Selene smiles, and my heart swells. I love seeing my sister happy. Nathan better not fuck this up, though, or I’ll break his face.
The waitress arrives with our dinners, setting down a steaming plate of food in front of each of us.
“Crispy garlic chicken with sautéed basil, five star,” Kylie says, pointing to my dinner. “I ordered for you.”
“Thanks, Ky,” I say. The smell already burns my nose. I love Thai food, and crispy garlic chicken is one of my favorites at this place. Kylie knows me well.
We all dig into our dinners. Selene has some sort of veggie thing that looks decent, but Kylie ordered coconut curry chicken, which is my second favorite thing here. I reach over and grab a bite from her plate. It has just the right mix of heat and flavor.
“The cook is serious with the spice tonight,” I say.
Kylie samples from my plate and makes an approving yummy noise.
“So what’s going on with that guy you were trying to sign?” Selene asks.
“Derek Marshall? Oh, he’ll sign,” I say. I’m an athletic trainer, specializing in college and pro athletes. My soon-to-be client is a receiver for the Seahawks. He’s trying to up his game after he almost got traded last season, which is where I come in. “He knows I’m the best. His manager is being a pain in the ass about it, but he’ll come around.”
“Why does his manager care who trains him in the offseason?” Selene asks.
“Who the fuck knows,” I say. “Maybe he’s getting kickbacks from the current trainer and he knows I don’t play like that.”
Getting a Seahawk as a client, especially one as high-profile as Derek Marshall, will be great for my business. I have a lot of clients in other pro sports—soccer and baseball in particular. But football is my personal favorite, so I’d love to train more players. A football career was once my dream for my future, but a motorcycle accident when I was eighteen put an end to that.
Kylie’s phone goes off and she digs it out of her purse to check. A little smile crosses her face as she reads her message.
“What’s up?” Selene asks.
“You remember that guy I went out with a week or so ago?” she asks.
“The one who was so much fun, and then you didn’t hear from him after your first date?” Selene asks. She sounds as skeptical as I feel. If the guy’s ignoring Kylie, she should fucking ignore him right back.
“Yeah, but he says he didn’t call because he had to go out of town for a family emergency,” Kylie says. She smiles again. “He apologized for not calling and says he wants to see me this weekend.”
I keep my face carefully neutral. I think it’s bullshit, but I don’t say anything. Family emergency, my ass.
“Are you going to?” Selene asks.
“Yeah,” Kylie says, as she types. “We had fun. And he was definitely fuckable. I’ll see where this goes.”
Hearing her say fuckable makes my back clench and I almost drop my fork. I hate this guy already. I don’t know who he is, but I’d like to smash his face in right now.
She puts her phone away, still smiling. “Awesome. Now I’m excited for Friday.”
“Hey, if you guys hit it off, we should triple date,” Selene says. “Maybe in a couple weeks?”
“Triple date?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. “Who the fuck is the triple? Because, hey, single again.”
“Whatever, Brax,” Selene says. “Like you won’t be screwing some girl by then.”
I shrug my shoulders. I guess she’s probably right.
We finish our dinners, Kylie and I taking bites from each other’s plates. I ask if they want to go out for a drink, but they both have to work in the morning, so we part ways outside. Kylie drove, so I watch until I see her get in her car.
Selene gets a call from Nathan and she waves at me absently as she walks away. I’d walk her home, but she only lives a few blocks away, and it annoys her when I try to do stuff like that. She says I’m overprotective, but that’s total bullshit. She’s my sister. There’s no such thing as overprotective when it comes to her.
I’m restless and I don’t feel like going home, so I round the corner and pop into a bar. Kevin, the bartender, knows me, and he tips his head when I walk in.
My gaze immediately lands on the group of women sitting at a table on the far side. I’ll bet a thousand dollars it’s an anti-Valentine’s Day outing. Group of single girls, showing their we don’t need men solidarity by going out drinking on this bullshit holiday.
They might think they don’t need men, but one of them is coming home with me.