“Put your phone down,” I say, sliding into the seat across from her. “This is going to require your full attention.”
“One sec,” she mutters, still typing. “Just hitting send and…” Her thumb taps the screen, and then she flips her phone face down.
“Okay. I’m all yours.”
“I wasn’t interrupting anything important, was I?”
“Actually?” she says, a flash of excitement lighting up her whole face. “I just got invited to interview with the Atlanta Strikers soccer club!”
I gasp. “No way!”
Tatum has known me since high school. We ran track together, though she took it way more seriously than I ever did. She came from the kind of life that demanded success, or the environment would swallow you whole. From the moment I met her, she knew she wanted a career in sports.
At first, she stuck with track, but she realized she hated how much the travel kept her away from her brother. Then she considered sports management before realizing she couldn't stand the politics. The sexism never bothered her. Ultimately, marketing and PR swept her off her feet. Now she is the youngest team lead at Beaumont Sports Network, crafting campaigns for elite athletes like she was born for it.
And for the past six months, she’s been the only person I’ve been able to talk to intimately about Croix. So in a weird, full-circle way, it feels fitting that she’s now interviewing for a job with his team.
“Yes, girl! My second interview is with one of the female owners in two weeks. I’m so excited.”
“And I’m so proud of you! What are Eros and Ares Beaumont going to do without you? You’ve basically rebuilt BSN’s marketing department from the ground up.”
Tatum just takes a sip of her latte and shrugs like it’s no big deal. “I’m sure the billionaires sports moguls can afford a headhunter. Besides, Ares is the one who recommended me for the job. It was a no-brainer, according to him.”
“Wow,” I say with admiration. “Look at you. Boss moves only.”
“Okay, enough about me! Did I read your text right?” she leans in. “Croix proposed? On actual bent knee like aBoyz II Menballad?”
I laugh into my latte. “Yes! And the ring was stunning, but—”
“But, what the actualfuck?” Holly yells from across the counter.
Tatum and I whip our heads toward her. “You heard that?” Tatum blinks. “We’re at least a hundred feet away.”
Holly shrugs, untying her apron as she hands a cup of coffee to her last customer. Surprisingly, customers are very accepting of Holly’s colorful language. “Honey, I used to work with badasstoddlers. I know how to activate the mom-hearing gene when I need to.”
I take a deep breath and another long sip. “Come on over then, so you don’t pull a muscle in your neck trying to eavesdrop. This one might need a whole committee, anyway.”
She pours herself a coffee, adds a shot of rum to match mine, and slides into the seat across from us.
“Okay,” she says, clapping her hands like we’re about to start a reality show confessional. “Back up to the part where you turned down an engagement ring when men are scarcer than rain in the Sahara.”
We all bust out laughing, loud enough to draw a glance from an elderly couple in the other corner, but neither of us cares.
Tatum clears her throat dramatically. “So, turns out stringing him along for six months wasn’t the best strategy, huh?”
“Shut up,” I snap, tossing a napkin at her. It’s the only comeback I’ve got because, unfortunately, she’s not wrong.
“All because you couldn’t be honest with your mother about her dreams.”
“Again,” I say with a plastic smile. “Shut. Up!”
Tatum might be blunt to the point of rudeness, but she’s never been dishonest. She’s the kind of woman who dates men for what they bring to the table—not for fairy tale endings—and she lets them know her agenda up front. Maybe that’s why she always saw through my situation with Croix. She never bought into the idea that something lukewarm could boil into love.
“Plus, I’vebeensaying you weren’t into that man like that,” she says, folding her arms.
I groan, letting my head fall back against the booth cushion. “I know, I know. But I really thought love would come eventually. I thought maybe I was just…slow to burn.”
“Girl, you wereroom-temperaturethis whole time,” she says with a smirk.
