“Thanks.”
“Hey, Jade. Let me ask you something: If—and I mean if—I needed you to temporarily pick up some extra hours in the next week or two, could you do it?”
“Yeah, of course. At your service.”
“Great,” she says like it’s anything but.
“Did something happen?”
“Not yet, but if young Mr. Dalton doesn’t start using his brain around here, something will happen to him.”
A bitter taste hits the back of my throat. “What did he do?” If Cecily was on her game, she’d snap at me to mind my own business, but luckily she’s too pissy for propriety.
“You know that British couple that comes in every week? They’re in here tonight and I go to say hello and they start recounting a story to me about Reeve fishing a broken cork out of their wineglass with a freaking spoon! They’re chuckling away, and meanwhile I’m mortified to find out I’ve hired a moron.”
“Hey,” I snap, but Cecily’s not listening.
“Can you imagine if he’d done that in front of a guest who doesn’t have such a sense of humor? We can’t afford to lose bottles of wine, and we can’t afford moronic servers.”
“Hey!” I say again, and this time she looks up at me. “Are you seriously calling one of your employees a moron?”
“Oh, stop it. I don’t have time for a lecture, all right?”
“Reeve’s not stupid,” I spit out, painfully aware of my hypocrisy.
“His actions were.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t make him stupid. And in fact—” Iknow I’m making trouble for myself, but I keep going. “He only fished the cork out like that because I told him to.”
She looks at me. “You? Why the hell?—”
“We couldn’t find the little sieve and I panicked and, well, like you said, that couple has a sense of humor.”
Cecily blinks at me in disbelief.
I nod. “I even handed him the spoon,” I say defiantly.
She snorts and shakes her head. “Well, Jade, you’d have been better off keeping that to yourself, but I’m glad to know. From now on, don’t offer assistance when you have no idea what you’re doing, okay? Christ.”
“I won’t,” I say through gritted teeth. I get the feeling that if I stay any longer, I’ll be the target of a series of muttered-under-her-breath insults, so I grab my check and turn for the door. I try to slow my breathing so Cecily won’t hear how worked up I am. WhyamI so worked up? Cecily’s a bitch to everyone. No sense getting enraged on behalf of someone who could use a little humbling anyway. But that doesn’t stop my mind from racing with all the things I know about Reeve that would prove her wrong.
He’s not stupid, and I knew that even when I said it. His ability to charm everyone, to adapt to any situation and come out of it on top, to smile at a roomful of people and make every person think he’s smiling just for them? His ability to see the invisible scars around my heart and that yes, no matter how much I deny it to myself, Iamafraid of deepening those scars? That’s a type of intelligence I could only wish for. No, Reeve is smart and charming and so far beyond the superficial facade he presents.
I wonder if he’s also forgiving.
SEVENTEEN
reeve
The restaurant is slammedThursday night, and lucky for me, Jade isn’t working. I’ve pretty much written her off, but it hasn’t stopped me from thinking about that kiss we shared. No way she feltnothing. Can one person have their mind slip completely from their control while the other one doesn’t feel jack shit on the opposite end of the kiss? Don’t think so. Not me and Jade, anyway.
I keep remembering the way her body instantly melted into mine, like she couldn’t help herself. Her mouth was so ready for me, her skin electric under my fingers. It took everything I had not to let my hands drop below her neck and feel every inch of her. And honestly? I think she would have let me. She wanted it as badly as I did.
Not that it matters because she’s made it clear she doesn’t want this going any further. I gotta hand it to Jade and that zero-filter tirade she went on: She’s not afraid to be a bitch or say what’s on her mind. I still can’t figure out whether she was being brutally honest or just being brutal, but I’ve been thinking about her accusation that I don’t know how to connectto women. Up until the night we kissed, she was right. And maybe it’s because I don’t even want to let my friends see my bad moods in case they think,To hell with him, but I think I respect Jade a little more after what she said.
And that’s why I’m all good if she never talks to me again. Insane attractionandrespect for the same woman? Not in my playbook; not if I want to get into the NFL with my head on straight.
A wave of dread takes over at that thought. I have to sit out the game this weekend due to my concussion, and that sucks. In fact, there are only two worse things I can think of, and one of them is death. I always loved that in football every game counts for so much, that getting so few games in a season means every second on the field matters. But when you’re on the bench? All that good is flipped upside down.
