Page 26 of The Devil In Denim
“Oh Lord,” Maggie said. “You’re all front, Shields. You’d give it all up in a heartbeat if you met the right woman.”
“I couldn’t get her to marry me either,” Ollie said, his expression serious for a second.
Alex felt his fingers tighten around his beer bottle, then made them relax.
Maggie stuck out her tongue. “I wasn’t the right one for you. We would’ve strangled each other before our first anniversary. For starters, you don’t like anchovies. And you don’t appreciate zombie movies.”
“That’s because zombies blow. You can kill ’em with one good slug of a bat. Give me a good old alien invasion any day. More explosions.”
“If a zombie came after you, you’d drop your bat and run away,” Hana said, grinning at Ollie. “You’re just chicken about all the brains.”
“I like zombies,” Alex said.
“You do?” Maggie asked.
“Yep. Evil Dead is a classic.” He tipped his beer at Ollie.
Ollie scowled. “You probably like ballet too,”
“Actually, I do,” Alex said with a smile calculated to annoy. “I have a subscription to the ABT and the New York City Ballet.” He had them for corporate entertaining purposes but Ollie didn’t need to know that.
“I wouldn’t spread that around the locker room,” Ollie said.
“I’m sure I’ll survive if word gets out.”
“Yeah, Ollie. Some guys have taste,” Maggie said. Alex pricked up his ears. Did Maggie like ballet?
Ollie lowered his brows. “Yeah, but can they do Springsteen at karaoke? Or do that other thing you used to like?”
What other thing? Alex’s imagination supplied several rapid suggestions involving Maggie and a distinct lack of clothes and he nearly choked on his beer.
No. He reined in the caveman again.
Maggie shook her head at Ollie. “The karaoke’s a point in your favor. But that other thing? You’d be surprised.”
Ollie clutched his heart. “Wounded. Crushed. Destroyed.”
“Yeah, you wouldn’t have been annoying at all,” Maggie said. “Anyway, weren’t we talking about Shelly and Hector’s wedding?”
“Yes, we were,” Hana said.
“It sounds great to me,” Alex said. “I love Hawaii. And pink roses.”
Shelly beamed at him and he smiled back. It was a start.
“That went well,” Alex said as he gathered up the empty beer bottles. He carried them over to where Maggie was shoving the equally empty pizza boxes into her recycling bin, thanking whatever deity wanted to listen for the fact that dinner was over and no one had come to blows.
Maggie looked up at him. He seemed perfectly relaxed, his tie loosened and his shirtsleeves rolled up, revealing tanned wrists. Where had he gotten a tan at this time of year? He’d probably spent Christmas in Belize or somewhere exotic. It made her uncomfortably aware that she was pale and out of shape after the craziness of final exams, the usual round of end-of-season festivities, and too many European pastries before she’d gotten home for Christmas and New Year’s. She kept telling herself she’d get back to the gym any day now.
She’d been telling herself that for days now. But as she looked at Alex, the thought of her kickboxing class, or hell, even hitting the crap out of some balls at a batting cage, was appealing.
“It was okay,” she said. She held the bin open and he put the bottles on top of the boxes.
“They didn’t scalp me or try to tar and feather me,” he said. “I’m taking that as a good sign.”
It was a good sign. She’d felt Hana and Shelly thawing a little in Alex’s direction—Shelly more than Hana—as he asked them about their holiday plans and the wedding and skillfully steered the conversation away from baseball when they tried to pry about what might be happening to the team. Ollie had been less enthusiastic, but Maggie gathered that was partly worry about his job and partly his perpetual habit of disapproving of any single man who came within a hundred feet of her on a regular basis.
It was sweet sometimes but mostly it was kind of annoying. Ollie knew as well as she did that they weren’t getting back together, but that apparently didn’t mean that he was ever going to think that anyone else was good enough for her. Between him and her dad, it was surprising that she managed to date anyone, let alone sleep with them.
