She exhaled, squaring her shoulders. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”
Then she walked off down the hall, heels clicking, leaving me standing there, wondering how someone could be that calm in chaos. And how she could look so good doing it.
4
Holly
I knocked hard enough to be heard over the traffic outside. Two seconds later, the door cracked open to reveal Hunter, mid-bite of what looked like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I hadn’t eaten yet today, on account of waiting around for him to not show up at our session, then having to drive all this way to his place. My stomach protested with a low rumble.
“Holly?” His voice was muffled around the bread. “What are you—?”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” I said, pushing by him without waiting for an invitation.
The apartment was a maze of half-packed boxes, open drawers, and stray pieces of furniture shoved to the edges of the room. A lamp leaned precariously against the couch, and a stack of hockey sticks teetered like pick-up sticks in the corner.
I draped the two garment bags over the back of a couch and took it all in. “Moving?”
“Mason is,” Hunter said, uncertainty in his voice. As though he wasn’t sure this was really happening. He closed the door gently, and took another bite of his sandwich. “He and Cass are finally shackingup.”
I didn’t pretend to know what he was talking about, and didn’t care. “I thought we had an agreement. Why do you keep flaking out on me?”
“I’m not flaking, okay. Today was just… I was busy.”
Busy, my ass. I looked at the half-eaten sandwich in his hands, his sloppy hoodie, bare feet. The jeans were a nice fit, though, but that was neither here nor there.
“Are you done jerking me around? Because it’ll save us a whole lot of time if you just got over it once and for all.” I shrugged out of my blazer, and pulled my hair up into a messy bun.
“What’s happening?” he asked, watching me roll my shirt sleeves up to my elbows. “Why do you look like you’re getting ready for something?”
“Because, Callahan,” I said with a sigh, “you need to be getting ready. And I’m here to help you.”
His eyes flicked to the garment bags, then back to me. “I don’t do suits. Nobody wears a suit to a jersey ceremony.”
“First of all, that’s a lie.” I unzipped the first bag and pulled out my first choice—a sleek navy blue suit. “Second of all, I don’t care what anyone else wears. This is for you.”
He popped the last bite into his mouth, brushed his hands over the front of his hoodie, and came over for a closer look. “How do you even know my size?”
“You’re my job.” I snatched the suit away from his grubby fingers. “I know everything about you. Also, go wash up first.”
He stared at me incredulously, and when I didn’t flinch, skulked into the bathroom. I could hear his grumbling complaints over the running water, and bit back a smile. There was some twisted poetic justice in knowing he hated this as much as I did.
“What’s in the other one?” He sauntered back into the living room, holding up his clean hands as evidence.
“Gray,” I replied, giving him the once-over. “But now that I’m looking at you, I don’t think you have the coloring to pull it off.”
He scoffed, and pulled his hoodie over his head. “Fashion advice from the woman who wears black every day.”
It was a playful dig, but it stung all the same. I brushed it off. There was work to be done.
He turned the jacket around, and side to side. Skeptical. “This isn’t… me.”
“That’s the point,” I said. “You’re not supposed to be ‘you’ today, but a representative of your team. Here, I made these.”
I pulled a stack of index cards from my pocket and handed it to him. He took the cards with profound reluctance.
“More words? This is getting ridiculous.”
“What’s ridiculous is having to chase you down to help you get ready.” My patience was thinning, and he was the cause. “It’s an honor to wear the number one jersey. I’m focused on being part of my team’s success. Say it.”
