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Jamil set Olivia down. “And who is this?”
“This is my sister, Lottie.” Olivia introduced her sister to the group.
“Your sister?” Jamil reached out to give the back of Lottie’s hand a kiss. Lottie’s eyebrows shot up toward her hairline, not yet used to Jamil’s antics.
A chorus of hellos echoed around the rest of the group. Lottie gave them all a wave before finding an open spot on the couches. She immediately pulled her phone out and began typing away on yet another work email. She had been practically glued to her phone the entire car ride over.
Jamil and Olivia disappeared to the bar, leaving me standing by myself in the entrance of the VIP section with guys from the team I was not familiar with. At the stadium, I knew my place and felt confident in it. Outside the stadium, I felt like a foreigner. I glanced around the seating area, hoping to find somewhere I could sit and immediately blend into the couch.
“Hey.”
My eyes snapped over to see Tommy sitting on one of the couches with an empty spot right next to him. So much for trying to avoid him for my own sanity.
If I thought he was gorgeous in his practice uniform, he was beyond sexy in a short-sleeve white button-down that had most of the buttons undone, revealing that the tattoos on his arms weren’t the only ones he had, and a pair of black pants that were rolled up at the bottom. His dark hair was tousled in a way that only guys could pull off—perfectly imperfect. I stared at him for a few moments, trying to weigh my options before I decided that the open seat next to him was more appealing than fighting back through the crowd of people to find Olivia and Jamil.
“Hi,” I finally replied as I sat down.
Tommy’s arms were stretched out over the back of the couch, his body turned so he could keep an eye on the rest of the guys in the VIP section. His eyes danced over to them, watching as they talked with each other. There was a glass of whiskey sitting on the table in front of him, but it looked like it hadn’t been touched.
“I thought Jamil said you don’t normally come to these.” Tommy looked over at me to assess the black dress I had had to pull from the back of my closet for tonight. The last time I had worn it was in college, which was probably also the last time I was any fun. Every place his eyes roamed over my body felt like they had been lit on fire. It felt like he was taking his time as he drank me in from head to toe. I wanted to preen from the attention, but then my brain remembered those pictures of Tommy leaving the club. A small part of me screamed to remember his reputation and to stop swooning.
“I don’t.”
“But you’re here,” he noted, his eyes returning to look at his teammates.
“I am.”
Tommy didn’t respond, thankfully, and it gave me the perfect opportunity to study my surroundings. But mostly him. I noted his glass of whiskey and saw that condensation had started on the outside, confirming my suspicions that it hadn’t been drunk yet. My eyes drifted to the rest of the guys around us. Some of them were talking among themselves, but most of them had found a girl that they were in deep conversation with. If someone were to ask me what I thought this very scenario would look like tonight, Tommy Mikals being one of the few guys who wasn’t drunk and wasn’t talking to a girl would not have been on my bingo card.
“You said earlier that this isn’t your scene.”
I froze when I realized Tommy was talking to me again and had probably caught the fact that I was staring at him.
Smooth, I told myself.
“So what is?”
“What’s my scene?” I asked, watching him dip his chin slightly in a nod of confirmation. “A night in with a bottle of wine, a good romantic comedy, maybe a pint of ice cream, and my skin care routine. This”—I waved my hands at the scene around us—“hasn’t been my thing since college.”
“So what got you here tonight?”
Everything about Tommy seemed put together. He paused before every time he spoke, like he actually thought about what he wanted to say. His words were sure, and his gaze was even as he looked at me. It was utterly intimidating because I was anything but put together. My brain never felt like it could expertly navigate through a conversation with a new person. I also avoided making eye contact with people, mostly because I didn’t want them to see the parts of me that weren’t whole anymore. Everything about Tommy scared the hell out of me.
“Olivia.” I motioned toward my best friend who was leaning against the bar, laughing with Jamil as they waited for drinks.
Tommy didn’t follow my hand motion though. He just kept his eyes focused on mine. He was giving me his undivided attention. I could feel those damn butterflies soaring back around inside me. Desperate to take my mind off the way my heart felt like it was squeezing with emotion, I blurted out the first thing that came into my head. “She’s the extrovert, and I’m most definitely the introvert of our friendship. She’s like the yin to my yang or the splish to my splash.”
Right after those words escaped my lips, I wanted to stuff them back in. I wasn’t sure what it was about me making a fool of myself in front of Tommy today, but I was officially two-for-two. I guess if there were any place to die from embarrassment, a club I never wanted to be in wearing a dress I didn’t want to wear would be perfect. Tommy just continued to stare at me for another few painful seconds before a smile broke out across his face.
“You’re funny, you know that?”
The smile stayed on Tommy’s face, which gave him a boyish look that softened his hard edges.
Dammit. Why does he have to be so goddamn attractive?
My mind flashed back to those articles about him leaving clubs with models on his arm. I knew that I would be the last girl that he would pick out in a club like this to leave with him in front of all the paparazzi waiting to get the perfect picture to smack across every news outlet the next day.
“People don’t normally call me funny,” I told him, torn between wanting to stare at him and admire the lines of his face or avoid making eye contact with him because it seemed like he had the same thought about studying me.
