Beck: Negative, Frosted Tips. But if you want it, I’ll give it to you. I don’t need that memory anymore.
Davis: Old man, work out your problems. Don’t run from them. If you have to ask the four of us what to do, you’re avoiding what you know you need to do.
Levi: I liked you better before you got smart.
Cash: Don’t poke The Man Bun, Frosted Tips. He might give you advice next.
Beck: Team Man Bun. Talk to her. Also, if you want to sleep with her, use protection. There’s nothing worse than accidentally knocking up your boss.
Cash: Got something you need to tell us, Mr. Underwear? Or rather, tell Sarah?
Beck: Sarah was telling me about a romance novel Knox was telling her about tonight. Dude’s got it going on—runs a blog called Mr. Romance Recommends. All about romance novels. Talk about having the cheat sheet for a love life. You single dudes could get a lot of tips from him.
Levi: I fucking hate missing cookouts.
Tripp: Gotta go. Doorbell’s ringing.
Cash: You ordered pizza? After all those ribs?
Davis: Yeah, doofus. He ordered pizza. At midnight. After asking us New York, LA, or Copenhagen.
Cash: I was kidding. PIZZA is code for STRIPPERS.
Beck: Dude, don’t New York strippers. But you could maybe Chicago Lila.
Davis: I don’t think I want to know what Chicago is.
Levi: He can’t Chicago her. Kinda hard to ghost his boss. Also, I DIDN’T FUCKING GHOST HER.
Beck: That’s not what her tell-all said. Also, I’m sorry. I’ll drop it. I know it hurts your feelings when I bring up Chicago.
Davis: Did Sarah steal your phone to type that, or did you apologize because she had your balls in a vise?
Cash: Where’d Tripp go? Ah, hell. He’s letting the boss in, isn’t he? For the record, I support anything that brings luck, joy, and winning to the Fireballs.
Davis: Same. Also, I’m refraining from commenting about how much the old man needs to get laid.
Beck: I support getting laid. For all of us. But not together.
Levi: Ryder, back away from the phone and just go make out with your girlfriend. Who you need to propose to already. Tripp, have fun, bro. And use protection. Much as I’d love more nieces and nephews, I prefer they be on purpose.
Cash: Think you’re too late, Frosted Tips. Big brother’s gone.
16
Lila
It’s probably stupid to sit outside Tripp Wilson’s house at midnight when I know he’s in there alone, without his kids, and when I’d be better served going into the office or heading back to my hotel and escaping into a sci-fi romance.
And not Knox’s granny’s romance.
Which she doesn’t need my publishing company for, for the record. She’s finding quite the rabid horde of fans in her unique niche as it is. She’s even started selling multi-dicked plush blue aliens in an online store.
I can neither confirm nor deny that I may have helped her find startup funding to invest in having the aliens made.
My phone rings, and I jump.
Possibly I’m staring too hard at the façade of Tripp’s Tudor-style mansion. It’s interesting that the houses on this block—if you can call it a block—are all so far apart, yet the houses themselves are relatively close to the street. They’re not right up on the street, but I don’t have to walk a mile to get there either.
It’s also interesting that I’m sitting here pretending I’m contemplating if a Tudor-style house fits Tripp when I should be back at my hotel. I fumble with my phone and swipe to answer after a quick glance to confirm I haven’t been made by the man inside the house.
“What are you doing sitting outside Tripp Wilson’s house at midnight?” Uncle Guido asks.
“Are you tracking me?” I pause. “Wait. Are you tracking him?”
“No one tortures my honorary niece with duck pictures and gets away with it.”
“Uncle Guido, he’s a single dad without any skeletons in his closet. Let it go.”
“His friends are dangerous.”
“What friends?”
“That one with the long hair, for starters. He’s been poking in bad places.”
I freeze.
“Go home, Lila. I know a guy. He’ll poke back.”
The line goes silent, and dammit.
Do not poke back, I text to the number Uncle Guido called from.
A minute later, I get a notification that the message is undeliverable.
Great.
So now I have to warn Tripp to call off his dogs without saying why, and he won’t believe me, and while I’m normally quite happy for Uncle Guido to run interference on the uncomfortable stuff, this feels wrong.
And not just because Davis Remington—the one with the man bun—saved me a sample of banana pudding when I mentioned I’d never had it. I know when I’m being kissed up to—it happens after enough years of being high up in a billionaire’s organization, along with living a lifetime of seeing conspiracy theories in everything—and I’m positive Davis wasn’t kissing up.
But now I need to let Tripp know to watch his back. Regardless of my feelings for the man, complicated as they are, his kids need him. Bad enough they’ve lost their mother.
I’m ringing his doorbell before I have time to second-guess myself. And then I’m questioning why the hell I can just walk up to his door at midnight without being mauled by attack dogs or surrounded by armed guards or poisoned with auto-firing darts.
Actually—
I’m squinting in the darkness, looking for secret dart-shooters in the trim and siding when the door opens, and there’s the man himself.
Tripp Wilson.
He’s a tall glass of cabernet sauvignon in dark jeans smudged with white powder and a plain white T-shirt, his hair damp like he showered out Emma’s boogers, his defined but not over-muscled arms casually hanging by his sides, his blue eyes tired but still alert.
“Why don’t you have security?” I blurt.
His eyes drift down my body like he’s taking stock of my Fireballs T-shirt—or maybe my breasts, which tingle under the attention while I actively ignore them—and then they make a lazy return to my face. He holds the door open wider, silently inviting me inside without answering my question, and after a moment’s hesitation where I wonder if we’ll end up making out in another bathroom if I step over the threshold, I leap.
And once I’m inside, I find it’s not enough to stop in the doorway, because what is that? “Oh, wow, it smells good in here.”
“Thank you. Why don’t you have security?”
I freeze. Again. Except unlike freezing in the car, where it was actually a little chilly and didn’t smell like butter, sugar, and melted chocolate, this time, I freeze so hard I think I wrenched something in my neck.
I spin, and oh my god, he was watching my ass clench.
He snaps his gaze up to the simple chandelier in the foyer, and I swear I can hear him silently chiding himself.