Hothead by Stella Rhys

13

EVIE

I hadzero – and I mean zero – contact with Drew in the six days that followed the absolute chaos of that night.

In all fairness, this was all pre-planned and exactly according to the itinerary Iain had sent.

Drew had two road series against Boston and Tampa, so he was out of town and wouldn’t be back in New York till his start against Baltimore Monday night. When we first did the schedule, Iain had in fact asked me to attend one or two road games in Boston, or even Tampa if I could swing it, because traveling was just a part of being a “baseball wife.”

But the days conflicted with my consultation meetings and new client tours at the warehouse, so the mini road trip plan was nixed.

Which meant we weren’t supposed to see each other. There were no dates on the schedule, and that was technically fine. We’d gone hard staging photo ops for the first few days of our contract so this, according to Iain, would just be our “breather” before move-in day.

So really, I shouldn’t be over-thinking a thing.

But still.

The fact that Drew didn’t so much as text did kind of bother me.

As a matter of fact, he didn’t even shoot a snarky one-liner in reply to Iain’s latest email in our shared email thread. It was radio silence from him since he closed the car door behind me that night, and as much as I wanted to believe I was easy, breezy and completely unaffected, I definitely was not.

Because I couldn’t stop thinking about everything that went down.

How could anyone expect me to? Drew and I had gone completely off script. Hot as it was, our kiss outside Merryweather had clearly been for show, but the filth we got into the other night was behind closed doors. No one had seen it but us. Every word Drew spoke, every bit of heat in his touch had been entirely for me.

And no one but me.

“Geez, woman. What got into you that night and can I buy some off of you?” Aly asked as I sat with her in the back office of our restaurant. After finishing my meetings on Thursday, I’d gone ahead and hopped on the Hampton Jitney. It was late at night, but this was an emergency.

I’d had an extremely hot night with my extremely fake boyfriend, I was still thinking about it, and I needed to talk it all out before I did something stupid like text him even a “hey what’s up.”

So I went to see Aly.

“Alright, so remind me who started it?” Aly asked, trying to get to the top of all my breathless rambling. “Who kissed who first?”

I blinked. My toes curled in my flats as I remembered Drew telling me to get off his lap before yanking me right back.

“I have no idea who started the kissing, but he definitely started the precursor to the kissing.”

“This is confusing.”

“You’re telling me.”

“But you asked to go home with him, right?” Aly clarified.

“Yes,” I answered, chewing my lip. “And before you ask, I wasn’t drunk.”

“I didn’t assume that,” she laughed. “I know what Drew looks like. He’s like, top one percent good-looking, so I’m pretty sure any woman sitting on his lap would have trouble keeping her clothes on.”

“Did I mention that I was commando? And he was hard? And huge?”

“Several times, yes.”

I buried my face in my hands.

“Sorry, it was just so hot. But then he was such a dick afterwards, my God. Who gets someone all hot and bothered and then just snatches sex away last minute?”

“Drew Maddox,” Aly answered. “To be fair, he did still finish the job for you,” she smirked. “And it’s probably a good thing that you guys didn’t have sex. ‘Cause imagine if this week of silence happened after, you know, actual penetrative action.”

“You say that as if what he did to me in that car wasn’t already the hottest thing that’s ever happened in my life.”

“Trust me, I’m not underestimating how hot it was. I legit read the text you sent me that night and woke Emmett up so I could jump his bones. Which reminds me, he asked me to thank you,” she giggled before holding her hands out and giving a shrug. “All I’m saying is it would’ve been even more complicated if you actually went home with him, had mind-blowing sex and then spent the night before being hit with this no-contact situation. Am I right?”

“You are,” I groaned toward the ceiling. “I’m just… all over the place right now. I’m not supposed to care about Drew not talking to me. In fact, I’m supposed to care about that ex of mine who I legit called Matt in my head this morning.”

“Really?” Aly’s eyes lit up. “Evie. I’m so proud of you. Does this mean you’ll skip going to that whole restaurant opening? Who needs to see him after all the vile shit he said to you?”

I took a second to remember what vile shit Aly was referring to.

Oh. Right.

He could be dating models if he wanted to. Ew. The memory of Mike’s words made me actually stick my tongue out of my mouth.

“I’m still going,” I sighed. “But only for our friend Hillary. She’s texted me a variation of sorry every day since Drew and I ate at her restaurant, and I don’t want her to think I’m mad at her because Mike randomly showed up that day. I should actually tell her that seeing him act like such an immature dickhead has significantly lowered my need to talk to him.”

“I think it’s that combined with all that Drew Maddox dick.”

“That I’m not actually getting, Alyson Stanton, because this isn’t actually real,” I grumbled, dragging my palms down my face. “And yet here I am acting all paranoid and crazy and wondering why he’s not giving me live updates of every thought that’s passing through his brain. Am I legitimately nuts?” I asked Aly seriously.

“Evie, no,” she burst out laughing. “It’s just been awhile since you’ve had butterflies over someone. And no one’s going to blame you for having butterflies over Drew. People have butterflies just looking at him on TV. You’re dealing with him in person.”

“Exactly. So how am I supposed to survive this? I’m moving into his house tomorrow.”

“Umm.” Aly tapped her pen on her lip. “Well, when I was trying to stave off sexual tension while living with Emmett, you told me to call him ‘dude’ as much as possible. Something about how it desexualizes the person.”

“That only works if I’m trying to convince him that I’m not deathly attracted to him, and right now, I’m trying to convince myself,” I protested.

“Then stop doing things that involve touching his penis!” Aly sputtered, laughing. “You can hold hands in public, you can even kiss in public. But slow down the other funny business. Especially behind closed doors. It’s clearly driving you crazy, and as much as I like the idea of you and Drew being together for real, I know from Emmett what he’s like in the woman department, and I… I don’t know.”

“What? What were you going to say?” I frowned.

“I don’t know, Evie.” Aly wrinkled her nose, taking a second to carefully choose her words. “I don’t blame you for how things escalated the other night, but I personally don’t think it’s a good idea to sleep with him this early on. Like you’ve seen yourself, Drew can get… difficult sometimes. Emmett says he can just ‘flip a switch’ and ice people out like they never even mattered. I mean, he was trying to do it to Emmett over the whole trade rumor thing, but you know my man,” she smirked. “He’s persistent.”

“That he is,” I nodded, remembering the particular craziness of their courtship. “So what now? Strictly acting and friendship with him from here on out?”

“Just get to know him for now,” Aly said. “You’re both attracted to each other, obviously, but slow it down. Exercise self-control. You’re going to be stuck living with him for awhile, and he can be unpredictable, so do your best to keep things simple. You don’t want to risk making things awkward at home. Right?”

“Right,” I echoed, finally processing the severity of the situation.

It was all fun and games when I could go home to a hotel and be physically separated from Drew. But as of Monday, that would no longer be the case.

“So it’s settled,” Aly gave a clap of her hands. “You’re going to be fine living with him as long as you stick to your new rule. Which is?” she quizzed me.

“No more touching his body of any kind?”

“No, it’s not that extreme,” she snorted. “Just stop making contact with his penis, for God’s sake. You haven’t known him for that long, so if it’s already a necessity that you touch his dick every time you’re near him, you might actually be in love with him already.”

“Um, excuse you, and never,” I said indignantly.

“Atta girl.” She wheeled her chair over and ruffled my hair. “You got this. I believe in you,” she added, but she said it with such a funny, tight-lipped smile on her face that I knew she didn’t mean it completely.

And honest to God, I couldn’t blame her.