She pulls back and looks at me with a small smile. “You just told me it’s never too late to fix things. Take your own advice.”
Can I fix this? Will he let me?
Chapter 43
Sebastian
I hold the door to the recording studio open for Stephanie and she steps inside. I follow and Chooch walks in after me. I tell the woman at the front desk that we’re here for the Elevate Fitness recording and she ushers us back to a tiny, dimly lit room with mixing boards and leather couches. A glass wall looks into a room with microphones and headphones everywhere. I drop down onto a couch and shake my head when the receptionist asks if I’d like anything to drink. Steph orders a peppermint tea and Chooch asks for a bottle of water.
When she’s gone Chooch leans toward me from the couch to my left. “You barely looked at her.”
“Yeah? So?”
“So she’s worth looking at,” Chooch explains. “And that’s not like you.”
“You’re the single one. Go for it,” I mutter and rub a hand over my ever-growing facial hair because it’s itchy as hell. Thank God this isn’t a TV commercial. I look like a homeless guy and Chooch, who grows facial hair in weird patches, looks like a teen caught in his awkward phase. As much as the playoff beard annoys me, I’ll be devastated if I get to shave after our game tomorrow night.
“I thought you said you and Shayne were over?” Chooch questions.
“We are, but it’s only been six days. Give me a break.”
“You’ve never needed one before,” he comments.
I glare at him. His thin lips snap together and he leans back on the couch.
The receptionist walks back in with their drinks and I glance up at her. She’s tall, lithe, with pretty blue eyes, nice brown hair and a warm, friendly smile. And I might as well be looking at a toaster oven. That’s how much I care.
She asks me one more time if I need anything, and when I politely decline again, she informs us that Trey and the recording engineer will be here in five minutes.
I can feel Stephanie’s eyes on me so I turn. She pats my knee and smiles. “So when are you going to talk to her?”
“I’m not. It’s done,” I reply and pick at the cuff of my Henley. “We handled the whole thing wrong from the beginning. And for a while there I thought it might work anyway. But she was looking for a reason to run, and I couldn’t stop her from finding one. I realize now it’s impossible to force someone to give you a chance, so I’m moving on.”
“I’ve seen you moving on and this”—she waves her hand up and down in front of me like a model showing off a prize onThe Price Is Right—“this is not moving on. This is wallowing and suffering and longing. This is what you’ve wanted. Love.”
“Then love sucks,” I bite back.
Chooch chuckles. “Yeah, it does. But when it doesn’t. Man, oh man…”
I want to glare at him, but he’s got such a far-off look in his eye and a whimsical smile on his face that I don’t think he’d notice. Trey and some dude with two sleeve tattoos walks in.
“Hey! Thanks so much for taking the time to do this,” Trey says as he shakes my hand and then Chooch’s. “I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”
“No problem,” Chooch replies with an easy shrug. “It’ll be fun.”
“I know Avery wanted to do it himself, but…well, you know,” my sister says and I give her an incredulous look. Since when does Stephanie Deveau defend Avery Westwood? What? Is she his publicist now?
Trey nods. “Yeah, once he explained his situation it made perfect sense. I’m thrilled to have you guys.”
The guy with the tats introduces himself as Owen, the sound engineer. He asks who wants to go first. Chooch volunteers, so Owen takes him into the other room, the one through the glass, and sets him up.
Trey hands me a script and sits down on the couch Chooch vacated as Stephanie picks up her tea and heads to the door. “I’m going to go get chatty with the receptionist. See if she’s single and if she has any interest in Chooch.”
I can’t help but laugh at that despite my mood. “Look at you, wingman.”
She grins. “Why the hell not? Get him back on the horse. Unlike you, he’s ready for another horse. You still have miles to go on yours, whether you admit it or not.”
She leaves the room and Trey follows her with his eyes before turning back to me. “I feel like she just called my sister a horse.”
