She grins, and the grin turns into a snicker, which turns into a full-on body-rolling laugh.
I lounge back in my seat. “You knew I’d say no.”
She doesn’t answer.
She’s giggling too hard.
Not that she knowswhyI’m saying no.
Dancing with her while I have the rash from hell?
Nope.
Not a fucking chance.
The bottles of wine on our table are empty. I grab her glass. “You want more?”
“Yes, please.”
She doesn’t tell me we can leave.
She doesn’t tell me I have to dance.
She sits there smiling at me as I walk away, looking more relaxed than I’ve seen her all evening.
If I said I had a personal problem, we’d go. But so long as she’s happy here, we’ll stay.
I chat with a former boy band guy and his wife while I’m getting drinks. Neither of them are athletes, but the guy still has visibility because of a solo career, even if it’s on hold for a few years while he puts his family first, so I give him my pitch for getting more attention for the Pounders.
He says he might come to a match.
I leave it at that.
There’s a time to push and a time to shut up.
With my ass itching more by the minute, I’m nowhere close to my most charming.
By the time I get through the line and turn back to the table, Goldie’s not there.
I scan the room and don’t see her.
Bathroom?
Or—no.
There she is.
By the dance floor.
Rigid as the stick up her brother’s ass, talking to a man who’s crowding her too closely and backing her toward a wall.
I see red.
No, red’s too good of a color. Tootame.
Whatever I see, it’s the hellscape version of blood red. A burnt burgundy that I borrowed from the devil himself.
I don’t know where Goldie’s wine goes.
