12. Willow

Willow

"Willow, did you finish the preseason interviews?"

My face scrunches up. Almost made it. Schooling my expression, I turn from the elevators and make my way back to Lydia's office.

"Yes, it all went well and footage has been sent to the social media team already." I try to hide my impatience. I just want to go and eat lunch with Lark, not tell Lydia another thing she should already know.

For a while, I just blindly followed her every instruction, but the more time I spend working under her, the more I become aware of just how easily she passes off every task to someone else — namely me — and manages to skate by on the bare minimum of effort, still earning the maximum credit. It's starting to drive me nuts, but if there was ever a rock and a hard place, I'm in it right now. Because, of course, she's the one determining my future when it comes to taking over her job.

"Good. I'll need the transcripts on my desk before you leave today."

Somehow, I manage not to huff with annoyance. "Already done and in your inbox." I give her my most chipper smile. "I'm going on my lunch break now. See you later."

Pivoting on my heeled foot, I quickly walk away before she can say anything else.

Lark is waiting for me at the end of the hallway that houses all of the admin offices. "What are you doing up here?" I ask. "I thought I was coming to your room?"

She rolls her eyes and grimaces. "I had to drop off treatment reports with Mr. Cartwright."

"You know you can call him Mike," I tease. Even after being a member of the training staff for years, Lark still can't call my uncle by his first name. Doesn't matter how hard he tries to be approachable and accessible to staff, she's got upper management on a pedestal.

"Nope. I can't." We get off the elevator on the lower level that houses the gym, batting cages, and rehab area where Lark has her private room that often becomes our lunch spot.

"Oh my." Lark stumbles to a stop just outside the glass doors that open into the gym facilities. "Is that the new guy?"

"Aren't you in a relationship?" I tease, refusing to turn my head and see what I can all too easily picture. After all, I'm intimately acquainted with how Ronan looks with his muscles bulging, a sheen of sweat covering his skin.

Oh shit, now I'm getting turned on. For fucks sake, this is going to be a problem if I get horny every time I see the man. Or in this case, someone else sees him.

"Well, yeah, but I'm not blind. Look at him." Lark gestures behind me, and reluctantly, I turn around. Sure enough, there he is, standing by the weight rack, doing bicep curls that make me remember how easily he picked me up and moved me around in bed.

Gah! Stop it, Willow! Bad girl.

"He's hot. Even you have to admit that."

I shrug my shoulders and take a step down the hall, desperate to get away before he notices us here. But of fucking course, I'm not that lucky. Ronan turns at that very instant, catches us watching, and the fucker winks. Winks!

"Woah. Okay, yeah, we better go before I start having thoughts I shouldn't be having." Lark laughs, shaking her head as she joins me and we continue down to her treatment room where we planned to have lunch. "But really, what was with the wink? That was most definitely directed at you, girlfriend."

I shoot her a glare, silently imploring her to stop talking until we're in private. Thankfully, she seems to get the hint, going quiet until we reach her treatment room and I close the door behind me. I stare at my friend, hoping she realizes the trust I'm about to place in her.

"What I'm about to say doesn't leave this room, got it? Cone of silence."

Lark's eyes grow wide as she sits down and opens up her lunch bag, nodding solemnly. "Got it."

I snatch up the mini package of Skittles that I tossed in with my lunch as a treat, open it up, and pick out the lemon ones, passing them to Lark before I start to pace the small space. "Okay. Remember when I went to Hawaii last fall?" I hear her mumbled agreement and keep going. "Right. So. Guess who sat next to me on the plane."

"No way."

I turn to face her and nod. "Way. And guess who was staying at my hotel."

"Oh my God," Lark whispers, her face lighting up with excitement.

I decide to skim the details of how he charmed me, the time we spent together, and just give her the highlights. "Let's just say I thought I'd never see him again, so I gave in to temptation. I mean, there wasn't even the faintest whisper of a trade for him. I don't know what came over me." Dropping down into a chair, I slump down until my head hits the back of it. "Lark, I fell for a pretty face and then I got dick drunk. We fucked more times in one night than I had in the previous month."

Lark snorts, water shooting out of her nose. Grabbing a towel out of the basket on the counter behind me, I pass it to her, stifling my laugh before tossing a couple more Skittles in my mouth.

"Good Lord, warn a girl before you say something like that," she manages once she's cleaned up. "But also? Damn. Well done. So, are you guys together? Keeping things on the DL? Oh my God, is that why he winked?"

Lifting my hands up to slow down her insanity, my head is already shaking back and forth. "No, no, and I don't know. We're not together, did you miss the part where I said we never thought we'd see each other again? I mean, obviously I knew there was a chance we could run into each other, but I never expected this." My head falls back again. "I can't be with him, Lark, even if we both wanted it. I can't date a player. There's an unspoken rule about it, you know that."

"That rule is just an urban myth, not contractual, and it's a pile of misogynistic bull crap," she scoffs. "So when you say can't, do you really mean that? Or do you mean you won't?"

"Both." I sit up slightly. "Anyway. Enough about me and Ronan. Bottom line, there will never be a me and Ronan. So let's eat lunch and figure out how you're going to get out of Baron's next family event."

Lark grimaces. "Lord help me, that man's family is next-level insane."

"You realize if you ever take things further with him, they'll be your family." From what I know, Lark's boyfriend has the kind of conservative, snobby family you think only exists in movies. But no, the Hazelwood family brings every rich cliché to life.

"Trust me, that's crossed my mind." Lark sighs, looking down at her salad, poking at it with her fork. "I do love him, but enough to spend the rest of my life dealing with those narcissists? I don't know."

We're quiet for a moment. I might not be as close to Lark as I am to Tori, where we literally know everything about each other, but I consider her a good friend. Which is why my heart aches knowing how conflicted she is. And it seems to be getting worse, not better, every time we talk about her boyfriend and his family.

"Has he said anything else about the future?" I ask cautiously. Lark nods, her eyes still downcast.

"Yeah, he keeps mentioning me giving up my apartment and moving in with him. But come on! His house is on the same block as his parents. We'd see them all the time. He already admitted his mom has a key to his house and comes and goes as she pleases. Do you know how terrified I am of her walking in on us when we're together?"

"Damn. That's some blurred boundaries if I ever heard them."

Overbearing parents are a foreign concept to me, having grown up with a single dad who respected my space and independence. Don't get me wrong, Dad and I were close, and not a day goes by that I don't miss him, but Lark's situation is proof enough of how fucked-up parents can be. Unbidden, my mind darts back to Ronan's situation. Didn't he say he lives with his mother?

All the more reason to stay far away.

"Before you say anything, yes, it's half-caff, but I love you too much to let you have another sleepless night because you drank too much coffee." I breeze into my uncle's office and come to an abrupt stop when I realize he's not alone. "Shoot, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were in a meeting."

Ronan's blue eyes twinkle with amusement as I stand there frozen, two coffee cups in hand.

"Nonsense, you're fine, my girl. Although, if anyone needs half-caff, it's you, you little coffee addict. Come on in, Ronan and I were just discussing his housing dilemma."

My uncle kisses my cheek and takes the coffee I hand over to him. "Actually, maybe Willow is the perfect person to help you."

I'm already shaking my head, my eyes widening. "What? Me?"

But Uncle Mike just barges on ahead. "Yes. Maybe you can connect Ronan with one of the real estate agents our guys have worked with in the past. Oh, and give him a rundown on the good neighbourhoods since he isn't familiar with Vancouver."

What the actual fuck is happening right now? "Uncle Mike —" But I'm cut off as he keeps going.

"You were just saying how stressed you are about finding the right place for your daughter." He gestures to me. "Willow grew up here. I'm sure she wouldn't mind going with you to look at a few places." He turns to me expectantly, and all I can manage is a dumbfounded nod.

"Great. Well, you'll have to excuse me. I've got a call with the alumni association in a few minutes. Thanks for the coffee, darling." He kisses my cheek again before sitting back down in his seat, and I know Ronan and I have been dismissed. "Ronan, why don't you go to Willow's office and she can get you that contact information for the real estate agency."

Why the hell do I feel like a puppet being manipulated by someone who has no freaking clue what they're meddling with?

I'll get out of it. I have to. Maybe Ronan just didn't want to turn down my uncle's overbearing suggestions in front of him.

I walk swiftly down to my office, and when Ronan follows me in, I close the door, staring at it for a second to steel myself. But before I can say anything, Ronan speaks.

"Thanks for agreeing to help," he murmurs, and I whirl around, my finger already lifted to point at him.

"This can't happen," I say firmly. But my resolve wavers when he smirks and slowly walks over to me, standing close but not too close. I can smell him, that rich, warm scent that transports me back to sunny days and one sex-filled night.

"You made that clear." His voice drops even further. "But I gotta be honest, you're not an easy woman to resist."

I suck in a breath, my eyes closing as his deep timbre washes over me. "Too bad."

"When did you last have a cherry?"

A breathy laugh bursts out of me. "With you. In Hawaii."

"Good answer," he rumbles. My eyes fly open to find he's staring back at me intently. "Fucking hell, I want to kiss you."

"No." My whisper comes out ragged, but I have to be strong. I might have given in to his charm once, but I can't, won't, do it again. The sharp sound of my desk phone ringing breaks us out of the staring contest we're in.

Ronan stuffs his hands in his pockets and steps back. "Right. Okay. I'm gonna go. Yeah."

Staying away from that man is proving to be impossible.

And now I have to go house hunting with him? Great. Just great.