None of that mattered a ton. What mattered was that the guy, a mid-fielder, was fast and fierce, and had an instinct for exactly where he needed to be and when.
"Nostradamus," Trace shouted in the locker room after the game. "Nice moves out there, man."
"Thanks," Ricardo said. He was a soft-spoken guy. We hadn't learned a whole lot about him yet.
"Do you see how that was hard to say?" Hoss asked him. "Nicknames should be short. Punchy."
"Yeah? Punchy, huh?" Trace collared Hoss with an arm around his neck and lifted his other fist in mock threat. "I'll show you punchy."
"Children," Fuerte chided.
Ricardo watched all this looking slightly shocked.
"Was football a little more serious in Italy?" I asked him.
He shook his head. "Not serious, no. Maybe less ..." he searched for a word.
"Fun," Trace suggested. Trace was standing there naked, grinning at us, and waiting casually for Ricardo's response as if he wasn't giving us all full frontal at that moment.
"Dude," Fuerte growled. "Go take your shower."
"Only if you join me, 'Nando," Trace said, his falsetto voice and eye-batting targeted at Fuerte's last nerve.
"You're lucky we won today and that I'm married to your sister, or I'd beat the silly right out of you," Fuerte said.
Trace flounced off to the shower, and I dug my phone out of my locker. I had a text from Tatum, and I realized that was exactly what I'd been hoping for.
Tatum: Great game. Thanks for inviting us. That was a lot of fun.
Max: Glad you made it. Any interest in grabbing a post-game drink at the team bar? It's not far away.
I had no idea if she was still around, but given the chaos in the parking lot after games, I had a feeling she probably hadn't managed to get too far. I didn't know if her mom would be up for a drink, though. And if I thought too hard about it, I knew it was probably a bad idea to invite Tatum out. But I wanted to see her again. I enjoyed her company, and there hadn't been a woman in a long time I could say that about.
When Tatum texted back agreeing, I gave her directions. Then I had a little chat with myself about how we could have a drink together because we were friends and associates, and how I was definitely not asking her out in a date-like way.
Because men and women can be friends.
We could totally be friends.
Chapter 10
Drowning Feelings with Vodka
Tatum
Mom and I arrived before Max, and took two stools at the long wooden bar inside McDaughtry’s. I had paused for a few seconds before accepting Max’s invitation, the warnings I gave myself about becoming personally involved with a client ringing in my mind. It was fine for men to meet up at a bar like this, but for women in my field, it could mean trouble. However, I had my mom here to ensure things stayed firmly out of potentially difficult territory.
McDaughtry's was a little bit loud and crazy by the time Max appeared with two other players. He spotted us at the bar and nodded to the men, who moved off toward the noisiest crowd in the back of the bar—the Sharks, I gathered—and came to greet us.
He smiled, and for a moment before I could check myself, the entire bar narrowed down to that handsome face, the self-assured way Max Winchell came across the floor toward me. He practically radiated magnetism, and I had to swallow hard and chant inside my head “client, client, client.”
“Hi Max,” I said, standing as he approached and trying to force a natural expression to my face. After seeing Max play, there was a little swirl of the old hero worship I used to feel for him mingling with my general acknowledgement that he was handsome. I was feeling a little unsteady.
"Tatum, hello. It's nice to see you again." He rolled his shoulders as he stood, as if maybe he was feeling a bit awkward too.
"This is my mom, Rose Archer. Mom, this is Max Winchell." I turned to my mother, whose natural smile and shining eyes put me at ease a bit. Mom looked happy.
"Mrs. Archer, it's a pleasure." Max shook my mother’s hand. "Who's looking after Charlie this evening?" he asked.
"Our landlord, actually," I said, laughing lightly. "He came over to say hello this morning and I think he and Charlie struck up something of a romance. The guy was on the ground, rolling around with the dog within five minutes of meeting him." It had been surprising, actually. Peter had made some small talk with Mom, and then had gotten down on the ground, and seconds later he was Charlie’s new best friend, rolling in the grass and wrestling.
Max glanced at the busy bar, and then at me. "Want to grab a table?"
I felt bad keeping Max from the victory celebration going on behind us with the other Sharks players. "Do you need to be with your team?" I wanted Max to stay, but figured it might be better all around if he said he needed to go.
"I see plenty of those guys," he said, glancing at them. “Let me get you a drink, and then we’ll head over there where it’s a little quieter.”
Mom placed her order with Max and went to hold a table for us, and a few minutes later, I followed her with Max at my back, carrying his drink and Mom’s.
"How did you enjoy the game?" Max asked Mom.
She smiled graciously over the rim of her daiquiri. "It was exciting," she said. "I haven't been to a sports event in person in years. But my husband used to watch your team play."
I smiled at Mom, sadness ebbing around the shimmering spots of happiness I felt. It was hard not to think how much Dad would have liked to be here. "I thought it was incredible. I've never seen soccer live,” I added.
"I'm glad you enjoyed yourselves. I made sure we won. It's no fun watching your team lose."
"Thanks," I laughed. "Does your team know that was your call? And don't you always try to make sure you win? Or only when you feel like it?"
Max chuckled. "Most of the time I try to have us win. Sometimes the other team doesn't cooperate the way I'd like. Turns out the entire world isn't under my control as I once believed."
"Only the dating lives of the greater population of Southern California and Arizona," I suggested.
"Right." Max glanced at my mother.
"I told Mom a little about the business you run,” I told Max, wanting to let him know I didn’t tell her specifically that he himself was Mr. Match. “But not everything,” I said. Max’s worried expression cleared, and he nodded.
“Of course.”
Mom’s attention was pulled across the bar where a small group of men sat around a table. The guys were older, they looked like maybe they'd been golfing or something, dressed in polo shirts and slacks. "I think I know that man," she said, her eyes narrowing either to help her see better or to help her remember.
This was surprising. I felt myself stiffen. "You do?" I followed Mom’s gaze. "Which guy?"
Mom might not have heard me, or else she was very distracted by whoever she’d recognized. "Excuse me for a moment," she said, standing up. She touched my shoulder briefly and whispered, “Be right back,” and then she took a moment to smooth her black pants and touch at her hair. A moment later, she approached the small group, pulling their attention with a word or two of greeting.
The man she'd been watching, a slim tanned man with hair that was touched with grey around the temples, stood, his eyes wide and friendly. He said something to her, and then they both opened their arms and embraced.
A little thread of worry wound itself around me. Who was that guy? Did I need to go insert myself and make sure he knew Mom was not here alone? I was staring as Mom chatted with him, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t think of a time I’d ever seen her talk to a man like that, her face bright and cheerful, her posture demure, almost flirty.
"Do you know who that is?" Max asked me.
"I have no idea," I said. "Mom lived in San Diego years ago, but I didn't know she still knew people here. She left before I was born."
We watched them chat for a moment. Though they stepped apart, their hands remained clasped on one side, as if t
hey couldn't bear to let go completely. Mom said something while pointing back at our table, and the man glanced our way with a smile and a little nod before falling back into conversation with her. A moment later, she was seated with the group, and laughing at something the man had said.
Mom was flirting. And picking up men in bars. I pushed down the sense of disloyalty to Dad. "I guess she's happy," I said, turning back to Max. "Who knew Mom was the type to pick up men in bars?"
Max laughed, and I had the sudden realization that now we were alone together, sitting at an intimate table in a bar. A rush of nerves suddenly moved through me. I knew how to behave in the office with Max. He was a business associate. And I knew how to behave when we were at the game—I just had to sit and watch. But this was suddenly awkward. We were out in the evening, at a bar, and for all intents and purposes, we were alone together.
I cleared my throat, grasping for something to say. "I didn't really get that gene," I told him, glancing at Mom again.
"Which gene?" He asked, sipping his martini.
"The 'go chat up men in bars' gene," I said. "I met my husband at school, and I guess I never got much practice in the whole bar-pickup scene."
Max looked surprised suddenly, the smile dropping from his face.
"He wasn't good at bars either," I went on. "He preferred to pick up women closer to home. Our next-door neighbor, for instance." I was over this indiscretion, and it was easy for me to talk about. I also realized I’d referred to Austin as my “husband” instead of my “ex.” Did that account for Max’s strange expression? Why would he be concerned with whether or not I was married?
Unless the addictive tension I felt wasn’t entirely one-sided. But hoping he felt a similar interest in me would only lead to trouble. I forced myself to go on talking. “Yeah, that whole monogamy thing wasn’t his strong point.”
"Nice,” Max said.
"Right?" I dropped my head for a second, playing with the cocktail straws in my vodka tonic as I got a grip on myself. "That was a couple years ago. I heard they broke up too."
"So you're divorced?" Max asked.
"Yep. Just over two years officially."
"I'm ... sorry. Do people offer condolences for divorce?" Max tilted his head, his brown eyes sparkling.
I laughed. "I don't think so, not when the marriage shouldn't have existed in the first place. Thanks though."
"You weren't happily married? I mean, before the neighbor?" He asked.
I thought about that for a moment. Austin and I were an example of what not to do in relationships. "Not happily, no. Not particularly unhappily either though. I think we got married because we'd been dating a few years, and we thought that was the logical next step."
"That sounds romantic," Max said.
"Doesn't it?"
"It kind of sounds awful," he added.
"It kind of was," I said. No point sugarcoating things. "And it was such a contrast to my parents' marriage, I knew pretty much right away it wasn't going to work."
"That had to be hard."
I thought about that for a minute. It had been hard. I’d felt like a failure. I told Max, "At the time, I didn't think that much about it. I had made a choice, I was going to see it through. I'm the goal-setter type. Gold star girl, all that. It was a goal, something to achieve. Happy marriage, check. But when we were with my parents, who so clearly fit together, I was forced to look at it a bit.” They had the thing—the spark. You could see it. Austin and I had a piece of paper and not much else. “It was almost a relief when he left, if you want the truth."
Max was watching me intently, those warm eyes shining and deep. For a brief moment, I thought he was going to reach out, touch me, maybe take my hand. But instead, he leaned back in his chair, moving away slightly. The tension between us snapped and I felt almost let down.
"My parents were like that too," He said. "You could just feel the rightness of them together. It was reassuring as a kid."
"Exactly."
"That was why I started working on the math," he said. "I felt like I needed to figure out how to replicate that thing, that almost physical bond."
"Seems like you did." I caught his eyes, smiling, but didn’t see my enthusiasm for the success of his business matched there as I’d expected. I wondered for a moment at a guy like Max building something like Mr. Match. I had no doubt he’d managed to avoid identification for this long mostly because it seemed like such an odd fit—here was this confident, athletic guy. And he spent his spare time working out the details of something as esoteric and touchy-feely as love?
Max looked sad for a moment, and I struggled with what to say. Every word and action that came to mind didn’t fit our situation. I couldn’t reach out and touch him, comfort him. He wasn’t mine to touch.
Max Winchell was a client, and while something swirled deliciously inside me, suggesting there was a possibility of something more, I shoved it down, poured some vodka on top of it and vowed to ignore it.
Mom came back then, sliding her chair up so it made a screeching noise on the tile floor, and I watched the fragmented pieces of the previous moment fall to the floor at our feet. "Sorry to abandon you," she was saying. "That was an old college friend. I haven't seen him in years! Not since ... well, not since I moved up north."
This was startling. I had the distinct impression that man was an ex-boyfriend of Mom’s. "Mom, was that man someone you dated? Before Dad?"
Mom actually blushed, a sweet pink flame climbing her cheeks, and she dropped my gaze for a second before lifting her chin. "That was the man I really thought I'd marry before I met your Dad."
Erm. Gah. I took another long sip of my drink, needing to drown that idea in vodka too. "Wow," I said.
"We're having lunch tomorrow," Mom added, and I felt myself blanch as my stomach contracted. I wanted to feel happy, or at least accepting. Mom looked happy. Shouldn’t I be happy for her? Dad was gone. I’d been telling her to keep living, to step forward. Here she was actually doing it, and I was so conflicted.
Maybe I was jealous that my mother had actually managed to put together a love life in one year of being single when I’d been totally unsuccessful at it in a lifetime of singlehood. I sighed, torn.
"Tell me about San Diego Mrs. Archer," Max asked Mom, and I was happy to have a few moments to pull myself back together. "When you lived here."
Mom lit up and turned to Max. "Please call me Rose," she said. And then she talked, and though I gave her as much attention as I could, my eyes and mind strayed constantly back to the complicated man at my side, the way his smile played across the sculpted lips, the way his eyes held my mother’s.
This was not good. I was a teeny bit infatuated with my client. And jealous of my mother’s dating life. All in all, I was a basket case.
Eventually, we stood, thanked Max for the tickets and the drinks, and said goodnight.
"I'll call you tomorrow," I told him. "I think I'll have some news for you."
Chapter 11
This Chair will Kill You
MAX
I watched Tatum and Rose go, and then headed home myself. I needed some time to think about things. If I'd been a regular guy, I would have acknowledged the clear attraction between Tatum and me. I would probably have done something about it, have asked her out, have ignored the rules of propriety and kissed her. But I knew better than to act on impulse. I'd dated before—had my heart broken once, even. And that was because I'd jumped into something with my heart as a guide—instead of using logic and math to assure myself of success.
My phone dinged as I let myself into the house. It was Cat.
Cat: Try one more time. This woman is perfect, I promise.
Not this again.
Me: No thank you.
Cat: Too late. I told her you'd call her. She's a soccer player!
Me: ?? Stop setting me up. Who? Pro?
I knew all the players on the women’s' team in Oceanside. Knew of them, at least.
Cat:
Last time, okay? She's perfect.
This was followed by a phone number and a name. Tallulah Jeffries.
Forward for the Stars. She was a fantastic player, but I didn't know much else about her. I sighed. It seemed I was going on another date. Cat had let me set her up, so I figured maybe I owed her. She was trying to help, and though the mathematical odds weren't good that Tallulah Jeffries and I would be a fit, there was always a chance. The truth was, I was lonely.
Of course, I'd probably check the Mr. Match database first just in case.
I sighed as I got into bed that night. Anticipation swirled in me over the knowledge I'd be seeing Tatum again soon. Less excitement surrounded the idea of calling Cat's latest setup, but I forced myself to decide that it could be a good thing. Who knew me better than my sister, after all?
I woke the next day and headed out for my date, trying not to be negative.
But once it was underway, it was clear negativity was called for.
It was like my sister didn't know me at all.
Tallulah was cute, that much was true. She was compact and muscular, and could only be described as a jock. She played for the National Women's Soccer League, and we both played forward, so Cat wasn't wrong about us having a lot in common. She was pretty—petite despite her clear strength, and she had striking features, softened by the straight blond hair that fell to her chin in a bob. Big blue eyes glowed with excitement as she talked about the last game they'd played—they were in exhibition season too.
Scoring the Boss: Mr. Match Book 4 Page 7
