“Mateo Boone.” When I heard nothing, not even a peep from Erin, I cracked open an eye. She sat there frozen, eyes comically wide.
Smacking her lips, she finally spoke. “Mateo? The same Mateo you ran into yesterday?”
“Yep.” The way she seemed at a loss for words made my lips twitch. It wasn’t often that Erin didn’t have a remark of some sort.
“You know what this means, right?”
“No?”
“You’re meant for each other. It’s fate.” She said it so matter-of-factly that I snorted.
“Yeah, right. Not happening.” I sat up before scooting off the couch.
“What do you mean? This is Mateo Boone.” Erin scrambled off the furniture and followed after me to the adjoining kitchen.
“He’s just a guy.”
“A guy who’s hot, has a great career, family that seems amazing, and he goes to animal shelters in his spare time,” Erin all but swooned.
“Did you just read me his dating profile or something?” I scrunched my nose as I opened the fridge and pulled out a yogurt.
“There was an article about him a few months ago, and it was very informative.”
“Then why don’t you go after him?” I asked, ripping off the topping to the yogurt and taking a bite.
“We both know I’m going to be with a hot nerdy guy that games while I write, and who will recreate dirty sex scenes with me,” Erin said with a wide grin.
“Then why are you raving about how hot Mateo is?”
“Just because I’m not buying doesn’t mean I can’t look at the merchandise,” she shot back at me. “But seriously, the fact you’ve run into him twice in two days means something.”
“That the universe is playing a joke on me?”
“When was the last time you even went out on a date? Two years ago?”
That sounded about right. My dating history wasn’t the best but also not the worst. I’ve spent most of my time focusing on the Olympics, so dating was pushed to the back burner. There’s been a few men here and there, mostly hookups since I couldn’t offer more time and energy.
“Well, there was that snowboarder in the Olympic village…” I trailed off.
“That was just sex, that doesn’t count.” Erin leaned her hip against the counter.
“Yeah, well it's not happening with Mateo. I have zero plans on seeing him again.” Tossing my empty container in the trash, I moved to the sink to wash my spoon.
“The funny thing with fate is you don’t get a say in it.”
“Nope, but I can also not want anything to do with it. I really just want to focus on skating and ignore the rest.”
“Okay, fine, I get it. No hot football player.” Erin put her hands up in defeat. “But just know, if you see him again in a few days…”
“Blah, blah, blah.” I clamped my hands over my ears and cut her off. “Don’t even try to send that out into the universe.”
She sent me a cheeky grin. “Too late.”
“Go meddle in someone else’s dating life. Go make one of your book characters fall in love.”
“Can’t. They don’t fall in love for another thirty pages.”
“Sounds like you need to get on that,” I teased as I moved around the kitchen, grabbing my pre-workout.
