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That got a laugh from Dwight, who seemed to enjoy his wife’s bluntness.
“I assume this handsome hunk didn’t leave you high and dry when he left?” she asked Jenna as she leaned across the table. “I’m sure you deserved every penny.”
“We’re…it’s…that is…” Jenna stammered as she tried to figure out a diplomatic, Minnesota-nice way to say “mind your business.”
Dwight came to her rescue. “That’s private, Chels. Let them be.”
“Does anyone really have a private life these days?” Chelsey waved a carefree hand in the air. “Everyone knows everything. Billy gets it. It goes with the territory of being a star.”
“But I’m not a star,” Jenna pointed out. “I’m just a girl from backwoods Minnesota.”
Chelsey’s sultry gaze swept her up and down, then wandered to Billy. “Your sexy ex certainly is.”
Her teasing smile gave Jenna an uncomfortable flashback. It had always amazed her when people flirted with Billy right in front of her.
Maybe Chelsey was someone who flirted almost automatically, as part of her supermodel persona. It had been so long since Jenna herself had flirted with anyone. Should she take some notes? Lean forward so your target can see down your shirt. Make every comment sound like a sex invite.
Chelsey whispered something to Dwight, and he glanced away, hiding a smirk.
Were they talking about her and Billy? A horrible memory struck Jenna. That time on the back porch when she’d confronted Billy, and he’d hesitated before saying he hadn’t cheated…she’d always known that he was keeping something from her.
But something else had bothered her, too. Whatever his secret was, had the team known? Had any of the players’ wives? Did Chelsey know? Was that why she kept giving Billy those knowing little glances?
Her heart raced with the memory of those old worries. She’d worked hard to get a grip on her anxiety. She’d met with a counselor a few times, and learned certain breathing techniques that helped. What were they again?
She was inhaling a slow breath when Billy squeezed her thigh under the table.
“You okay?” he whispered in her ear. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
His touch grounded her. She snapped back to the current moment, to a charity dinner and an ex-husband she trusted. “I’m fine. Just…thinking weird thoughts.”
“Like what? I always enjoy your weird thoughts.”
She lowered her voice to a hiss. “I can’t talk about it here.”
“So, weird and inappropriate?”
Did taking notes on flirting qualify? “Quite possibly.”
His low laugh felt like velvet across her nerve endings. “Gotcha. We can talk about it later.”
She stole a glance toward Chelsey and saw that she was watching them whisper to each other with a speculative expression. “Don’t look now,” she muttered to Billy. “But is Chelsey watching us? And why?”
“How am I supposed to tell you that if I don’t look?”
“Standard three-step protocol. You wait a few minutes, then stretch, then accidentally let your eyes go that direction.”
He smiled at that reference to their old people-watching-at-parties technique. Then followed the three steps perfectly.
“Who cares if she is?” he said when he was done.
“Ha. I knew it.”
“I think she’s just jealous of how good you look in that dress.”
She snorted at the thought of a supermodel being envious of her. “Oh really. That’s what you think is going on?”
“Sure. It makes you look like Venus rising up out of the ocean.”
