“I have a counselor.”
“All right. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Don’t come back,” he calls.
“No promises! Bye!”
Then he’s gone, shutting the door in my face.
Chapter 14
RONAN
“Hello, darling,” Nova says sweetly as she breezes into the staff lounge. Wearing a tight black leather skirt and a low-cut red blouse that hugs her breasts, she sashays to us and takes the seat next to me. She kisses my cheek, and my face tingles as a small silence fills up the room like it usually does after our PDA in the lounge. We’re at the end of week one of our pretense, and it seems to be working. We play it up in the lounge, darling and babe, then go our separate ways in the field house. I’ve made up my mind to keep her at arm’s length, and so far, it’s working.
She unpacks her lunch and pulls out wrapped cookies. “You forgot these when you left after dinner.” Thick lashes flutter at me. “You ate two before they even cooled last night. You’re so adorable.”
I open the chocolate chip cookies and take a bite and nod appreciatively. “Thanks, babe. You’re the sweetest. I loved that, um, casserole you made.”
“What kind of casserole was it?” Skeeter asks.
“Beef,” Nova says as I say, “Sausage,” at the same time.
Melinda frowns. “Which was it?”
Andrew raises an eyebrow, his eyes darting from me to Nova.
Nova nudges me with her shoulder. “Darling, it was a beef thing with black beans and sour cream and, um . . .”
“Pasta,” I say as she says, “Rice.”
Jesus!
Andrew squints. “Pasta and rice?”
Nova nods. “Yep. That’s right. Both. Very tasty. It was one of Mama’s recipes.”
“So good . . . ,” I add, then squeeze her leg under the table. I chance a glance at her, and her lips are pressed tight, as if she’s trying not to laugh.
Thank God I didn’t have dinner with Skeeter last night . . .
Melinda frowns at me. “It sounds gross. How can you mistake beef for pork?”
“Sometimes a man just thinks about food, Melinda. Images run through your head, and you just want meat,” Skeeter answers for me, around his double hamburger. A drip of mayo gets on his chin, and he wipes it away. He nods approvingly at me. “Builds up that protein so you can stay in shape.”
Nova strokes my arm. There’s a sly look on her face that’s unmistakable. “This guy, hmm, he’s already in great shape.”
I lean into her. “Ah, you’ll make me blush, babe.”
Sonia hoots. “Keep it clean, you bloody deviants; you’re making me horny.”
Skeeter puts a fry in and chews. “Y’all are enough to make a man want a girlfriend. Dinner and cookies. I can get behind that.”
Sonia drops her piece of tofu as her eyes drift over Skeeter. “Oh?”
He nods at his burger, oblivious to her wide-eyed stare. “As long as she likes football and knows how to cook, we’d get along.” He glances up. “You like football, Sonia?”
“Um, yeah. Since high school,” she says, her face reddening. “I cook.”
Skeeter nods, then gets pulled into a conversation with one of the other assistant coaches.
She slowly deflates.
“Ronan, has Nova ever told you about some of the crazy things we did?” Andrew says.
Nova stiffens, and out of instinct, I take her hand in mine under the table. It’s not the first time this week either.
“I’ve heard some stories,” I say, my voice lowering, daring him to say anything that hurts her.
He chews on his sandwich, then swallows. “Let’s see. There’s the night the entire senior class ran around in our underwear on the football field. Nova’s idea. Then one day we skipped school and went to UT. Nova wanted us to pretend to be students and crash frat parties. We drank too much to drive and had to get a hotel room.” A knowing laugh comes from him. “She got in trouble with her mama. For a month, she had to crawl out her bedroom window to meet me—”
“That’s enough, Andrew,” I say sharply.
He shrugs. “It’s no secret we dated for a very long time—”
“Yet it feels like a million years ago,” Nova says with a sugary smile, then looks at me. “You ready for the field house, darling?”
I glare at Andrew, who’s got a smirk on his face—what a dick. Then we stalk out of the lounge, our fingers laced together.