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“If you came to get my attention, you’ve got it.” He jerked his head toward the way they had come. “Along with that of most of the guys in there.”
“It’s not my problem if they have a fetish for overworked and underpaid educators.”
He almost burst out laughing. “Your job of recruiting me makes you overworked and underpaid?”
She pursed her lips.
“Your sports agent fiancé didn’t give you any pointers about recruiting athletes?” The dig rolled off his tongue, and then he cocked his head. “Funny, you don’t strike me as Sal Piazza’s type.”
“I’m not.” She smiled tightly, looking as if she’d be dangerous with a hockey stick right now. “He left me for Vicki.”
“He cheated on you?”
“He denied it had gone as far as...sex. But he said he’d met someone else...and he was attracted to her.” Marisa looked as if she couldn’t believe what she was telling him.
“So Sal Piazza broke up with you to get Vicki in bed.” Cole smiled humorlessly. “I should warn the guy that Vicki prefers anything to a bed.”
“Don’t be crude.”
Hell if he could puzzle out Sal. Vicki and Marisa couldn’t even be compared. One was a zero-calorie diet cola—you could guzzle twenty and they wouldn’t fill you up—and the other a decadent dessert that could kill you.
He was also still wrapping his head around the fact that Sal and Marisa had been engaged. Sal was a sports nut, center-court wannabe. And in high school at least, Marisa couldn’t have cared less about sports—her hookup with the captain of the hockey team aside.
On the other hand, from the few times Cole had run into Sal at some sports-related event or another, he’d struck Cole as an affable, conventional kind of guy. Medium build, average looks—bland and colorless. No surprise if Marisa had thought of him as safe and reliable. Not that the relationship with Sal had worked out the way she’d expected.
“When did the breakup happen?” he asked.
“In January.”
Cole and Vicki had last seen each other in November.
“Worried that Vicki might have cheated on you with a mere sports agent?” Marisa asked archly.
“No.” His involvement with Vicki had been so casual it had barely qualified as a relationship. Still, he couldn’t resist getting another reaction out of Marisa. “Even ex-hockey players rank above sports agents in the pecking order.”
She got a spark in her eyes. “So, according to you, I’ve been on a downward trajectory since high school?”
“Only you can speak to that, sweet pea.”
He felt some satisfaction at provoking her. She’d been working hard to maintain a crumbling wall of polite and professional civility between them.
“Your hubris leaves me breathless.”
He smiled mirthlessly. “That’s the effect that I often have on women, but it’s because of my huge—”
“Stop!”
“—reputation. What did you think I was going to say?”
“You’re impossible.”
“So you give up?” He glanced around them. “Good match. We both got in some nice jabs. I accept your concession.”
“The way you accepted my apology?”
He jerked his head toward the interior of the gym. “Is that what it was?”
She nodded. “Take it or leave it.”
