Page 69 of Game Plan
19
BECCA
"You should have thrownhis clothes out the window," Grace declared.
I sighed and slowly turned my wine glass in my fingers. "Yeah, I probably should, but I needed to open the door again, to see his face. He might have calmed down in those couple of minutes."
Standing out in a cold corridor in only your boxers should cool anyone down, right? Anyone but Hawk. If anything, he looked more furious. I'd only opened the door a crack and shoved his clothes through.
"I really am sorry,” I'd said again. "I was only?—"
"Thinking about your career," he said bluntly. "I get it. Mine is everything to me too, I just didn't step on anyone on the way up."
"I never…" I shook my head. "It's not like that."
Tears prickled at my eyes remembering that conversation. He hadn't said another word and stalked off, leaving me to curse silently at how cute his butt looked in those boxers.
"Even if he did, you don't deserve to be treated like that," Grace said. "It's not like you published an article about his micropenis. He does have one, right?" Like any good best friend,she looked hopeful, sure he wasn't good enough for me in a thousand different ways.
I tried to laugh, but it sounded closer to a sob. "No, he doesn't." I didn't really want to talk about Hawk's body parts. That only got me thinking about him. And about last night. Everything was so perfect. Then I had to go and screw it all up.
"I should have told him before I wrote it," I said. "He could have insisted Ed leave it alone."
"Would Ed listen?" Grace asked.
I put my wine aside and drew my feet up to the couch. I wrapped my arms around my knees.
"I don't know," I said. "I'm not even sure he'll listen when I explain how mad Hawk got. He's in it for readers, and advertising space. For every pissed off guy like Hawk, there's two or three more happy to talk. In fact—" I sucked in a breath. "Ed might prefer it if Hawk stopped giving the magazine exclusives and being approachable. He could dig up and sling all the dirt he wants if he doesn't have to play nice."
"Ed is a jerk," Grace declared.
"No argument there," I said. "He's a good editor, but he's stuck in between the past and the need to make money." I understood the last bit. If theNational Dailyclosed, a lot of people would be out of work.
"So you need," Grace leaned forward to pick up my wine and handed it to me, "to have a few drinks and forget all about Conrad Florence."
"Grace, I've been thinking about the man since high school. I don't think forgetting him is in the cards any time soon, no matter how much I want to." Part of me wished I'd never met him, but mostly I just wanted to see him and try to make him understand. Interviewing him regularly for the National Daily might kill me slowly.
"Then meet someone new and move on," Grace made it sound like the shop ran out of chocolate ice cream, but there was plenty of choc-chip waiting for me. Sure, there were other guys out there, but it wasn't that easy.
My heart hurt. It would need time to heal.
Again.
I took a sip of wine. It tasted sour as it went down.
"Did you really delete the story?" Grace asked.
"Not yet," I admitted. "It's a good story. Maybe I'll change his name, or something."
"Star quarterback for a team here in Lowball Bay?" Grace said. "People might guess."
I sighed. "They totally would." Who was I fooling? Changing the names to protect the innocent wouldn't work in this case.
"I could say he plays hockey for the Sea Dragons," I said weakly. "Or I could just forget about it altogether."
I'd give anything to go back in time twenty-four hours and undo everything. Since I couldn't, I'd have to find a way to move forward. If I could, I'd make it up to Hawk, but I didn't think he'd let me. He made it very clear we were done.
What had Vera said? He's as stubborn as a bag of rocks.
