Arms folded across my chest, I nod. But I can’t hold back the amused smirk spreading on my lips. She’s downright adorable. “You can’t run away this time. We’re stuck together.”
She shoulders her way past me and lowers into the chair at one end of a polished wooden table, holding her head in her hands.
Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps she does hate me, or something happened between the other night and now. Maybe she told her brother and Freddie’s phone call from Fiji was a warning shot.
My smile falters. “Oh, come on, I’m not that bad? Am I?” Trepidation leaks from my voice.
Pippa shakes her head, face still hidden by her hands.
I sit down in the chair opposite her.
She peeks through her fingers.
I toss her a dimpled smile. I only have one dimple—my sister Rhiannon got the other.
She slams her eyes shut.
“If this breaks one of your rules, we could make up our own,” I say.
“It’s not that,” she mumbles.
“If it helps, I have some rules that I have to follow aside from not mooning anyone. Er, it’s a playlist of rules. Namely, no flirting or dating, at least for the next thirty days,” I paraphrase Grey’s list as a reminder that I have to behave myself.
But man, oh man, would I like to break those rules with Pippa.
17
CHASE
Seated together at the table, a long moment passes and a grandfather clock chimes from somewhere in the manor.
As if recalibrating in that quiet moment before shaking her head, Pippa straightens. Her smile ripples, but it isn’t a frown, so that’s progress.
She organizes the papers that had spilled out of her folder and then stacks her hands on top of each other. “Okay, I can do this.”
I rub my palms together, ready to catch anything that’s thrown at me.
“When Cateline mentioned athletes, I didn’t make the connection that the #BruiserButt scandal got you sent here. Why didn’t you mention it the other night?”
“I didn’t know you worked here. Nor am I exactly proud of what I did.”
She clicks her tongue as if she doesn’t believe me. “Does that mean I’m working with areformedprankster?”
“If you’re referring to?—?”
She opens the folder sharply and cutting me off, says, “Forget it. Let’s just move on and start the interview.”
I still owe Pippa an apology about the sponge cake, but I repeatedly get stopped from saying,I’m sorry.
She taps her pen on the top paper. “Chase Collins.”
“That’s me. Chase Collins. I don’t chase the football; the football chases me.” I repeat the fan-favorite saying that they attached to my name.
She scratches something down on the piece of paper.
“Tell me a little more about your career, please.”
“I’m the quarterback and lead offense. I pass the ball or run it. Um, I was recruited out of high school and couldn’t attend the last month of school, prom, or graduation, as you know—” I pause, giving her an opening to comment on what I’d missed.
