Fix Her Up (Hot & Hammered #1)(23)

“Let’s not lose momentum.” Bethany appeared to flip through a calendar in her head. “How about Friday night? Seven o’clock at my place. I’ll have tequila on hand and we’ll come up with a name, you know, just to make it official. But most importantly, we’ll figure out a way to reach our goals. Together alone.”

“Together alone,” Georgie and Rosie echoed in a whisper.

They let go of their linked hands, stacking them like pancakes in the center of the triangle.

“I could save this until Friday night, but I’m very clever and I’ve already thought of a name,” Georgie said, beaming at the other two women. “Just Us League on three. And let’s hope DC Comics doesn’t come after us for copyright infringement.”

Rosie and Bethany laughed and they threw up their hands. “Just Us League.”

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Kristin squealed, rushing into the room. Georgie and Bethany’s sister-in-law floated like an early Disney princess, humming to herself and catching the light with her diamond earrings. She was a ball of sunlight and southern gentility. Until you pissed her off or she didn’t get her way. Hence Georgie attending her Zumba class even though she’d like to be sitting in front of the television with a nice cheese plate. If Georgie skipped the class, Stephen would suffer the consequences, and it was only a matter of time before the fallout trickled down. Once, Georgie declined a fresh-baked muffin from Kristin because it contained lemon zest. Which was gross.

Kristin put those little yellow rinds in everything for six months.

“Your brother is very handsy after a few beers,” said Kristin. “I didn’t make it through the kitchen before—”

Georgie groaned. “We don’t need to know.”

“Very well,” Kristin said primly, hooking her iPod up to an adapter. She swiped across the screen and a Latin beat pumped into the room. “Who’s ready to Zumba?”

The three of them rose to their feet like cranky zombies, but managed to get through the hour without taking a flying leap through the plateglass window onto the street to escape. Georgie couldn’t help but feel . . . energized after class ended, though, and it had nothing to do with suggestive hip movements. Starting tomorrow, things were going to change.

First order of business? Fix her own damn fireplace.

And maybe get a new haircut in the name of symbolism.





Chapter Seven


Travis stared into his empty refrigerator and listened to his stomach growl.

He’d eat a muddy fucking boot about now, but none of the takeout menus in his drawer appealed to him. It pained him to admit it, but what he wanted was more of Georgie’s leftovers. The chipotle meatloaf had ended up being his favorite, because Georgie had hidden peas underneath the mashed potatoes, so the little green balls ended up in every bite even though he couldn’t see them. Like a sneaky way of making him eat vegetables.

Travis closed the refrigerator with a frown and leaned back against it. It had been two days since he’d missed their appointment and she hadn’t shown up again. He’d half expected her to barge into the apartment by now and launch more lo mein at his head. Actually, with every day that passed, he kind of wanted her to arrive in a snit and bean him with noodles. It was worse wondering if he’d hurt her feelings. And Jesus, this was why he’d wanted her to leave him alone in the first place. Now he was staring at the blank wall in his goddamn kitchen, concerning himself with someone he shouldn’t have been associating with in the first place.

An image of her opening the door with a messy apron, trying not to get emotional because no one had shown up for brunch, bombarded Travis’s brain. He fell into that category now, didn’t he?

His stomach gave an uncomfortable twist. The kitchen seemed really small and dark all of a sudden. “Shit,” he muttered, shoving a hand through his hair.

The kicker of it all? He kind of wanted to tell Georgie about the possible commentator job. More than he wanted to tell Stephen or Dominic. What the fuck was up with that?

She would tell him the truth with none of the bullshit. That’s what was up. He would get her honest reaction or nothing at all. Right now when nothing in his life made sense, that truthfulness was valuable. He’d had team managers smile to his face while preparing to blindside him with a trade. Had teammates clap him on the shoulder and tell him another opportunity would come, when they both knew damn well it wouldn’t. To know with 100 percent certainty that Georgie would shoot straight with him . . . it made him itch to have her in front of him. Just for a little while.

If he had her phone number, he would have given her a call to reschedule the appointment. But he didn’t have it. And he was not about to ask Stephen to slide him those little-sister digits. There was no doubt in Travis’s mind that Stephen would get the wrong idea. Travis didn’t have any interest in Georgie beyond redoing the fireplace no one else seemed to have time for . . . and maybe confiding in her about things he didn’t plan on telling another soul. Not a big deal.

“Christ. You need your head examined.” He turned and threw open an overhead cabinet, looking for anything that resembled food. He wasn’t totally useless in the kitchen. As a kid, he’d spent a lot of days and nights fending for himself. When his father was too depressed and drunk to cook, Travis scrambled his own eggs and made his own school lunches. Fried his own burgers. His meal choices had been made on the fly until he’d read an article in Sports Illustrated that outlined the daily protein intake of Sammy Sosa. Steaks, vegetables, fish, brown rice. All things he’d been missing.