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Both my hands raised to shoulder level in a gesture of what can you do. “I can’t help it if I’m endlessly interesting.”
His body shook with laughter as he reached for the files on the corner of his desk. “So I have a few guys I really want. And I need to find the number that’s going to make that happen comfortably. A couple of them are coming to the end of their contracts with the Seahawks, but one kid is just finishing college.”
“No draft?”
“He tore his ACL pretty early in this last season. And he’d been sitting second-string to that Pulchek kid for most of the first three years of his college career. No one else has even thought about touching him. At least not since his All-American years in high school.”
“So why are you thinking about touching him?”
He raised a brow suggestively, so I flipped him off.
“Because he’s fucking good.”
A shocked laugh burst from my lips. “Well, fuck. I’d say that’s a good reason.” I held out a hand. “Here, let me see his file.”
Wes pulled it from the bottom of the stack and passed it to me, leaning back in his chair and running a rough hand through his hair.
“You know it’s not your job to help me pick people, right? I just need you to make sure I’m paying them the right amount of money.”
“Oh, I know it’s not my job. I do it as a favor out of the goodness of my heart.”
“I don’t really need—”
“To thank me?” I interrupted and pointed at him. He narrowed his eyes. “You’re right. It doesn’t need to be spoken between friends.”
He just shook his head as I opened the folder, and I didn’t bother to hide my smile. He was too easy to play with, and with the way I wasn’t in control of anything else in my life right now, it felt good to be in control of this. It felt normal.
Recognition had me jumping to my feet when I saw the picture on top of the papers inside.
“Holy shit! Sean Phillips?” I’d had a flicker of a memory from Portland when Wes had said ACL, but it was a really fucking common injury and I wasn’t expecting to be this lucky. I figured I’d have to drop hints about Sean to make Wes think it was his idea at some point, but this really saved me the trouble.
Wes’s face scrunched in amused confusion. “Yeah. You know him?”
“Ha!” I shouted, a goofy smile making me feel nearly drugged. “Yeah. I know him.”
He’s gonna go fucking pro!
I tapped the folder almost aggressively. “This is Cassie’s brother.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” Wes said through a laugh. “That kid is black.”
I shook my head and chuckled. “I said the same thing when I saw his picture on her phone a couple months ago. I figured she was bullshitting me, but she wasn’t. I was just at her parents’ house, and this is her brother, Sean.”
“Well, I didn’t see that coming.”
Fuck, I didn’t see anything coming anymore. The thought made me smile.
“Listen, Phil. I need you to be cool,” I said, fluffing up the dog bed I’d picked up on the way home. Following the mini-pig breeder’s instructions, I placed the bed in the corner of the master bedroom with lots of blankets for him to root through. Since it had been nearly two decades since I had Dad, my childhood pig, I was a bit rusty on my pig-owning skills.
“Shit will probably go down once Thatch gets home, but if I’m cool, and you’re cool, we should all be cool as a motherfucking cucumber.”
The little guy snorted in response and proceeded to nudge my leg with his tiny pink nose while his little tail wiggled back and forth.
After straightening his bow tie, I stood up and pointed down at Phil’s new bed. “This is where you’ll sleep.”
He grunted in response, his tail abruptly stopping its excited movement while he proceeded to just stare at the pile of blankets on top of the bed.
I sighed. “You haven’t even tried it yet.”
Another grunt.
“C’mon,” I instructed, kneeling down and picking him up. “Once your little ass hits this cotton cloud of heaven, it will be love at first touch.” I gently placed him on the bed, and he just sat there, looking at me.
“Philmore, you need to try better than that, dude.”
He snorted but proceeded to root through the blankets with his nose. I watched avidly for a few minutes until he appeared to be enjoying his humble new abode.
I sat down beside the bed and softly ran my fingers over his back. “I think you’ll be really happy here, buddy. New York is a pretty cool place to live. The rent is exorbitant, but yeah, that shouldn’t concern you since you’ll be mooching off us. Well, Thatch. Technically, I’m kind of mooching off him right now too. That makes you and me tight. An unbreakable bond, okay? Even though I bought you for him. Between me and you, it’s solely because I’m focused on out-pranking the prankster, but I can’t deny you’re one cute little bastard.”
Yeah, but your main focus isn’t on pranks and one-upping Thatch anymore…
Okay, so maybe my focus had changed. Maybe my focus was just him, plain and simple. Well, confusing and complicated was probably more like it, but it didn’t change the fact that I truly loved screwing with him. I fucking loved keeping Thatch on his toes.
Phil lay down on the bed, resting his chin on my thigh, and looked up at me.
I took in his little piggy face and grinned before continuing to give him the ins and outs of the city. “The food is phenomenal, but skip the sushi at Duane Reade. I made that mistake once and nearly shit my brains out for a week.”
In hindsight, I really should have known. But I’m the kind of person who actually needs to touch the hot stove to confirm it’s hot, even though you already fucking told me.
“I should probably warn you that pigs are illegal in the Big Apple, but don’t worry, I found a way to get around that rule,” I said as I rubbed the prickly hairs of his back.
“You’re going to have to get used to walking places.”
He grunted and nudged my arm with his nose.
“Sorry, but them’s the breaks in New York. Cabs are too expensive when you live here full time. You should probably consider getting a MetroCard. And I know you’ll love Central Park. It will be your happy place, for sure. Since I’m not really the type of chick that enjoys participating in movement outside of getting from one place to the next, I’ll make sure Thatch takes you there. That big asshole is always running and working out and shit.”
Eventually, his little eyes started to drift closed until he rolled to his side and fell fast asleep.
I headed into the kitchen and cleaned up the mess I had left during Phil’s arrival. Empty bags, torn tags from his new toys and collar, and a half-empty bowl of food and water littered the stainless steel space. Once I had all of the trash thrown away and Phil’s belongings set up the way I wanted, I made myself comfortable on the couch and flipped on the television.
By the time Thatch walked through the door, I was forty minutes into a Lifetime movie I couldn’t stop watching. “Jesus, Deb, get your shit together,” I yelled at the screen. “Oh, my God. Are you blind? Julianna is an asshole. She’s going to kill everyone!”
“Honey, I’m home and I’ve got takeout,” Thatch called from the kitchen. “Think maybe you can take a break from Lifetime and come enjoy it with me?” he asked in a teasing tone.
“Bring it out here,” I whined. “I need to see the end of this movie even though I already know what’s going to happen.”
He walked into the living room and set the bag of food on the coffee table. “Already seen it?”
“Nope. But there are always two certainties with Lifetime movies. One,” I said, holding up one finger in his direction, “is that the acting is always terrible. And two—” I held up another finger “—they’re predictable as fuck.”
He chuckled as he sat down beside me. “Then why watch them?”
“Are you kidding me? Because Lifetime movies are addictive. They’re so awful they’re good.”
“That makes zero sense.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, well, consider it another mystery of the female population. Who knows why women love these movies? But they do, and I’m a testament to that very fact.”
“That’s unfortunate for you,” he teased.
“You know what’s unfortunate?” I pointed the remote toward the screen. “That Deb can’t figure out her twin sister Julianna is a fucking psychopath.”
“Which one is which?” he asked, opening the bag and pulling out a large white foam container. After setting it on the table, he reached up to loosen his tie. Climbing to my knees, I pushed his hands out of the way and did it for him. His eyes looked like melted chocolate.
The leather felt cool on my shins, so I rolled back over to sit beside him.
“Deb is the one that looks like she just rose from the dead. She obviously needs a tutorial on good Goth makeup. And Julianna is the cunt with the long blond hair,” I answered, watching him lift the lid of the container. Once the aroma of refried beans and cheese and salsa and chicken hit my nose, I damn near dove face first into the food. “Did you get nachos?” I asked excitedly.
