lips. “Forker, are you asking me if you can pursue some fake relationship with a chick I brought home, never slept with, and never spoke to again?”
I stare at him.
Well, when he puts it like that, it sounds dumb.
“Yes?”
Declan bursts out laughing, reaching forward to slap his hand on my leg. He shakes me roughly. “You’re too good of a guy, you know that?”
“Well, not really,” I admit, shaking my head. “I can’t guarantee she’ll ever talk to me again. But I’m going to try. Which brings me to my next question. Do you have her number?”
“Oh. You don’t evenknowher?”
I know her plenty. Almost slept with you, has an attitude the size of a small planet, and hates the nickname‘Red’.
“I know her well enough. Her name is Arden.”
“You know that because I just told you that.”
“Semantics.” I wave him off.
He watches me carefully. “Why wouldn’t she speak to you again?”
I just shrug.
His smile slowly fades, and he straightens in his seat. “What did you do? Besides breaking someone’s nose?”
Shouldn’t breaking the nose be enough?
“Nothing. I just want the chance to undo it.”
Why did I say that? I’m going to have to admit what I said to piss her off before shit went ass up, and he’s going to realize I usedhimas the jab.
“Right,” Dec says slowly. He sighs, reaching into the pocket of his joggers and pulling out his phone. With a look of warning, he hands it to me, and I see her name staring back at me like a beaming light of hope. “You’re lucky I broke my phone that night and acted like an idiot. I was scared she was going to go to the press, so I kept her number.”
I am barely listening as I copy the number into my own phone. I feel better having it in my possession. I know it’s nothing, but it’s enough to give me some foolish hope that this will all work out in the end, and my name will still be printed on the back of black and yellow jerseys for years to come.
“Did you hear me?”
I snap my eyes up to his. “Yeah. You punched your phone or something.”
He cocks a brow. “My point is, I don’t know what you did, but if you need her help, I’d say to give that apology a good shot. She never sold that story anywhere. She wore my clothes home and never posted them online. She’s a decent chick, Fork.”
Decent isn’t a good enough word.
She’s feisty, she seems funny, and obviously, she’s ridiculously hot. That’s how I wound up in this position, after all. Ihave dreamt about that mouth a few times now and I haven’t even tasted it. She’salsodecent, on top of all that, which is a good quality to look for in this business. She could have made a lotof money from selling that story about Dec.
She had his clothes to prove it.
She didn’t. Because she’s decent.
