by Dylann Crush
Sadie was decked out in what could only be described as a very festive gold velvet dress with a green bolero jacket that somehow managed to say vixen-attorney-you-shouldn’t-mess-with instead of mother-of-the-bride.
“He’s going to be here.” Anna gulped. Drake was in the auction. Hell, he was the auction. The committee had managed to pull together a bachelor auction with all sorts of sports figures. Specifically ball players, because the committee chair was into all things nuts and balls for this event. They’d secured a pro golfer, a baseball superstar, an up-and-coming basketball player, and the pièce de résistance…Drake.
Of course, she hadn’t known until last week that Drake had agreed to the auction. It seemed so unlike him. Then again, if they were no longer together, what stopped him from prowling for a new woman to keep him company?
Anna was going to see him and then she’d get a front-row seat as other women fawned all over him. She’d die a little inside each time the bidding number was raised.
“You got this.” Heather flanked Anna on the opposite side, linking their arms together.
Heather was dressed head-to-toe by the chicest mommy-and-me boutique in downtown Denver. She rocked the hell out of the maternity thing.
“Screw him,” Sadie said.
“I did. That’s the problem,” Anna mumbled. Memories of Drake with skin on skin, mouth on mouth, and hands everywhere made her heart beat faster and a jolt of desire whack her upside the head.
She’d liked him. She’d wanted more. But she’d broken up with him because her feelings had gotten mangled up like a truckload of poinsettias dumped in the middle of I-70.
“We all make mistakes,” Sadie assured. “It’s what you do afterward that determines your future.”
“Have you been reading self-help books again?” Anna took a careful sip of the martini. Oh, super lovely, it tasted of both rum and undertones of top-shelf whiskey.
Two of these and she wouldn’t care about men at all—specifically, one man.
Drake.
Gah, even his name was perfection.
Dr-ehhh-khhh… It didn’t roll from the tongue. It whispered from the back of the throat. Taunting her.
Unfortunately, if she polished off that martini, she also wouldn’t be able to walk out the door without tripping over her own feet. There was no chance of holiday magic when a girl was drunk as a skunk lying facedown on hotel carpet in the middle of a faux winter wonderland.
She was on the committee for this soiree and had been appointed as the florist-in-charge, making her officially responsible for any decoration malfunctions during the event. Therefore, getting snockered wouldn’t do at all. The white poinsettia trees she’d created couldn’t monitor themselves.
She’d also strung twinkle lights across the entire ceiling so they came together in the center, effectively creating a luxury big-top style ceiling that added amazing ambiance and sort of looked like a flower with the strings of lights radiating like petals from the central cluster.
If she got tipsy, who would take care of all those things? The whole event could implode with one tipsy Anna and a loose string of lights.
That’s what she had convinced herself of, anyway.
One final sip—fine, it was more of a gulp—and she set the drink aside.
“Roman’s here.” Anna tilted her head in the direction of her oldest brother, who was standing at the ballroom doorway next to a Jingle Balls sign and scanning the gathering crowd.
“I’ll be back.” Sadie hurried toward her fiancé as he meandered into the ballroom.
Anna was the opposite of her siblings. First, she had all brothers. So there was that. And they were all brawn and testosterone and laid back while she was more along the lines of a curvy, high-strung pixie.
Roman treated Sadie like she hung every star in the entire night sky, so Anna forgave him for nearly all of the shit he’d put her through during their childhood.
She wanted what they had, and she’d thought for the briefest of moments that she’d found it. But then Drake went and ruined it all with his inability to commit to anything that didn’t involve a football and bajillion-dollar sponsorship deals.
At the thought of Drake, her stomach began to churn against the two sips of eggnog.
The twinkling lights seemed to pulse just a little too fast and the pine scent became overwhelming when her mind shifted to him.
She rummaged in her clutch for her cell and scanned her messages. Not that she was searching for something in particular, but if he were to reach out again, she might text him back this time. Only because they were going to see each other soon. There was no other reason. Liar.
Still, simply because their relationship had imploded like an avalanche didn’t mean she should leave her texts unchecked.
He knew the night was a big deal to her, and when they broke up, he knew she’d be left with no one to escort her to her big event—the Jingle Balls Ball. Yes, she had broken up with him, but vulnerability sucked, and frankly, she wasn’t very good at it.
“You’re not texting him.” Heather shook her head firmly.
Anna bit at her lip and stopped herself from finding his name in her contact list.
“Did you do all the decorations?” Heather asked in a clear attempt to distract her. “They’re totally fabulous.”
They really were. “I did.”
Heather absently rubbed at her pregnant stomach. “You did a wonderful job.”
“It really did turn out nice.” Anna glanced up from the screen of her cell and took in her handiwork. She’d done an excellent job, if she did say so herself. In addition to the white poinsettia trees and the strings of lights, she’d created little vignettes throughout the room with comfy white sofas and enough fake white Christmas trees to create a fake white forest. A subtle blue glow had been added, as well as carefully placed bowls of all varieties of nuts, because you couldn’t have a testicular event without an abundance of nuts.
The Denver Post would probably put pictures of the soiree in their next issue.
With her attempt at distraction clearly successful, Heather grinned. “See, you are the best florist in Denver. Don’t tell my husband I said that.”
Anna’s brother Jase did give her good competition for the title of best florist in Denver. But he hadn’t volunteered for the Jingle Balls Ball committee. He had a thing about avoiding committees. But Anna? Anna liked donating her time to a good cause. The free publicity she got from these events wasn’t so bad either. So…she’d volunteered to help decorate this testicle-inspired shindig.
Attending single, however, had not been part of her plan.
Her fingers itched to text Drake and remind him why she was awesome and why he shouldn’t have said no when she’d offered to move to Miami with him. She’d resisted sending the text. When he said no, she broke everything off. Her heart had invested in him. In them. She didn’t want to be a cupcake—a part-time, sometimes girlfriend. No, she wanted to be the whole cake.
She’d cancelled her availability to serve as his perpetual Denver fling.
They’d both made their choices. In the end, those choices guaranteed they wouldn’t be a couple. Those choices made her heart ache.
Instead of texting him, she unlocked her phone, tapped on her preferred dating app, and re-activated her profile.
Boom. Done.
The healthiest relationships a girl could find online were on the horizon.
No looking back now.
Still, it felt like she had a severe case of heartburn and her skin was too tight.
“Did you text him?” Just having returned, Sadie grabbed for Anna’s cell.
Anna held up the phone to show the app. “I’m handling this breakup like the adult you want me to be.”
“Give the phone over.” Heather made a give-it gesture with her fingers. “That way, there are no mistake-texts sent at any point tonight.”
Anna handed over her phone. Not because she didn’t trust herself but, to be ho
nest, she didn’t really trust herself.
“There’s something you need to know.” Sadie pursed her lips in a way that made Anna confident she didn’t want to know. “Please don’t kill your brother. He means well and I kind of like him.”
Anna definitely didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to ask, but one glance at Sadie and she knew she had to find out what he’d done. Never mind that her tongue had gone dry and her mind was flipping through about a million possibilities. “What are you talking about?”
“He got you a date.” Sadie looked as unhappy about it as Anna felt.
“Are you kidding me?” Heather asked. “What is he thinking? How can she rebound with a date that Roman picked? At an event where her ex is being sold to the highest bidder. Roman takes things way too seriously. He probably picked the worst possible rebound option.”
“He talked to your grandmother, and you know how she is and how they are when they’re together.” Sadie glared toward her fiancé. “Trust me, I made it totally clear that he messed up on this one.”
“Roman got me a date?” Anna asked, her voice nearly a whisper. “And Babushka is involved?”
The fake icicles decorating the edge of the room might as well have been stabbing her in the chest. This was bad. Really bad.
“I got you a date,” Roman confirmed, strutting up behind Sadie and slipping his arm around her waist. “He’ll be here any minute. Seeing as how you’re my favorite sister, it’s for your own good. You’re welcome.”
“I’m your only sister,” Anna huffed. She might have had a history of iffy relationships, but she absolutely did not do the blind date thing. Especially when the blind date was put together by her brother with the blessing of their slightly nutty—and not in the testicular sense—grandmother.
Sadie glowered at him over her shoulder. “You’re in so much trouble.”
The muscles in his arms bunched as he squeezed her against him and nuzzled her ear. “I like being in trouble with you. Besides, you have to blame Babushka.” Roman shrugged. “It’s mostly her fault.”
“Why do you say that?” Anna asked.
“She put me in charge this time.” He grinned.
“You’re joking,” Anna said, wishing looks could really kill. Or seriously maim.
He shook his head. “I don’t joke.”
Heather wrapped her arm around Anna’s shoulder. “I’ll play interference if you need me to. I’m sure Jase will toss this guy out if I ask him nicely.”
Yes, because getting another brother involved in her love life was such a good idea.
That was a negative, for the record.
The Dvornakovs were not the kind of family a person would want involved in decisions related to their personal dating life. Or really, any part of their lives. They meddled, and they did it epically. Which was why Anna didn’t make it a point to get relationship-y around them.
The fine hair on the back of her neck tingled.
“Who is he?” she asked, the words coming out as more of a croak.
“Don’t flip out,” Roman said.
Those were the words a brother used to—in fact—make his sister flip out.
“She’s freaking out,” Heather said out of the corner of her mouth.
“Look, he’s here.” Roman shifted his gaze toward the entry of the ballroom.
Anna’s entire expression froze in place. She resisted the urge to adjust her girdle as quarterback legend and golden boy Drake Walsh strolled into her world, settling right back into the hole he’d only recently drilled into her heart.
Seriously?
Grr, no. Drake was not her date. They’d already decided that when she’d broken it off with him. Their goals in love and in life did not align. He may have been from Denver and he may have visited often, but he lived in Miami. She lived in Denver, and when she’d offered to give up her flower shop and move to Miami, he’d said…no.
Just like that.
No.
Not even a hey, let’s slow this down. Just no, that’s a bad idea.
Hence the following implosion of the beginnings of what she’d hoped would be her future.
She may have been a little touchy about it all, but she’d put herself out there and he’d ruined it.
“Rome?” she asked her brother. “Drake’s my pity date?” Shock infused her tone like the top-shelf whiskey in her nearly untouched eggnog martini.
“Yes.”
She was officially going to do bodily harm to her brother. She stared at him with the stare she’d perfected with two older brothers and a younger one—the one that clearly got her point across. That point being—
“Run.” She’d give him a thirty-second head start before she pummeled him with the pointy heels of her shoes.
Roman did not run.
Instead, he seemed to double down and widen his stance, shove his hands on his hips, and give her a look like she was in the wrong on this one.
Her chest went tight because maybe, just maybe, she was a teensy bit wrong.
But so was Drake.
And two wrongs did not make their relationship work.
“Hear him out,” Roman said, sympathy practically rolling off of him. Sympathy that was really pissing her off. “You need to know where he’s coming from.”
Anna’s pulse thrummed as Drake strode toward their little huddle with purpose.
There were things Anna knew about Drake: he was super hot, excellent in bed, perpetually single, unwilling to commit to anyone off the football field, and apparently…her date.
Again.
She might as well just call her heart broken a second time and be done with it. Blinking, she hoped he’d disintegrate into a mirage. That didn’t happen.
He caught her attention, and for a moment, she could’ve sworn there was an apology in his gaze. A question in his expression—would she let him pretend nothing had happened and they hadn’t ended?
Drake sauntered toward them, eyes locked with hers. Anna’s chest heaved.
“Why would you do this to me?” She cut a look toward her least favorite brother of the night.
“Give him a chance.” Roman’s voice dropped low enough so only she could hear it.
“We broke up.” Anna’s throat worked against the silver chain of her choker necklace. Roman’s thirty seconds were about over, and she wasn’t entirely kidding about pummeling him.
Without even meaning to, she slipped her gaze back toward Drake.
He grinned at her, confident and hopeful.
Maybe she wouldn’t pummel her brother after all.
The heat in the look Drake gave her melted all of her attempts at freezing him out. It was super hard to be grumpy when Drake and his charms were handed to her on a silver testicle platter.
He was totally lickable—like one of those Tootsie Pop suckers. How many licks to get to his center? She’d tried for an entire month and still hadn’t gotten to the center of him. She’d run her tongue along the column of his throat, around the back to his earlobe. Uh-huh, yes, she’d done that.
Drake got closer. Not close enough for Anna to see the subtle brown flecks she’d memorized in his green eyes, but closer all the same.
Each movement toward her made her pulse thud faster.
When he was on the football field, the guy had an arm unlike any the league had ever seen before. When he whipped off his helmet on the sidelines for a post-game interview? Mmmmmm. Yum. Let’s just say the girls were ready to put all their milkshakes in the yard with the hopes of attracting him to their property.
Phew, was it hot in the ballroom?
Suddenly lightheaded, Anna succumbed to the memory of being held in Drake’s embrace. Blond cropped hair, strong jaw, green eyes the color of her favorite absinthe cocktail from Union Lodge No. 1—he was the whole package. Everything she thought she’d been waiting for in a man.
Yes. Oh my, my, my.
But oh no, no, no.
She wanted to turn and walk away, even tried to get her feet t
o move, but the soles of her shoes stayed rooted to the ballroom carpet. Her lungs constricted and the room started to spin. Not in a dangerous way like she’d pass out or anything. But in the dangerous way like she might make a really stupid mistake…again.
2
Anna
Anna ran through several scenarios of how the evening could play out.
In the first option, she’d bolt for the door, run to the valet, get her car, get in her car, and get the hell out of there.
In the second, she’d stay, give Drake the cold shoulder, and wait out the night.
In the third (and she already knew this was the way it would go), she’d stay, be unable to give Drake the cold shoulder, and fall back into the land of love and dreams—all the while knowing, deep down, that it wasn’t meant to be.
Option three sucked the most.
She willed her body to go numb so that she could choose option one or two instead. Her body betrayed her, warming and tingling and craving Drake’s touch.
He continued walking toward her, stopping several times along the way to shake hands and pose for selfies with fans. He never said no to a fan.
Maybe that’s where she’d messed up. She should’ve made it clear she was a fan first and a girlfriend second, and then maybe he’d have agreed to let her move to Miami with him. This is what Drake’s appearance did to her—it made her question everything.
Even with his starts and stops, Drake somehow managed to keep his intention of where he was headed clear.
To her.
Therefore, Anna decided not to go chase down her brother.
With a few reassuring glances pointed in her direction, he sometimes stared straight at her while still making it clear he was listening to the person chatting him up.
“I think I’m going to murder your fiancé,” Anna whispered to Sadie.
“Please don’t.” Sadie let out a long sigh.
Anna sighed, resigned, her body already buzzing at the idea of breathing the same air as Drake again.
