Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
“Get rejected again?” Becker supplied.
“Fuck off.” He grabbed his bottle and took another swig. Then, thoughtful, he met Becker’s amused gaze. “What do you consider a big gesture? Like what’s going to win this girl over?”
“Last time I pissed off Mary, I had to remodel our downstairs bathroom.”
“That’s not at all helpful.”
That got him another laugh. “I’m shit at this romance stuff, kid. Ask my wife. She’ll tell you how bad I am at groveling.”
“I’m not trying to grovel. I just want to see her again.” He could hear the frustration in his tone, and Becker didn’t miss it, either.
The other man raised a brow. “This one’s really gotten under your skin, huh?”
“Yeah,” he said glumly. “I don’t like it. Since when do I give a fuck about impressing a woman?” Brody groaned. “Come on. Help me out here. How do I get her to see me again?”
Sam just grinned again. “I don’t know. Be creative.”
Twelve
“We should put on the game,” Darcy suggested. She flopped down on one of the leather couches in the penthouse and flashed an evil grin.
“We certainly shouldn’t,” Hayden chirped in response.
It was Friday night and they’d decided not to go out for dinner but stay in and order room service from the hotel restaurant. Well, at first Hayden suggested they cook dinner themselves, but Darcy had very emphatically said, “I refuse to cook.” So room service it was.
“It’s the playoffs,” Darcy pointed out.
“So?”
“So would it kill you to support the team?” Raising a brow, Darcy snatched the remote control off the coffee table and began flipping channels.
Hayden rolled her eyes. “You don’t even care about the Warriors. You just want to see Brody.”
“Obviously.”
Darcy found a sports network that was airing the game, but she hit Mute so the sound of chattering announcers and screaming fans was no longer blasting out of the speakers.
Although she was trying to force herself not to, Hayden’s gaze kept darting toward the screen. But each time she looked, all she saw was a blur of silver-and-blue blobs speeding across the ice while a blur of black-and-red blobs tried to steal the puck from them.
The game stayed on in the background while they ate their dinner, which was delivered on ornate trays with crisp tablecloths and silver lids.
“I swear, your life is unreal,” Darcy sighed after the Ritz employee left.
“This isn’t my life,” she pointed out. “You’ve seen my place in San Francisco. It’s a normal-person town house.”
“True.”
She gestured around the lavish living room. “This is my father’s life. All of it belongs to him.”
“For now,” Darcy said with a snort. “Sheila will be here redecorating in no time.”
“I hope not. Dad really loves this penthouse.”
“Oh, you didn’t tell me how it went yesterday with the evil stepmother. The deposition.”
“It was as painful as expected.”
Well…aside from the unexpected part, when Sheila ran after her to accuse Presley of having an affair and a drinking problem. Hayden bit her lip, wondering whether to confide in Darcy about that. For some reason, it felt like betraying her father’s confidence, even though he wasn’t even the one to bring any of it up. If it were true.
After a long beat of hesitation, she decided not to mention it. Not now anyway. But Sheila’s accusations continued to gnaw at her brain.
In an attempt to distract herself, she once again glanced at the screen. But that was a mistake, because for the first time in two hours, the camera provided a clear shot of Brody Croft’s gorgeous face. He was grinning from ear to ear, almost feral in his excitement, as he returned to the team bench, where his teammates proceeded to smack his shoulders and helmet.
“Did they score?” Hayden asked, just as a shot of the scoreboard flashed across the screen.
3-2, Warriors.
And there were only ten seconds left, hardly enough time for Los Angeles, their opponent, to tie it up. As the final buzzer sounded, the camera panned over the crowd, showing a mixture of devastated home fans and jubilant Warriors fans. Another pan, and Hayden was looking at one of the private boxes, where her father was on his feet, shaking hands and cheering wildly.
“I should text him.” She reached for her phone and sent a quick message to her dad congratulating him on the win. She wasn’t surprised when he didn’t respond. He was likely already on his way out to celebrate with his entourage.
“Ooh, let’s watch the postgame interviews. Maybe we’ll see your dude without his shirt on.” Darcy’s blue eyes sparkled as she leaned forward to unmute the television.
The camera now showed a sports reporter from the network on her way down the hallway toward the away team’s locker rooms. A few minutes later, the camera cut to that same reporter, who introduced herself as Jess Thompson, navigating through towering hockey players in various stages of undress.