office, Doug Storey stretched out his legs, laced his hands behind his head and gave in to exhaustion.
Who knew flying between Houston and Denver three times in one week could take so much out of a guy?
Either he was getting old or he needed to find more time to work out. Sleep wouldn’t hurt. Whatever. Something had to give before he collapsed like a bad knee.
He had decisions and deals stacked one on top of the next, and needed a working body and a fully functional mind. Right now he felt as if the only thing working was his ability to sit still and not move.
Anton finished his phone call and cradled the receiver, his hand lingering on the phone, his eyes lingering on Doug as if something vital hovered on the tip of his tongue.
Finally, with a shake of his head, Anton walked around to the front of his desk. He dropped into one of the office’s visitor chairs and waited—the way he always waited, sitting and thinking and driving Doug crazy.
Doug had to be on the go all the time, which he was rapidly coming to learn was not as easy to manage when his going was spread from the Gulf Coast to the Rocky Mountains several times a week. He’d be glad to get settled in Denver at last.
“Man, I can’t take much more of this,” he said, shaking his head and stifling another yawn. “If this is what it feels like to be eighty, I’d rather go out in a blaze of glory at thirty-one.”
Anton snorted. “If you’re what blazing looks like, remind me not to light a match.”
Doug rolled his eyes. “What? You’d rather sit behind your desk than burn up the street?”
“No, dude.” Anton leaned back and squared an ankle over the opposite knee. “I’d rather get out of here by seven and take my butt home to Lauren.”
Dragging both hands down his face, Doug grunted. “Damn marital bliss. I remember when I wasn’t the only one around here ordering in pizza and chicken teriyaki. We got a hell of a lot of work done after-hours back then.”
“I still do. It’s just business I don’t want to be taking care of up here. Especially with you for an audience.”
“Your discretion is much appreciated.” Ah, but it felt good to be able to smirk. “I don’t think I could take it, seeing you snowed under by a honey-do list.”
“Oh, yeah. Funny,” Anton said, flipping him off.
“Hey,” Doug said with a slow-rolling shrug and a grin. “I just call ’em like I see ’em.”
“Then you need to clean the dollar signs out of your eyes, because work is making you blind.”
“And here I thought it was all that stroking I’ve been doing on the road.”
“Man, you need help. Hell, you need a woman, at the very least.”
Doug scooted forward to sit on the sofa’s edge, knees spread wide, elbows braced on his thighs. “No woman. Women. Plural. One woman means complications, expectations. And honey-do lists.”
This time it was Anton who smirked. “One woman also makes for a much warmer bed.”
“Except when you’re sleeping on the couch.”
“Whoever’s giving you advice about women is charging way too much.” Anton grunted. “You don’t know jack about what you’re saying.”
“Maybe not. But I know more than jack about what I’m seeing. Especially on the soccer field. You guys who’ve shacked up or gotten your butts married? You suck. Leo can’t defend a goal worth a crap anymore.” Doug liked his life fine just the way it was. He had no plans to put his nuts on the line to be snipped.
Anton didn’t even bother with a comeback. “Speaking of soccer, are you planning to make the scrimmage Sunday night? What with you being eighty and all?”
“Nah. I’m having dinner with Kinsey.” Slumping into the cushions again, Doug grinned and waggled both brows. “She’s cooking.”
Anton did that waiting thing again. Then that smirking thing. “You know Lauren will kick your butt back to the Rockies if you hurt that girl.”
“Screw you, Neville. It’s just dinner.” Though Doug almost had trouble convincing himself that Kinsey didn’t have more on her mind. When he’d picked up his voice mail on the way to the airport earlier today, he’d been surprised to hear her message.
And even more surprised at the invitation.
Her tone and the words she’d chosen made him think she wasn’t just wanting to put food in his stomach. He couldn’t help but remember that breakfast-time kiss they’d shared while vacationing last year on Coconut Caye.
Not to mention the tabletop pole dance he’d watched a very tipsy Kinsey perform, her head thrown back, her blond hair swinging down to the red thong bikini bottom that bared her fantastic ass.
Then there was that night on the veranda when they’d both had too much to drink. A night neither of them had spoken of again. A night he wished he could better recall because he had a feeling he’d forgotten a hell of a lot he needed to know—though the most important part he did remember.
Oh, yeah. He remembered.
He cleared his throat, slumped lower where he sat. “It’s just dinner.”
“You said that already.”
“Well, I’m just making sure you heard me.”
Anton leaned to the side, shifting his weight onto one elbow. “You sure you’re not trying to convince yourself instead?”
“Of what? The fact that Kinsey and I are only friends?” Doug snorted and picked a loose string off the knee of his khaki Dockers. “She knows I don’t want a relationship.”
“Just dinner and…dessert?”
“Dinner.” He shrugged. “Dessert’s up to her.”
“Right. It’s not like you’re on a Kinsey-free diet or anything.”
Doug didn’t say anything because he didn’t know what to say. He liked Kinsey a lot. If he’d been the type to settle down with one woman, she’d be there at the top of his list. Correction. She’d be his list. But he just didn’t see himself ever giving up the freedom that let him live his life without baggage or…honey-do lists.
“Does she know about Denver?” Anton asked.
Doug shook his head. “Dunno. I plan to tell her Sunday night.”
“And then what?”
“What do you mean, and then what? Then I go home and sleep for six hours or so, get up and pack.” That was the routine he’d settled into of late. “I’m flying out again first thing Monday morning.”
Anton narrowed his eyes. “You’re going to have to decide about Reuben buying you out, you know. Especially considering how he bailed you out with Media West this afternoon.
