Page 38 of Hard to Love

“Well, isn’t he how the two of you connected? I thought he stepped in to rep her and then all of a sudden I see that you’re there, so I assumed—”

“He handed her off to me. That’s right. What exactly did you mean about Carson being right though?” I hold my finger to my open ear and try to find a stretch of somewhat quiet so I can hear what he’s saying.

“Clearly you’ve been working too much and haven’t been paying attention to the life that’s all around you.”

“Gabe, get to the fucking point.” I’m tired and want to know what the hell he’s talking about.

“Did you see that Tori Belcher and Ronnie Feldman are engaged?” he asks out of the blue about the WSL soccer player and MLB pitcher.

“Yeah, I sent them a congratulations message. What does that have to do with me?”

“What about Tommy Tuttle and Simone Grandy?” An NFL pro-bowler and an Olympic gymnast. “They were married last year.”

“Gabe,” I warn.

“Do you know what they all have in common?” My sigh is my only response. “They met after Carson—wink, wink—pushed them together through some project.”

“Uh-huh.” I roll my eyes and give a shake of my head he can’t see.

“I’m serious. He’s getting sentimental in his old age and keeps giving everyone the speech about finding someone to enjoy life with as he’s shoving them together,” he says as I dig in my pocket and put some money in a panhandler’s cup.

Carson knows me better than that. He knows how I am, how I—

“How was it the two of you came to work together again?” Sarcasm drips from his words.

“It doesn’t matter how we came to work together.” I sigh. “It matters that there’s nothing between us.”

“You’re such a fucking liar, Sanderson. You think I’m buying that shit when the evidence is there in full fucking color?” He laughs and I groan.

“Whatever.” I shove a hand in my pocket and decide to walk around to another entrance to the casino to buy time.

“Whatever? I think the evidence is in the fact you haven’t hit that yet.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning once you fuck a chick, you move on. The only woman you didn’t do that to was Chase Kincade, and you played cat and mouse with her for months before you dated her for a while.”

He’s right. I don’t want to admit it so I keep my mouth fucking shut.

I pursued Chase for way too long. I like to think it was the hard-to-get thing that fueled me on when normally I would have dropped interest, but it was more than that.

I liked Chase. I liked her a lot. She wasn’t a fall-at-your-feet type of girl. They’re a dime a dozen these days. Instead, she was combative, independent, determined, feisty, and told me how it was.

Kind of like Stevie is.

I push the thought out of my head just as quickly as it drifts in. Chase is nothing like Stevie. Not in the least.

Besides, when push came to shove and shit got too serious, I cheated on Chase. Cheated on her with a random chick because it was so much easier to have her make the call and dump me.

So much easier than admitting I was freaked the fuck out that I liked her more than I admitted and was waiting for the other shoe to drop. That I was waiting for her to leave me like it had been ingrained in me my whole life.

“Let’s get something straight, here, Stevie isn’t Chase. I’m temporarily in charge of getting Stevie’s career back on track. The last thing I need to do is sleep with her.”

“I think that’s exactly what you need to do.”

“We . . . never mind.” My hesitation says it all and fucking hell.

“Oooooh,” Gabe shouts into the phone. “That means you want to then.”