“Every chance I get,” she says. “You think I was born with this body?”
I raise an eyebrow. She is flirting. That’s… unexpected. I try to hide my smile, but she’s noticed. She tilts her head as she looks up at me. “What?”
“Since when are you so friendly?” I ask her. “I thought we had an understanding.”
“We do,” she says. “But I’ve been thinking maybe we should reevaluate our arrangement.”
“Reevaluate. What exactly does that mean?”
“Well, I’ve been kind of cold to you since… you know.” She clears her throat. “I should try a little harder to work with you at the club. I mean, you’ve kept to your word about staying out of my way and the few times you have butted in, it’s been to defend either me or the dancers. I’m not saying we should…” She pauses, glancing around to make sure we’re not overheard. “I’m not saying that what happened should happen again, but maybe we can work on a little camaraderie between us.”
“Hmm.” This is almost a complete hundred and eighty-degree turn. If it were anyone else, I might be a little more suspicious.
Ember is not part of my world, though. And maybe that makes her a little more sincere.
“You’re skeptical,” she guesses.
“You were very clear, Ember.”
“I’m not allowed to change my mind?”
I don’t have a response to that. I suppose she’s right, but…
“Why don’t we go to dinner?” she says. “Some night this week soon when we’re both off. We can talk over the job and what weexpect from one another. Really get our heads on straight about things.”
“You asking me out, Lorenzo?”
Her face flushes and she laughs. “It’s just business. That’s all.”
“Right. Just business. If you say so.”
She gives me a flirty smile and says, “Don’t get any ideas, then. I mean that.”
Before I can respond, I spot Sasha walking back to us, three bottles of Gatorade in her arms. She walks up to me and hands me one, then turns to Ember.
“I wasn’t sure which flavor you’d like,” she says, “so, I got red and orange.”
“I’ll take the orange. Thank you.”
She hands it over with a smile. It suddenly occurs to me that I don’t remember the last time Sasha responded so easily to any woman who has ever come into my life. She’s always the first one to eye them with suspicion. This time, she smiles easily and stands a little too close to Ember. It’s clear to me that she wants to know more about her.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Ember says to me. “See you at work tomorrow night. And nice to meet you, Sasha.”
“Same!” she responds brightly. We watch her walk away for a moment before Sasha turns to me and asks, “You like her, don’t you?”
“She’s just one of my employees,” I tell Sasha as I tear my eyes away from her ass. “That’s all.”
“That doesn’t answer my question, Dad.”
I nudge her back into the court. “Let’s finish this game.”
I blameEmber for making me lose. Her ass in those yoga pants is enough to drive anyone to distraction.
I watch the ball bounce twice on the floor and toss my racquet into the corner. “Good job, kid.”
“Thank you,” she says, bouncing over to me with the energy of a thousand suns. “I’ll take my payment in chocolate, chocolate chip, please.”
“You got it.”
