Fumbled (Playbook #2)(80)

I wave to the room. “Afternoon drinking, am I right?” I half laugh, half mumble, fully mortified.

Then I turn and glare at Vonnie and Charli when I hear them snort beside me. “Assholes.” But I can only hold it for a second before I’m laughing with them. “Why am I so awkward?”

“It’s endearing,” Charli says.

“Doesn’t matter how awkward you are or aren’t. After this you go home to TK Moore and all these bitches are jealous.” Vonnie lifts her signature French martini with a splash of champagne (still classy AF) to her lips before saying, “Myself included.”

“Vonnie!” Charli slaps her and Vonnie gives her a glare when her martini splashes over the rim and lands on her white sweater. Charli might be one of the only people on this planet immune to a Vonnie glare. She ignores it and keeps scolding her.

“What? You telling me you’ve never thought about TK’s bearded face and thick ass before?”

“Once or twice.” Charli blushes.

“Exactly. Anyways, she knows TK’s fine. A woman tells me she thinks Justin is sexy, I tell her thank you and go to our home and get to have fun with his sexy self for as long as I want. I love my man, but I’m not blind. And TK could get it, shit, so could Shawn.” Vonnie ignores the way color rises up Charli’s cheeks and keeps going. “TK is delicious in that big, wilderness, caveman way where I just know his ass is taking charge in the bedroom, doing all sorts of freaky shit. Shawn is fine in the clean-cut, preppy way where I’d probably have fun turning his ass out.”

“She’s not wrong.” I lift my glass and exchange cheers with Vonnie.

“Brynn! Drinks!” Charli stands up and crosses the room to the bar.

I can’t even pretend not to be entertained. I start laughing so hard, I have to push my seat back so I can lean over and clutch my stomach.

This lasts for only a couple of seconds, because before I know it, Charli’s seat is filled and not by Charli.

“Hi, Poppy, is it?” asks a brunette so stunning that I have to blink a few times to make sure she’s not a figment of my imagination before I nod.

“Y-y-yeah. That’s me,” I stutter like a fool.

“I’m Aviana West, no relation to Kanye and Kim.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder and throws her head back, laughing like it was the cleverest joke ever. “Though I was on a show on E!, so we’re kind of like cousins.”

She winks.

Vonnie rolls her eyes so hard, I think I actually hear them hit the back of her head.

I stare.

I knew she looked familiar!

“Oh my god!” I slap the table. “You were on that one dating show!”

Trash TV is one of my many vices and I don’t care who knows.

“Guilty.” She smiles her movie-star smile she’s probably been paid to endorse some teeth whitening kit on Instagram for. “But that was a long time ago. Now I’m married to Crosby West.”

I stare again, but this time not in reality television awe but with a blank one.

“Sorry.” I cringe, feeling a little bit like a bitch. “Unless I have a program in front of me, I don’t know who any of the players are.”

“Number sixty-five,” she goes on. “He’s an offensive lineman, guard.” She keeps going when it’s clear I don’t recognize the name. Her smile freezes on her face for a second before she’s flipping her hair . . . again . . . and back to her camera-ready routine. “Don’t worry, I don’t know much about the sport either.”

Then, out of nowhere, Vonnie, who was completely uninterested, if not a little put off by Aviana’s presence, bursts out laughing. “Ohh! I’m sorry!” She waves a hand at me before wiping at her eyes. “That was a good one, girl.”

As I raise an eyebrow in question, Aviana glares and turns to me.

“Anyway.” She waves Vonnie off, which I think is a mistake, but I decide to keep quiet. “I’ve been gathering some of the girls to see if any of them would be interested in being on a reality show.”

Sirens, car crashes, massive explosions, all go off in my head.

My mouth falls open a bit and she takes that as a cue to continue on. “I still have some contacts from E! And they’ve been looking for a new city for one of their shows. I’ve just been raving about Denver, so they wanted me to test the water. See how you girls felt.”

“Oh no.” I shake my head so hard, I start to get a little dizzy. “No no no.”

Her face falls a bit. “Really? I thought you would love it.” Her eyebrows narrow in a way where she looks genuinely confused. “You know, with your background and all.”

Sirens, car crashes, massive explosions, take two.

My back goes straight, and I note out of the sides of my eyes that Vonnie’s does as well.

“I’m sorry?” I ask.

“You know, with stripping and stuff,” she says like she’s telling me the weather, and I can tell she doesn’t have any ill intent. “There aren’t set scripts or anything, but reality TV is a performance too. I thought maybe you’d want to get back into that.”

I take a second to check my tone because I don’t want to come off as a bitch and I definitely don’t want to yell. “I wasn’t a stripper.”