Settling the Score (The Summer Games #1)(106)

I bent down so I was at her eye level and spoke the next few words as clearly as I could. “Andie, I love you.”

She grinned. “Okay, just checking.”

I laughed. “That’s it?”

I needed to hear her say it just as badly.

“Well, I’m here,” she said, sweeping her hand across the London skyline. “Obviously that counts for something…and I do like your flat…and this view is pretty killer.”

“Andie…”

Her eyes gleamed with mischief as she glanced back up to me. “And okay, fine. Frederick Archibald, though your name is slightly pretentious, I love you.”

Georgie whipped my bedroom door open then, and we both turned to watch her walking out of my bedroom with one hand covering her eyes and the other stuck out straight, trying to keep from tripping over my living room furniture.

“La la la, I’m not here!” she sang. “I wasn’t listening very much, and I only heard the last bit about how you two love each other. It was all very nauseating and I nearly puked up my dinner in Fred’s room.”

“Georgie—”

She cut me off. “I’m leaving! Can’t you see I’m leaving?!”

I watched her move through the living room with her hand over her eyes and just before she made it to the door, she tripped over the bag of rubbish she’d left by the kitchen island with an audible “oomph!”

I pushed down a laugh and moved to help her out, but she waved me away.

“Don’t let me ruin your night. I just set up a few items in your room and now I’m going to see myself out.”

Andie laughed. “What do you mean? A few items?”

She turned back and parted the fingers she was using to cover her eyes. She peeked through them to look at us and shrugged. “Oh, you know, just some stuff to get the romance going. Seeing as how my brother is dreadfully naff, I had to take things into my own hands—though I was fairly limited. The corner shop I went to hardly had anything to…how shall I say…” She waved her hand in the air. “Set the mood.”

I groaned. “I don’t really want to know what you’ve done in there, G.”

“You should be thanking me!” she shouted as she grabbed her purse from the kitchen island and headed for the door. “I drew a bath because you stink—even if Andie is too polite to say so!”

Andie laughed as Georgie slipped out of the door. “BYE! We’ll get breakfast in the morning and then pop into Chloé for that bag you promised!”

Once she was gone and I’d locked the door after her, Andie met me outside my bedroom door.

“Your sister is insane,” she said with a laugh.

I nodded. “But you can’t argue with her results.”

She nodded toward my room. “C’mon, let’s go see what she’s done.”

Andie pushed my door open and I prepared myself for the worst; turned out I hadn’t been far off. As my gaze swept across the space, I hadn’t a clue where to begin. There were cheap chocolates strewn around the room—not with any sort of rhyme or reason, just there, scattered so that you could hardly walk without stepping on one.

On the base of the bed, she’d taken a few dozen lemons and arranged them so they spelled out S-N-O-G.

“Lemons?” Andie asked as she stepped closer, sidestepping the candy minefield on the ground.

That wasn’t even the worst of it. She’d tried to set the mood with a few candles lit on the bedside tables, but apparently the shop she’d gone to was out of standard tea candles. Instead, she’d purchased a dozen of those tall religious candles with Jesus, Mary, and a few other saintly blokes I probably should have known splayed out on the sides. Apparently, according to Georgie, the illuminated figure of a crucified Jesus was supposed to set the mood.

“In all fairness, she did say the shop was lacking a romantic selection,” Andie said, picking up one of the lemons and glancing over to me.

I laughed and stepped closer to wrap my arms around her.

“Is this what life will be like?” she asked.

I smiled. “I’m afraid so. She used to live on the estate with my mum, but now that she’s almost eighteen, she’ll be getting a flat in the city.”

Andie smiled. “That will be really fun.”

She said it as though she’d be a part of the fun, like she’d be staying in London when Georgie moved down the street.

“How long can you stay?”

She glanced down as she dropped the lemon back onto my bed. “Actually I have a meeting tomorrow with Chelsea.”

“The ladies football club?”

She nodded. “They offered me a spot before the games and—”

I crashed my lips against hers and stole the end of her sentence.

When I pulled back, she laughed and shook her head. “Nothing’s been signed, and there’s a real chance they won’t want me after my physical, because of the wrist.”

I shook my head. “They’ll want you.”

She’d just helped the best team in the world secure a gold medal in the Olympics. There wasn’t a better keeper out there.

“If I do make the team,” she continued, “then London might be seeing a lot more of me.”

I inhaled her words, trying not to look as if they were the best thing I’d heard in a decade. I’d already thought over all our options. I’d worked myself up to the idea of flying to L.A. once or twice a month to see her, but this? Her moving to London was something I hadn’t dared imagine.