We walked along the perimeter of the room, not paying attention to the art, lost in conversation. Our recon work fell by the wayside as the night stretched on. Oren & Co. were old school boring; we didn’t have a thing to worry about.
Zara told me more about her little brother, Tyler and his love of superheroes and music. And asked about my time in the pros. Getting an inside peek into the world of professional sports wasn’t something I thought she’d be interested in, but her questions kept piling up and I was happy to supply her with all the stories I had.
“They made you do what?”
I took her empty glass and mine, setting them down on the tray of a passing waiter.
“Left me and another rookie with a six-figure bill.”
“Those assholes. How could they do that to you? You’re brand new, finally living your dream and they steal all that money from you.”
“It wasn’t stealing.”
“It’s dining and dashing and leaving you with the check. That’s so…fucked up.” She shook her head, her fingers tightening around the stem of her glass. Her outburst warmed me deep inside my chest. Her outrage on my behalf was genuine, and she barely liked me.
“It’s tradition. It was done to them, so they do it to the next group.” It had sucked at the time—hard. The check split between me and two other rookies had been a fifth of my entire salary for the year. Not everyone signed multimillion dollar football contracts, but I wasn’t going to be a statistic cited in Sports Illustrated about washed up athletes becoming destitute.
“No wonder you’re working a regular job now, and no wonder so many of those players are broke after they retire. With irresponsible spending like that, they’re lucky they don’t retire with no money at all.”
We hadn’t gone into the details of my current financial situation and now didn’t strike me as the time.
“People think everyone is set for life, but between medical and financial issues, a lot of guys never fully recover.”
“Then I’m glad you got out early.” She patted her palm against my chest, straightening my lapel.
I wrapped my arm around her back, tracing a figure eight with my thumb against the small of her back.
A hand looped around my other arm.
“Excuse—” Zara whipped around, freezing when she spotted Kathleen.
“Look at the two lovebirds cozied up in this corner.”
Kathleen’s eyes twinkled. “I’m so happy you’re here. What do you think about this for a venue?”
We exchanged lighting fast glances. Zara’s fingers tightened on my arm before she relaxed and slipped back into a relaxed posture, but no longer leaning against me like she had been before Kathleen arrived.
“It’s beautiful.”
“I’ve only run up the steps before and come on school trips. Seeing it like this is a different experience.” And I wasn’t only talking about seeing the artwork when the place was nearly deserted. Being here with Zara made everything new.
“It would make a lovely location for a special event in your future.” Kathleen had never been subtle about her dreams for our not-going-to-happen wedding. At the end of this, I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t ask for an invite and a prime spot, either in the front row or the wedding party itself.
“It certainly would, and we’ll be sure to add it to the list.”
That won us another huge smile. “I wanted to see how you two were doing. I have to go give a speech now. Seems like someone didn’t pay attention.” She rolled her eyes and walked off.
I waited until she’d left the wing. “She didn’t seem happy about that.”
Zara grabbed both my lapels, dragging me to face her. There was a look of crazed excitement in her eyes. “It was in the event debrief. She said she didn’t want speeches.”
“So why’s she agreeing to do it? She’s the boss.”
“It gives her the ammo she needs to choose us. She’s letting them hang themselves.”
Zara held her hand up and I gladly took the high five, wrapping my hand around hers. “Let’s scope this thing out and see if there’s anything we can make better for our next event.” Her switch had flipped into seek and destroy mode now she’d smelled blood in the water. Would the same thing happen once this was finished and we went head to head?
“Are these bales of hay supposed to be their way of ripping off our event?” Zara ducked her head low with her gaze darting around the enclosed space we’d walked past when we came into the museum. Her face scrunched up and her lips were pinched tight.
“There was an attempt.” I laid my hand on her arm.
“A shitty, second rate attempt. Did you see these deconstructed s’mores?” She held up a spoon with crumbled graham cracker flakes, a bit of chocolate barely bigger than a chocolate chip and an unknown white substance balanced on top.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s a marshmallow foam. Who the hell would want to eat a s’more like this?” She shoved the mini mountain of deconstructed s’more sadness into my mouth.
Plucking the spoon out, I didn’t have any other choice but to chew and swallow the ‘food’. “You could’ve warned me first before going here comes the airplane on me. And that’s terrible.”
“I know. I already had one.”
Containing my laughter in the face of her furtive glances and seething voice was the most fun I’d had all night. I covered it with a cough, happy her ire wasn’t directed at me for a change.
“Does this mean you’re ready to go, now you’ve seen they’re no match for us?”
“Just a little bit longer,” she said over her shoulder before setting out on an even longer recon mission.
I grabbed another drink—at least there was an open bar—and observed the room. It was stiff backs and stilted conversation even the free-flowing booze couldn’t help.
A couple walked up to the bar beside me. The man placed their drink order.
“How much longer do we have to stay? Let’s leave now.”
“It wouldn’t look good if we did.”
“Can you set a timer? My feet are killing me in these heels. If we wanted to come out at night I’d have rather done a date night, not some work thing. At least the other event got us out of a day of work.”
“Their food was better.”
“Can we get a cheesesteak on the way home?”
He handed over her drink. “Absolutely.”
These whiners were our competition? If we hadn’t already had confirmation, this was all I needed.
We had this in the bag.
21
Zara
The night air was chilly in the garden area outside of the greenhouse. I ran my hands up and down my arms, trying to ward off the goosebumps.
The weight of a warm, silky fabric dropping around my shoulders nearly made me stumble. Leo stared with determination and focus at the people milling around in the glass structure.
Instead of shrugging the coat off and handing it back, I gripped the sides and pulled them tighter around me. The temperature was dropping, plus, it smelled like him. The clean, fresh smell he always wore—or was that just him?