His touch lingered too long. Lex snatched her hand back.
Strike one.
“Richard tells me you know a little about sports.” Tigh’s tone wasn’t condescending, although his words bordered on the edge. Ball one.
Lex smiled tightly. “Some.”
Tigh gestured to the other two nameless men. “We were just talking about Hosh’s return to the Niners this season.”
“Unlikely.”
Tigh’s brows rose, then he grinned. “That’s what I was saying.
Smart girl.”
Ball two. Lex didn’t falter. “He’s not being aggressive enough with his rehab. He can’t even run the mile at 80 percent his normal.”
Tigh looked thoughtful.
Ball three.
He scratched his chin. “I thought it might be a publicity ploy.”
That was a new idea. “Oh?”
“The reporters were already comparing his slower recovery with Bennett’s super fast recovery last season, when he protested a little too loudly about being steroid-free.”
Tigh had an interesting theory. Base hit.
He gestured toward the dance floor. “Dance?”
Well, he’d earned a single.
The nervous juggling started in her stomach as she followed him to the dance floor. Stop wigging out, it’s a fast song, you’re too hung up on being touched by guys anyway, stop being a freakazoid.
She had loved dancing once. She could again with the right partner. Sure.
Lex tried to groove to the beat. Tried not to jerk when someone’s limb tapped her from behind. Tried to smile at Tigh. Then he moved closer.
She froze so tight that her shoulder blade muscles shook. His big hands circled her waist lightly, but enough to make her jolt and twitch away.
He must have thought they were dance moves, because he grabbed her waist fully and tried to sway her hips to his rhythm.
Lex’s stomach cramped. She shoved his hands away and pulled back.
He followed, face fuzzy and confused but still amiable. This time his hands roved higher, cupping her ribcage.
“Leave off!” Lex twisted away.
Tigh’s face darkened. He shouted a few names at her.
She shouted a few back.
Lex tromped off the dance floor. Stupid! She knew he’d been drinking. She headed toward the exit door while she called Trish’s cell phone one last time.
“Hello?” Hiccough.
“Trish! Where are you?”
Giggle. “By the bar. This nice guy – ”
Lex snapped her phone closed and shoved her way to the bar. Her encounter with Tigh had made her so tense that the extra contact didn’t unnerve her as it did before.
There. Trish lounged against the bar with a middle-aged man who tried to look down the V-neck on her blouse. Lex grabbed her. “Did you come alone?”
“No.” Trish dissolved into abject depression with a speed only alcohol could accomplish. “My boyfriend… the slime… had a fight.”Sob. “He left me, the dork…” Trish burst into tears.
Lex got her out into the parking lot, where the fresh air seemed to have the opposite effect as normal. Lex leaned against the car trunk while Trish emptied her stomach.
“Lex, right?”
She looked up and noticed the antsy guy who had interviewed her at SPZ. He actually sounded jovial. “Hello.”
“Yeah, I thought I saw you in there.”
When she danced with Mr. Hands or when she dragged Miss Apple Martini away from the bar? “I didn’t see you.”
“Yeah, I see you met Tigh Anders.”
A weird, unpleasant tingling raced over her shoulders like a hairbrush drawn across her skin. “You know him?”
“Oh, yeah. He works at SPZ.”
The tingling rose up the back of her neck and buzzed in the base of her skull. “What’s his department?”
“Oh, he’s my manager.”
Only a few times in her life had Lex indulged in stress-eating. This was one.
Lex inched into the drive-thru line and fumbled with her purse. She had cash, right?
“Are we at In-N-Out?” Trish shoved her nose against Lex’s not-so-clean window. “It’s yelllow.”
“WelcometoInnunOut. Whaddayawant?” The order speaker blasted static at Lex.
“A 3 x 3, Animal style, with fries and a strawberry shake.”
“Fffvertwinntwo.”
What? Lex drove forward while digging in the bottom of her purse. Didn’t she have a stray bill? She counted the money in her fist. Three bucks.
“You dint get me anything.” Trish pouted. “I wanted a double… triple…” She started counting fingers.
“You may as well be good for something.” Lex slapped Trish’s knee to the right so she could snatch Trish’s purse.
“Thazmine!”
By the time Lex made it to the window, she had a ten-dollar-bill to hand to the girl in her white and red uniform.
The aroma of grease made her mouth almost feel the crispiness of the fries, the juiciness of the burger, the softness of the bun. Lex pulled back into the In-N-Out parking lot and found an empty stall.
Her first bite unknotted the ball in her gut.
The second bite loosened her wooden-hanger shoulders.
The fries made her headache ease.
The shake brought it right back with brainfreeze.
Well, if she could say anything about Tigh, he had reunited her with In-N-Out Burger, her first unhealthy meal since the fiasco with George. Words like “stupid Lex” and “doofus” and “guano-head”really didn’t convey the emotion of the moment – the crashing and burning of her dream of working at SPZ.
She wouldn’t have wanted to work for such a handsy guy anyway.
Yeah, the ecstasy of talking nothing but sports all day at work wouldn’t be worth it. Not at all.
Lex started sobbing into her shake.
“Are you crying?” Trish shoved her face two inches away from Lex’s nose. “Aw, poor Lexie. Trishy will make it all bett – better.”
Trish’s foul breath seriously cramped Lex’s enjoyment of her burger. Lex pushed her away, and Trish tipped over to lean against the door, already starting to breathe deeply.
Lex finished her fries. She didn’t really feel much better. Well, no.
She could never be unmoved by fresh french fries. But she still felt like a teetering Jenga tower.
What was it Scarlett said? “Tomorrow is another day.”
Whoop-de-doo. Cheeriness for the unemployed.
TUMS, TUMS TUMS TUMS, TUMS…
So, maybe the shake had been a bit overboard.
Lex’s stomach rolled as she stumbled into the living room. She would look for more job listings in the morning, send out a few more résumés. She should be fine for several months because she and Dad were sharing expenses. Problem was, could she find anything?
She locked the front door behind her. Dad had left the light on -
No, he hadn’t left his chair. He looked up at her. “You’re late tonight.”
“I had a sort of emergency.”
Bushy eyebrows waggled up. “Emergency?”
“A Trish emergency. Relax.”
He did. “Oh.”
That prickling had started again across her shoulders. “Why are you still up, Dad?”
He started that floppy shrug again, but Lex gusted out a sigh.
“Oh, just tell me.”
Stopped mid-shrug, Dad looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. He lowered his shoulders.
“You’ll have to move out, Lexie. I decided to sell the house.”