Page 12 of What I Like About You

“Good luck peeling me away from that hot-stone lounge chair,” Reba commented.

As she said this, a beautiful, willowy brunette led the three men in from the courtyard. Based on the looks on their faces, they were impressed with everything they saw out there.

“I’m just telling you now, you’re going to have to drag me back to the A-T-L kicking and screaming,” Antwan said as he slipped in next to Zara. “This place is on point!”

Zara had to agree with him there—it was spectacular. If only the extraordinary beauty of all this could be enough to get her to stop thinking about Dalton.

* * *

"Hello?”Dalton answered his phone without looking at the screen to see who it was. He knew it was a mistake as soon as he heard the voice on the other end.

“Tripp Sutherland. So you do answer your phone!” his sister’s voice echoed through his phone.

“Felicity.”

Of all the people on this planet Dalton didn’t want to talk to, his older sister was in the top five. Rounding out that list was his father, step-mother BobbiJo, ex-best friend/”step-uncle” Jonah Davenport, and younger half-sister LuAnna. Although, that wasn’t fair to LuAnna, who the step-monster insisted on calling “Lulu.” She was only thirteen, not much younger than Dalton was when his father married her mother, and she hadn’t asked to be born to assholes.

He’d managed to not speak to any of them for years until Felicity had shown up unannounced just over a month ago. Since then, it seemed like the flood gates had opened and he was hearing from all sorts of people he hadn’t thought about since he’d left Atlanta.

“Tripp, we need to talk,” Felicity said.

“I don’t know what you think there is to talk about. Last time I saw you, you showed up at my place of employment, called my friend a whore, and referred to her boyfriend as a ‘business asset’ before dragging him off to your evil lair,” he said, with a little more anger than he had intended. He looked to his left to see Kyle standing behind the bar on the Brown Eyed Girl, pouring the last of the rum punch into two cups. Kyle raised his eyebrows as if to silently ask what was going on.

“I didn’t drag Cullen Cruz anywhere. He willingly came with me, only to change his mind later.”

“Whatever. What do you want, Felicity?”

“We need to discuss plans for your return. Even though the whole Cullen Cruz thing didn’t work out, they’ve got some other guy lined up that they’re all excited about.”

“Yeah, Gunnar Gracin—Cullen told me.”

“Right, well, he officially arrives soon, and it would be nice if you were here to greet him.”

“Why do I need to be there?”

“Tripp, you’re the team president for crying out loud. You have a responsibility to be here.”

“I’m the what?!”

“Team president. Don’t act like you don’t know this. Jonah said he told you. All the paperwork should be in your email.”

Dalton tried to recall the last time he’d checked his email. He’d removed it from his phone when he started at the Indigo Royal, not feeling the need to carry all that proverbial weight in his pocket. He relied solely on his laptop to access his email, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d turned that on.

“Jonah? I haven’t spoken to that piece of weasel shit since freshman year in college. What the fuck is he doing working at Southland, Flick?” he exclaimed, using her childhood nickname. He knew she hated the use of that name, but he’d been so rattled by hearing the name of his ex-best friend for the second time in as many days, he didn’t really care. Not that he probably would have really cared about upsetting her even if Jonah hadn’t been mentioned. He knew his sister had her own issues with Jonah, and rightfully so, but that was just fuel for the fire.

“I don’t like it any more than you do, trust me. But Big D needed someone to be his lap dog after you took off. Medusa thought it was important it ‘stayed in the family’ after all,” she said, referring to their stepmother. Felicity and BobbiJo had been close at one point, but that was before she had married their father. Before they knew what they did now. “Jonah jumped to fill that role. Be the son Big D always wanted.”

“That’s low, even for you.”

“Whatever. So when are you coming back?”

“I’m not.”

“Of course you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Tripp, Big D is giving you this team. That’s the whole reason he bought a soccer franchise. Because it was your favorite sport. He’s trusting you with this. Even though you ran away. Do you know what some of us around here have had to do for him to notice us?”