His fingers were coated in that delicious Buffalo sauce, and a hungry, primal part of me wanted to lick each one of them clean. And I wasn’t completely sure it was because of how hungry I was. My heart was pumping overtime and it wasn’t from the oil.
He dragged his thumb along my bottom lip.
I gasped and fought to urge to lick his thumb. I rocketed back in my seat.
He cleared his throat. “You had some sauce on your lip.”
I wrenched twenty napkins from the holder and rubbed at my lips.
What in the hell? Get a grip, Zara. A man orders you bar food and you’re ready to ride him into battle. The way he was built, it would last all damn night.
Was I high? Had the food been laced? The bacon chili cheese fries had turned on me. All those endorphins were screwing with my head, crossing the pleasure of food with the company of Leo, which was nothing short of painfully irritating. I shoved the basket away from me.
“Leo Wilder?” A woman squealed and rushed over to the table.
Exactly what we needed. Him to be distracted by an old girlfriend, ha, who am I kidding? One-night stand was much more likely.
Leo looked at her like he’d been caught with his pants down. Oh, how I wished I hadn’t stashed the ring in my purse—I could have made this a truly uncomfortable interaction for him.
He coughed into his napkin and wiped his hands.
“Can I have your autograph?” The woman bounced at the end of the table with a Sharpie held out to him.
Autograph. I looked from her to him.
“Do you have a piece of paper?”
“No, here.” And the woman lifted her miniaturized football jersey to give everyone, including me, a full bra shot. Wow! My hand shot up to shield my face from an unsolicited motor boating. Her cup most definitely runneth over. She was seconds away from climbing onto the table to get close to him. I was invisible to her.
“Sure.” His smile was tight, he shot me a mildly apologetic look.
“And can you take my picture?” The woman shoved her phone into my hand. Apparently I wasn’t completely invisible—I made for a convenient camera woman.
Leo nodded. Taking the pen, he scrawled his name across her—there was no other word for it—heaving bosom, and snapped the cap back on the marker.
None of this made sense, but nothing in my life made any sense since Leo had steamrolled me on the sidewalk. Up was down. Left was right, and Leo was someone who signed autographs.
I held her phone out in front of my face, capturing the two in frame.
The event-planning fan turned to Leo. “I cried for two days straight when I heard you retired. The team isn’t the same without you.”
When I tapped the screen to take a picture, it did a rapid burst, capturing thirty shots at once. I was sure she’d use them as a flip booklet to replay this moment for the rest of her life.
Then her words burst through my near flashing-induced haze. “Team? Retired?” I returned her phone.
“Yes, this is Leo Wilder. Defensive lineman for LA Storm. He won a national championship last season.”
The phone dropped short of her fingers. “You’re a football player!”
Leo winced. “Was. I was a football player. Now I’m—”
“Trying to ruin my life.” I snatched up my bag and stormed out of the bar.
Leo called my name, following me through the crowd that had gathered once the guitar player took the stage.
I didn’t even worry about the bill. I’m sure with his professional football player money it wouldn’t be too much of a burden on him. Up was down. Left was right. And football players were event planners.
Fuck my life!
14
Leo
I threw some bills onto the table. The woman who’d stopped by the table kept stepping in front of me, blocking the retreating Zara.
“Do you recognize me? Marie Hudson. From high school? I was in the drama club when you did the play.” She hopped backward a couple feet every time I tried to pass her.
“Hey, Marie. I didn’t, but thanks for reminding me. You’ve grown into a”—I cleared my throat, trying to get around her— “well-rounded woman, but I’ve got to go.”
Zara was already halfway down the next block by the time I burst outside.
Cupping my hands around my mouth, I called her name again.
Her step faltered for a second. She heard me. She absolutely heard me.
Finally, I caught up and stepped in front of her, mimicking the backward not letting you go moves Marie Hudson had used.
“Where’s the fire?”
Zara’s eyes narrowed and her lips pursed. “The fire is my life and career now that I’ve been stuck with someone with absolutely no planning experience for the biggest job of my life. You’ve been giving me shit for every idea and you don’t even know what the hell you’re doing.” She stepped up, jabbing her finger at me for emphasis on the last part, driving home exactly how incompetent she thought I was.
Only, I wasn’t clueless here. My ideas—most of my ideas were solid. “I’ve thrown my fair share of parties and been to a hell of a lot more than most people.”
“Someone rolling a keg down some deck stairs, a plastic tablecloth, and chicks in bikinis is hardly event planning.”
“How’d you know my favorite way to celebrate?” The words were so dry, she had to smack her lips to regain some moisture.
“My career hangs in the balance with this job.”
“So does mine.” This was so much more than a job to me.
She clenched her fist on the top of her bag. “A job you don’t need.”
Little did she know. “I’m not going to screw it up on purpose or drop the ball.”
“Why are you doing this? What’s in it for you?” She locked her arms over her chest, leaning hard, judging the shit out of me.
It would be easy to tell her to go screw herself. Or that it was none of her damn business. But working together was the only way we’d beat Oren & Co.
“Sam is my uncle by marriage. This business meant everything to my late uncle. I want this place back on its feet and thriving again. I don’t want to lose the legacy Felix built. Neither does Sam. This is just as important to me as it is to you.”
Her head tilted to the side, sizing me up, like she was trying to determine my level of giving a shit about everything we’d worked on for the past two days.
“So this is about family.” Her stance softened a little.
“Yes. It’s about the family I lost and the family I have left.”
Her eyes closed for a second, like she was deciding something. “Okay, then we can do this, but you need to let me take the lead.”
“I wasn’t lying when I talked about throwing parties and going to a shit-ton. I can’t tell you how many kill-me-now corporate snoozefests I’ve been to. Take the lead, but you can’t discount everything I say.”
“Fine. Get the list done and then we can talk about appropriate levels of trust. I’ll see you tomorrow at eleven. I have to go into work first thing, and then I’ll meet you at Stark.”
“See you there.”
She gave me a tight nod and walked past me. “Leo—”