“I swear to you, I will do all of the things.” I hold up my fingers, not sure if I’m doing the scout pledge or the Star Trek greeting. Fortunately, the manager must be as ignorant as I am.
He narrows his eyes and assesses my trustworthiness. “Including the thirty-minute wait time between each fish.”
“Including the thirty-minute wait time?” I repeat incredulously.
“If you don’t, you could kill these fragile beings and cost Mr. Jackson thousands of dollars.”
I smile brightly and as benignly as possible. Why am I not surprised that Nick is buying thousand-dollar fish? “Mr. Jackson is going to be so thrilled. Why don’t you give me a card and I’ll make sure that he sends you a signed photo.”
The manager beams back at me. I sign the papers quickly before he can change his mind.
“Could you have the photo made out to Joe? That’d be perfect.”
I look at his nametag. “I thought the photo was for your son.”
The manager, aka Joe, according to the tag on his shirt, flushes. “We have the same name.”
Sure you do. “No problem,” I reply blandly. I hold out my hand. “Thanks for the help.”
“No problem.” He shakes it a little hard, as if he wants me to report back to Nick that Joe was a man’s man with a firm grip.
After telling me that braking hard could concuss the fish, I pull out of the lot, making sure not to go more than a few miles an hour. I don’t want Joe running me down and ripping the fish out of the back of my trunk.
At the first stop sign, I call Charlie. “You’re a dead woman.”
“I told you that you didn’t have to do it.”
“You conveniently left out this errand was for Nick.”
“I said it was for a client,” she parries.
Harrumph.
“I don’t know why that would bother you,” she continues. “After all, you are immune to his charm, right?”
“Right,” I mutter through clenched teeth. “But, Charlotte, throwing us together could result in us hating each other. Have you thought of that?”
“But you could end up loving each other,” she counters.
“If you’re trying to hook us up, stop. I’m not ever going to date another football player. Did you forget what I told you about my past bad experience?”
“No, I didn’t, but Nick is not that asshole. Nick’s a decent guy. He’s been wandering around Dallas like a lost duck these past two years.”
“Charlie, he won the Super Bowl last year. How is that wandering around like a lost duck?”
“It’s not the same thing. Besides, for all the women that he’s, well, entertained, none of them have lasted. But when I told him I’d found you, he wanted to come down and see you two right away. He fell for you all those years ago. I never told you this before because I knew you would find excuses not to come back up here.”
The thought of Nick loving me sends an inappropriate thrill coursing through my body to settle between my legs. A forgotten muscle pulses in reply. My body thinks Charlie’s plan is awesome. Ruthlessly, I tell my body to shove it. My head’s in charge here.
“Nick and I can be friends, but that’s all, Charlie,” I tell her firmly. “I love you, but don’t push us together—”
“Ohh, you’re breaking up. I can’t hear you. Whoops!”
And, then, she actually hangs up on me. Dammit, Charlie.
My dear friend wants us to be one big happy family. She misses what she had when she was a kid growing up with her first love and Nick. That’s what’s happening here. It’s not because she believes that Nick has feelings for me. What a ridiculous crock of crap. I need to remind myself of that because otherwise, it would be all too easy to fall into her trap. Nick loving me? Ha.
The sky would turn green first.
“Your fish are here,” I announce, as I fling open the door to the condo Nick and Charlie share. The doorman trails behind me, carrying the two styrofoam coolers. “You can put them over by the aquarium,” I tell him.
Nick pulls his ass off the sofa and comes over to hand the doorman a tip. “Thanks, Brett.”
Brett doffs a non-existent cap and backs out of the room. As soon as the latch clicks shut, I round on Nick. “Why all the subterfuge? Did you lie to Charlie, or did Charlie lie to me?”
“Neither of us lied to you.” Nick lifts the coolers off the floor and carries them over to a giant glass enclosure that wasn’t installed in the condo two years ago. “I was going to pick the fish up today, but Coach told me yesterday I needed to come in for some lifting. And the only time he had available conflicted with the time I’d scheduled to pick up the fish. He’s worried about my throwing arm, given all the injuries that happened last year. Charlotte needed to go to San Antonio to meet with a potential client, and she needed someone to help with her existing client.” He points to his chest. “Me.”