Right Man, Right Time (The Vancouver Agitators, #3)(11)

And just like that, a light bulb switches on in my head.

The welcome dinner, where everyone in the organization comes together before the season starts, and we toast to a healthy, successful year with ice skating, hot cocoa, and all that bullshit.

Which means Sarah will be there.

And the last thing I want is for Sarah to think I’m alone and unattached, possibly still pining for her.

No fucking way.

There’s only one solution I can think of, and I’m rolling with it.

“I need you to pretend to be my girlfriend.”

“What?” she asks with a laugh. “You can’t be serious.”

I swallow down the rest of my drink and say, “I’m dead serious.”

“Pretend to be your girlfriend?” She blinks a few times. “Dude, I kissed you for like five seconds, and you want me to pretend to be your girlfriend? You’re supposedly famous,” she says, using air quotes. “Hire someone.”

“I’m not going to hire someone. Do you know how lame that is?”

“Lamer than asking a girl in a bar ten years younger than you to be your pretend girlfriend?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose because, dammit, she has a point. This is all lame.

“You know what? Never mind. Forget I even asked.” I turn back toward the bar and try to flag down the bartender to order another drink. Anything to help forget this awkward conversation and the fact I’ll have to deal with Sarah at the arena. We don’t always interact with the front house staff, but from the description of Sarah’s job, it seems like she’ll be out on the ice for certain games with sponsors, so I’m bound to run into her.

“Why do you need me to pretend to be your girlfriend?” Ollie asks.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “Go see how your friend is progressing with the penis sitting.”

I feel her hesitate like she doesn’t quite know what to do, so I encourage her.

“Seriously, go.”

“Okay,” she says softly while stepping down from the barstool. But she doesn’t walk away right away. Instead, I feel her eyes on mine. It’s like she has more questions that she wants to ask but is trying to pluck up the courage to ask them.

“Ollie, I’m serious. Leave.”

“I can see that you’re serious,” she says. “But I feel like I should stay.”

“Why?”

I finally get the bartender’s attention and ask for another Scotch. He gives me a concerned look but fills me up without a word.

“It seems like you’re maybe in a bad mood.”

I lift my glass to my lips. “What gave you that impression?”

“Hmm, I wonder,” she says sarcastically, staring at my drink. “So what is it? What’s causing you to drink this much and ask strange women to be your pretend girlfriend?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Is it a girl?”

I grumble under my breath. “Ollie, please, for the love of God, just go.”

Because she’s a defiant ass, she takes a seat on her barstool again and pokes me in the side. “Tell me. It’s a girl. What did she do to you?”

“Do you really think I’m going to tell a complete stranger that?”

“Well, you did ask me to be your pretend girlfriend, so I assume, yeah, you would.”

For how annoyingly young she is, she’s quite clever and quick on her feet. Absolutely terrifying.

“Just an ex who has re-entered my life,” I say, keeping it simple. She doesn’t need to know the details.

“Were you in love with this ex?”

“Yes,” I answer. “She was my high school sweetheart.”

“Oh,” Ollie says softly, empathy evident in her voice. “I’m assuming she’s the one who broke your heart?” I nod. “Yeah, that’s pretty obvious. Okay, how did she re-enter your life?”

“Got a job with the Agitators.”

“As in your hockey team?”

I nod again. “Yup.” I wonder if the bartender will pour me another drink after this one.

“Knowing full well that you are on the team?”

“Yup.”

“Wow,” she says, and I catch her shaking her head. “What a wench. That’s all kinds of messed up.”

“It is. And the reason my phone keeps blowing up is because my teammates know, and now it’s going to be this big fucking thing.”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

I turn toward her again and rest my arm on the bar while keeping a solid grip on my glass. “They’re protective of me. They saw what she did to me, they saw how she came back this summer and messed with my head for a goddamn second, and there’s no doubt in my mind that she searched out this job to continue to fuck with me. And they’ll be up my ass, making sure I’m okay.”

“Aah, I see.” She glances to the side. “So . . . would I be your pretend girlfriend to fend off their concerns? Make her jealous? What’s the proposal here?”

“You don’t have to. It was a stupid idea,” I say.

Her hand lands on my thigh, drawing my attention back to her gleaming eyes. “Maybe it wasn’t.”

“What do you mean?”