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I’d also go wild with lust and have to banish myself, but she was right.
“I’ll talk to him,” I said.
We hung up and I gave myself a pat on the back for making a good first impression. Finally. Which meant it was time to ruin all of those feel-good glows by calling Joe.
There were several things about Joe that made my skin crawl, but the top one was that he consistently reminded me of Gallagher. It was the cool arrogance and cutthroat attitude. I hadn’t noticed it even a year ago, but now it was easy to identify the markers of someone who only viewed you as a commodity. I honestly had no idea how Gavin coped. But maybe that was why he was so protective of his privacy and his autonomy—he didn’t want to belong to anyone. He didn’t want anyone trying to mold him or make him theirs.
Or maybe I just needed to give up on my overanalysis of the football player after our brief moment that hadn’t even been a moment.
“Did you get the DocuSign?”
“Hi Joe,” I said, forcing some warmth into my tone. “I did, but I had a question.”
“What? I have something else to do five minutes ago.”
How did he get through a day without being punched in the face?
“One—the language about me living at the residence is still there. Two—there’s also language about a huge signing bonus that we didn’t even discuss.”
“The signing bonus is to account for you living there. Gavin told me to add it.” Joe sounded steadily more impatient. “He said you were struggling with the commute, and needed an incentive. He thought throwing more money at you would convince you to make your life easier by staying there through the week. Why he cares about your life being easier is beyond me.”
“I’m sure it has more to do with me straggling in a late, hot, sweaty mess of disorganization,” I said. “It’s true that I’ve been struggling but—”
“No,” Joe interrupted. “There wasn’t a complaint about your performance. He specifically said the commute is stressing you out.”
It was, but I hadn’t realized Gavin had noticed. Or cared. He’d just given me disgusted looks before stalking off again.
“I’m not sure what to do,” I finally said. “Can I call you back?”
Joe hung up without another word, and I was left staring at the fancy phone that sat on Gavin’s desk like an ornament.
Part of me was terrified of being locked in a mansion with Gavin Brawley. Not only because of his menacing glares and brooding silences, and the way he could reduce me to a mass of exposed nerves, but because I was starting to become too preoccupied with what made him tick. If I spent hours at night trying to work out why he was the way he was—a beautiful man who seemed, for all intents and purposes, isolated from the outside world because of his temperament—how much would I do it once I was under his roof?
But the other side of me knew this was the best option. Besides the fact that living here would be easier, and I could get more accomplished, the signing bonus was enough to pay my student loans for a couple of months, which would free up my actual pay to help Dad with the rent.
I called Joe back and put it on speaker phone so I could keep my hands free to dig into the arm rests.
“I’ll do it.”
“Good. Send back the DocuSign, and Gavin will cut the check for your bonus today.”
The idea of suddenly coming into that much money left me breathless. To Joe, that sentence was probably something he said every day, but to me . . . it was everything. People who had never needed money could never understand the dual weight of responsibility and freedom that came with getting a break. There had never been a time in my life when I’d received compensation without a sense that I had to prove I’d deserved it. And that sucked.
And that sense was why my sudden fascination with Gavin was a bad. Fucking. Idea.
“One other thing.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “Yeah?”
“I want you to give me updates on how he’s doing.”
“What kind of updates?”
There was a slight pause before Joe went on, suddenly choosing his words with care. It was the most thought he’d put into talking to me probably ever, since he largely seemed to see me as an idiot.
“The primary concern for me and Mel is for Gavin to be successful. His image matters. His temperament matters. Scandals matter. Playing ball well earns a high dollar contract, but star power and endorsements do the same. The more popular a player is, the more devoted his fan base will be, and the more investment his team will have in him.”
