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“Water,” I say.
“That’s all you
want? I’m buying,” she says.
I laugh. “You think I can’t afford to buy myself a drink? Really?” I shake my head. If I hadn’t already decided to go after her, this would have been a major turn-off—her thinking she was better than me because she dressed better. “I’ll have water,” I say again to the waiter. “I have a training session after I leave here.”
Sloane doesn’t blush in embarrassment, like I expected. She just sits there, unfazed by me calling her out. She just went up a few notches in my opinion.
“Are you ready to order lunch?” the waiter asks.
I raise my eyebrows at Sloane. “Do you think you can make it through a whole meal with me?”
“I’ll have the grilled chicken salad,” she says.
Of course she orders a salad, like any other thin girl on the planet would when eating with a man she secretly wanted to bang. If she truly wasn’t interested in me, she would have ordered the burger or pizza or anything that had carbs.
“Pepperoni pizza,” I say.
The waiter leaves, and then it’s just Sloane and me.
Another woman passing by the table stares at me, and at first, she seems disgusted that they would let someone wearing swim trunks into the restaurant. But then, when she looks up further and sees my body and my crooked grin that I know turns her on, she doesn’t seem to mind so much.
“Do you always wear swim trunks everywhere you go?”
“Yes. Why wouldn’t I? I live in Hawaii, and I’m a surfer.”
Her eyes study me, and I know she’s wishing that I wasn’t wearing anything either. That she would love to see what was beneath the swim trunks.
“You can’t be in the wedding. You can’t be Wes’s best man.”
“Sure I can. I have the date cleared and everything. I don’t have any competitions or any events I have to attend for my sponsors, and I don’t have any women to pick up that day. So, I will definitely be making your wedding.”
The waiter brings our drinks. I expect Sloane to slug down her wine, needing liquid courage or strength to deal with me. She doesn’t. She sips it coolly, like she deals with propositions from men every day and she just has to come to the right terms to get me to say I’m not coming to her wedding. If that’s the way she wants to play, then fine, I’ll play along.
“What do you want? Really? You can’t think that I’m going to sleep with you. It’s just a fun game for you to try. You could probably have dozens of women in the amount of time it would take you to chase me. Is that what you like? The chase. Chasing women you can’t have? Is that what turns you on?”
I cock my head to the side. “Something like that.”
“What do I need to do to get you to go away? How much money?”
I laugh. “I don’t want money. I have too much as it is.”
“Then, what do you want?”
“Go out with me.”
“What?” she asks, her eyes growing wide.
“Go. Out. On. A. Date. With. Me.”
She slowly shakes her head. “I’m married, remember?”
I cock my head and smile. “I thought you were just engaged. Did you two secretly get married, or do you already feel like an old married couple?”
She frowns. “You know what I meant. I’m about to be married. Almost-married women don’t go out on dates.”
“But you aren’t most married women. One date, and I’ll leave you alone. One date, and if after the date you still want me to leave, I will. I’ll tell Wes that I can’t be in the wedding. Something came up, like a surf competition or event that I couldn’t get out of. Just one date.”
