“All right, come back here,” Cooper said with a sigh. “I promise I won’t lure you to the dark side.”
She glanced over to see him tossing his cigarette on the grass. He snuffed it out with his steel toe, black boot and held his hands up in mock submission. Maddie couldn’t help but grin. Truth was, she liked Cooper. He might be a total asshole sometimes, and his wild and dangerous reputation was a constant topic for town gossip, but she suspected his whole bad boy thing was mostly an act.
She drifted over to him, holding out the estimate she’d scribbled on the piece of paper. “I think this is pretty much it,” she said. “Now if our boss can tear himself away from the client, maybe he can add his two cents.”
Cooper smirked. “Look at those tits,” he retorted, gesturing to Ann Hastings in a totally not discreet way. “I wouldn’t want to tear myself away either if I was two feet away from them.”
She bristled. Owen was standing pretty close to Ann, the trophy wife of Paradise’s DA. An unwelcome spark of jealousy lit Maddie’s gut. What was Owen doing, flirting with a married woman? And not just any married woman, but one with a boob job and a reputation for sleeping around on her workaholic husband. Ann had dragged them over here—on Sunday morning—so they could give her an estimate on the deck she wanted built in her backyard, but from the way the woman was giggling and touching Owen’s impressive biceps, Maddie had to wonder if this deck was just a ruse. The woman probably just wanted to get Owen in bed.
Not that Maddie blamed her. She wanted to get him in bed too.
Although sad as it was to admit, Ann Hastings probably had a better chance of scoring a touchdown. Maddie, on the other hand, was deep in the friend zone.
“You know, your tits aren’t bad either.”
Her head shot up. Sure enough, Cooper’s gaze was glued to her chest. “Of course they’re not bad,” she snapped. “My boobs happen to be spectacular.”
“How am I supposed to know? You always wear these ugly, loose T-shirts.” He slanted his head. “But now that I’m taking a closer look, I definitely see the potential.”
“Gee, Coop, thanks. I’m so pleased you find potential in my breasts.”
His eyes were now sweeping up and down her body. To her sheer mortification, he even peeked around her to examine her butt. “There’s potential everywhere,” he concluded, nodding to himself. “Why don’t you ever wear skirts? And heels. I think you’d look super hot in a short skirt and some stilettos. Your legs have—”
“Potential,” she finished for him. An unwitting grin tugged at her mouth. “Are you hitting on me, by the way? I have a whole bunch of rejection speeches prepared, but I don’t want to injure your ego, especially if this is just some weird small talk thing.”
Cooper threw his head back and laughed. Huh. This might actually be the first time she’d ever heard him do that.
“No, I’m not hitting on you,” he replied with the roll of his eyes. “I was trying to help you out.”
She raised a brow. “Help me out how?”
“Well, it’s clear to me that you’re obsessed with the boss, and he’s, well, oblivious.” Cooper shrugged. “So if you really want to get his attention, my advice is—if you got it, flaunt it.”
Flaunt what? Maddie was pretty secure with herself—she was damn awesome and she knew it—but she was also secure with the fact that she had absolutely nothing to flaunt. She was a freaking giant at five nine, taller than most of the women in town and a lot of the men. She had zero curves, save for the big boobs that only sports bras could control. Her hair was the most boring shade of brown and couldn’t seem to decide if it wanted to be curly or straight, so most times she just threw it into a ponytail because any other option required too much effort. Her eyes were brown and as boring as her hair. And she had freckles. What twenty-seven-year-old woman had this many freckles, damn it?
So yeah, although Cooper’s pervy assessment of her body was a tad flattering, she wasn’t an idiot. She had a better chance of becoming this glorious country’s next president than of catching Owen Bishop’s attention.
Call her pessimistic, but some things were just simple facts of life. The Maddie Wilsons of the world didn’t end up with the Owen Bishops. She was a guy’s girl, a buddy, good for a laugh and a Sunday afternoon of watching football. But men didn’t sleep with their buddies. They slept with the girly girls and then told the guys’ girl all about it.
Didn’t mean she couldn’t fantasize about it, though. At least for a few more days. Yeah, that sounded good. A few more days of lusting, and then she’d force herself to snap out of dreamworld and accept that she and Owen were never going to be anything other than friends. Without benefits.