Tomboy (The Hartigans #3)(29)

Zach: We need to reopen negotiations.

LL: You better not be ditching the appearance.

Zach: Nah, I’m there. Need you at more games.

The talking heads on TV had moved on to football, but he could barely hear them over the blood rushing in his ears. He needed her to say yes.

LL: Negotiations, huh? You wanna get your agent on the line?

He laughed out loud, the rusty sound bouncing off the bare kitchen walls. She was such a smart-ass.

Zach: I can take care of it myself.

LL: Okay. Tell me what you want.

What did he want? That seemed like a bigger question than he had an answer for at the moment. So he kept it simple.

Zach: Pre-game phone calls when I’m on the road and you show up in person to home games.

It took a couple of beats after he hit send, but the three dots in the comment bubble finally appeared.

LL: I do have a job, and even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be at your beck and call like that.

Fair enough, but that’s how these negotiations went. His first contract had started off with his agent at the time asking for millions more than he as a rookie was worth.

Zach: So now is when you counter.

LL: Is that how negotiating works? You make an offer and I counter offer?

He didn’t need Fallon here to picture her body language at the moment. No doubt she had her arms crossed, one hip popped out, and a no-shit-Sherlock expression on her face. This is what he got for trying to be nice for once?

Zach: Do you always go for the sarcasm?

LL: Do you always treat people like they’re dumb?

Okay, that had all just escalated way too quickly. Instead of shooting off another text, he hit the info button and then call contact. It rang. And rang. And rang again. Finally, she picked up right before it would have gone to voicemail, but she didn’t say anything.

“I was not meaning to call you dumb,” he said, the words coming out in a rush because he spent most of his time getting out of having conversations—not trying to get people to engage. “I’ve just been through a billion negotiations. It’s not a me-Tarzan-you-Jane thing.”

“Sorry, I’m a little sensitive with all of the comments about how unacceptable I am that people I don’t even know are leaving all over social media.”

Shit. He was hoping she hadn’t seen them. He had. There was a whole man-hands meme going around, a poll on one of the social media sites asking if women like Fallon emasculated men, and a Photoshop challenge to give her a virtual makeover.

“I’m sorry.” And he was. Also? He was a selfish jerk for needing her to put herself out there anyway. If there was any other way, he wouldn’t, but everything was riding on him playing like he was now—and he’d find a way to protect her from the social media attacks. He just needed time to strategize.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You’re not the douchebag telling me to get my eyebrows threaded and you didn’t punch the guy out.”

“But I would have.” Hell, he still wanted to. “Making sure people know they can’t mess with my team is pretty much in my job description.”

She laughed, the sound a relief after the tension in her voice before. “Whatever, Zach.”

He paced a circle around the island, psyching himself up for what came next. There was pretty much nothing in the world he hated more than relying on someone else, but there was no getting around it. He needed Fallon.

“That brings us back to our negotiation.”

“Does it?” she asked.

“Yep.” He nodded as if she could see him. “So what’s your counteroffer?”

“No.”

He stopped dead in his tracks. That wasn’t how this went. He gave an option, she gave an option, and they kept going back and forth until they met somewhere in the middle. It was a negotiation. That was how these things worked. She had to give him something to work with. There were rules, playbooks, and game plans.

“That’s your counter?” he asked, incredulous. “No?”

“You got it.”

He could just picture the self-satisfied look on her face while she wore his hoodie and nothing else. Wait. Where had that last bit come from? He didn’t care what she was wearing—or not wearing. It didn’t matter.

“That’s not fair.” And that was the lamest of responses, but his brain was seriously fumbling for a way to respond after the mental image of his sweatshirt stopping just below her bare upper thighs.

Fallon snorted in his ear. “Neither is life.”

Shoving aside the picture of her walking with long strides so the hoodie moved higher with each step, he forced his brain back to the negotiation at hand. She may have thrown him for a loop with her “no” response, but this was hockey, and until the buzzer went off there was always a way to make a play happen. He just had to figure out which way to deke.

“I’ll have my counteroffer tomorrow at the fundraiser,” he said, resuming his circles around the kitchen island. “I even promise to be nice while I’m there.”

“You better, the clinic needs the funds badly. You’ve got to smile and everything.”

He didn’t bother to try to bite back his groan—he was, after all, the most-hated man in Harbor City. There was no way he wouldn’t end up with at least fifty people telling him he sucked. “This is going to be painful.”