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And for some reason, I let that hurt my feelings.
Jesus, Evie. Get it together, I scolded myself after several minutes of quiet. My first official date of this contract and I’d already let myself get hot and bothered over Drew’s fake flirting, and irrationally upset by his lack of interest in my personal life. Remember the whole part about this being entirely for show? Stop letting him fluster you, I berated myself, taking one long, deep breath before mentally resetting.
Alright.
You got this. On with the show.
And for the rest of lunch, I was fine. Mostly fine. But somewhere toward the end of our meal – about three courses and two rounds of drinks later – I could tell from the way Hillary was peering at me and talking in a hushed but frantic voice on the phone that something was up.
“Hey. Hil.” I caught her hand when she passed by our table. “Talk to me. Everything okay?”
She launched straight into her default cheery mode.
“Of course! Yes, everything’s fine!” she said brightly, but when I gave her the look, her shoulders fell. “Okay, okay, Mike just called and said he was dropping off some stuff for the restaurant – but I totally saved it and now it’s just his colleague coming! So don’t worry, you’re in the clear!” Hillary said breathlessly with a big smile. “Mostly in the clear.” She winced. “Pretty sure in the clear.”
I blinked, my heart stopping at just the thought of an unexpected run-in with Mike. While with Drew no less.
Really, Evie? You agreed to this. You wanted this, I reminded myself, though in my own defense, I had always imagined that Mike would find out about Drew and me from afar – probably in a tabloid, and definitely not in person. There was something a million times more nerve-wracking about debuting our coupledom to Mike in person. It gave me no wiggle room to act convincingly in love with Drew. I mean it was one thing to act passably couple-like in front of Hillary, but Mike? The one person in this world who knew me best?
It was a lot of pressure.
“Suck it up,” Drew said the moment Hillary was gone. I flashed him a look.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re pouting because you’re afraid you can’t convince Mike that you fell for someone else. But you’re already in this, so suck it up and give it everything you’ve got.”
“Are you recycling game day pep talks with me right now?”
“Yes. They work because ninety percent of all challenges are mental. If you believe in yourself, you can accomplish anything you want.”
“That’s something people say when they have multimillion dollar Nike contracts and zero percent body fat. That’s basically as useless to me as ‘believe in love’ is to you.”
“Well, the difference here is that you have no choice but to go with it, because you actually have to see Mike at some point.”
“Of course. Whereas you never plan to fall in love because dying alone sounds so fun?”
Drew stared blankly at me. What little humor was left on his face disappeared, and suddenly I felt like I had crossed some line. I bit the inside of my lip, watching his broad shoulders stretch the seams of his shirt as he leaned slowly forward on the table.
“Listen.” One gravelly word and he sent a chill up my spine. “If you want to talk about love, I can tell you honestly that the one and only thing I love in this world is baseball. I don’t love people. I love this game. I love playing for this team. And right now, my career with them is on the line so if you don’t think you can act like you belong a hundred percent to me, then you need to let me know right fucking now.”
Jesus. I returned his stare, resentful of being spoken to like a child.
“Easy, okay? I can do it.”
“Show me then.”
“Show you what?”
“That you can play this role,” he said. “Convincingly.”
“What do you want me to do? Jump your bones right now? We’re in the middle of a restaurant,” I scoffed.
“Get creative.”
I bristled at his completely humorless tone, but I also knew that between the two us today, I was the one whose performance was slacking. And since I’d already vacated my tiny Long Island apartment and had zero intention of ever going back, I heaved a sigh, tossed back the last of my mimosa and slid out of the booth.
On with the show, I reminded myself, keeping my eyes locked on Drew as I rounded to his side and knelt facing him on the seat.
