“He wasn’t in danger of dying,” I tell her, which I think is ninety percent true. “He was dehydrated and had the wind knocked out of him.”
“I wanted to have my own apartment for school, but now I feel like I have to move in with him to make sure he takes care of his old ass,” she mutters.
“Ew,” I say.
“Yeah,” she agrees.
“And he’s pretty dumb too, so you’d have to deal with that.”
She shoots me a frown. “He isnotdumb.”
“Maybe not completely, but he’s also not smart enough to take batting advice from a pro.”
Her frown turns into anO, and then she dips her head and laughs too. “How did he hit that ball?”
“It was a big target pitched just right.” I nod to the clinic door. “If you want to see him again without swimming in that much testosterone, I can kick his teammates out. They have proof of life now.”
She glances at Tripp, then back at me.
This girl watched her uncle get in a bidding war over me just days ago, after watching us argue about him stripping me out of a dress, and now she’s sitting outside what essentially feels likean emergency room after watching him let his ego take priority over his physical needs.
She has to have questions.
She doesn’t ask them though.
Instead, she pulls herself up. “They don’t bother me,” she says. “But thank you. I’m gonna check on him one more time, and then I have some things I need to do.”
I rise too. “If you like baseball, I’m sure this guy here can get you set up with some tickets for you and your friends without having to take a decrepit old man along with you.”
“Absolutely true,” Tripp says. “I have a hookup.”
She shakes her head. “Thanks, but I have to make friends first, and I don’t like to make them with bribes.”
Tripp hands her a card. “If you change your mind once you’ve made some friends, send a note here. The offer doesn’t expire.”
“Thank you.” She looks at me. “And thank you for holding my hand.”
“It’s scary to watch someone you love hurting.”
She nods, then slips into the clinic.
Tripp eyes me.
“I’m fine,” I say before he can utter a word.
“Personally or professionally?”
Neither.
I blow out a cheek-puffing sigh. “Do you know how pissed I was when I found out the musician I hooked up with was actually a professional hockey player?”
It’s the first time I’ve ever confessed my secret hookup with Duncan out loud. I haven’t even told Francie what happened. Not in so many details.
And I feel like I’m taking a massive risk in telling my boss.
He has the audacity to chuckle. “Speaking as a man who hooked up with a woman who became my boss and then married her…yes.”
“That’s different.”
