“I know, it’s gonna be tough. Just don’t make him look too good, you hear?”
Drake laughed. “Whatever it takes to get the W, you know that, Lance. We’re Patriots.”
“Yeah. I know how it goes.”
“How are you doing, Lance?” Lily piped up, coming closer and laying her hands on my arm. “Are you in lots of pain?”
“Pain? Nah, I’m good. Me strong like bull.” I puffed up.
Lily frowned and looked at Drake and I. “So that’s where he gets it.”
We both laughed.
Drake got quieter. “Listen, we heard you yelling at Charlotte just now.”
“Oh.” Ouch. Embarrassed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, man, these walls aren’t that thick.”
I looked down, ashamed of myself. “Yeah, that wasn’t my finest moment.”
“I’m sure she’ll be OK, but you gotta go a little easier on her, alright? This is her first real job and the one guy she’s in charge of keeping healthy just took a big injury. Think about it from her perspective.”
Drake had a really good point. “You’re right, I didn’t think about that.”
“She’s been worried sick about you these last few hours, Lance,” Lily added. “Hasn’t left this area once.”
“I’ll apologize and try to be better about that.”
“Good, I hope you two patch things up. She’s a real keeper, you know?”
“What?” Both Drake and I stared at Lily.
“I’m just saying,” Lily said, smiling to herself, “watch out or Charlotte Calloway’s gonna steal Lance Parker’s locked-away heart.”
Drake and I groaned at the same time. “Please, Lily, please promise me you won’t try to play matchmaker around here,” Drake said, through clenched teeth. “This isn’t a fucking romance novel.”
Lily looked at Drake. “Oh yeah? And tell me what happened to us during the preseason wouldn’t make a great romance novel? I bet if someone wrote down our story it might make the Amazon Top 100!” Lily dug into her bag and pulled out her kindle, waving it at us. “It would be a bestseller! I’ve even thought of the perfect title. I’d call it ‘Tackled.’”
“Please, please, not this again.” Drake was smiling ear to ear, though, and I knew that he would tell the story of he and Lily falling in love to anyone who would listen. With optional sound effects.
Lily punched him in the arm. “You love it.”
“I do, I totally do.” And then he kissed her, long and hard.
“You know,” I added, “I’m still in the room. In fact, let me confirm, but this is actually my room.” I held my finger to my ear simulating an earpiece feeding me information. “Wait, no, yes, I’m getting reports that this is, in fact, my room. Take it elsewhere, kids.”
They both laughed and turned toward the door. “Remember what I said, Lance.”
“About romance novels?”
“No, silly, about Charlotte. She’ll steal your heart if you let her.”
“Come on, Lily, let the man rest,” Drake butted in. “Don’t fill his head with that stuff. Don’t forget, during the football season, Lance Parker doesn’t have a heart to steal.”
They waved goodbye and were gone.
I turned back over to face the window.
‘Didn’t have a heart to steal.’
Was Drake right? Did I not have a heart for Charlotte to steal?
CHAPTER 08 - CHARLOTTE
I was steaming mad. I paced around in the waiting room outside Lance’s room and wondered which celestial beings I had angered to end up in this kind of situation - working for a ridiculously sexy man that I had not only slept with but couldn’t stand being around.
What made it worse was that he needed my help. It was infuriating and I couldn’t see any way around it. Every time I looked at him, I couldn’t decide whether to yell at him or jump into his arms, and it was beginning to tear at me from the inside.
For the hundredth time that week I wondered if I wouldn’t be better off just quitting my job and going back to Wichita. Sure, the work wasn’t so great, and there wasn’t a realistic path for any advancement, but at least back home I didn’t have Lance Parker staring at me with those ridiculously hot and sexy dark brown eyes of his.
Every time he looked at me like that I could feel my body respond to him, feel myself get more and more turned on. The amount of control that man had over me, with just a sidelong glance, drove me up the wall, and it made each day at work with him a sweet sweet torture the likes of which I had never experienced before.
More importantly, I didn’t know how long I could stand it. But, at the same time, I didn’t want to leave. I wanted Lance to keep looking at me like that. I wanted him to pull me aside when no one was looking, wrap those giant arms around me, and whisper romantic things to me in between rushed kisses. I wanted him to sweep me away.
But I also wanted him to stop, you know, being all Lance Parker and all. So we couldn’t always get what we wanted out of life, even in the short term.