“Who can be a stand-up guy?” Carly asks, taking a seat in the chair across from my desk.
“The pain in my side,” I tell her, knowing that she’ll understand exactly who I’m referring to.
“Oh, yeah?” she says, her eyebrows going up. “The hospital trip yesterday?” she asks.
“You knew about that?” I question.
“Yeah, the request came through, I thought you knew we set everything up for it,” she says, looking a little nervous.
“Really?” I ask, looking back to my computer screen.
“Yeah, one of the nurses from the hospital called a few days ago, laid out everything and said that the parents were trying to come up with a way to surprise him to lift his spirits. I talked to Lucas before they flew out and he said it wasn’t a problem. I even sent a bag of things for him to sign and give the kid,” she tells me.
“According to the mom’s email, it was his sixteenth birthday,” I tell her, glancing back at the email. “She sent a dozen or so images, as well, and said they were already up on Tyler’s social media pages and he’d tagged the team’s accounts.”
“We should retweet them,” Carly says, reading my mind.
“You are good,” I tell her, pulling out my phone so I can sign in and do just that.
I easily find the post, seeing that it is already gaining quite a lot of comments and shares. Everyone loving the fact that a player would not only go out of his way to go surprise a kid in the hospital, but to also do it while on a road trip. I share the post, tagging Lucas in it, as well, so that he will hopefully also share it.
“I’ll send him a text suggesting that he share the posts, as well,” Carly states, pulling her own phone out.
“Sure,” I say, hopefully hiding the sudden irritation in my voice that came from out of nowhere. Why I’m irritated that one of my employees would be texting one of our players work-related information is a weird thing to be irritated about. But my mind wanders to what else they could be texting about. I shut that thought down before it can take up too much space in my mind.
I finish up sharing the posts to our social media platforms, then set my phone back down on my desk, turning my full attention back to Carly. “What can I do for you?” I ask.
“I actually didn’t need anything, I was just coming in to see if you wanted to grab lunch today,” she says. I look down at my phone again, seeing that it is, in fact, lunchtime already. This morning was a busy one, apparently.
“I don’t, so what did you have in mind?”
“I was thinking of just heading around the corner to the deli for a wrap or salad,” she says.
“Sounds good to me,” I tell her. I reach into my desk drawer and pull out my wallet. I slip my phone into my back pocket before I follow Carly out of the office.
As soon as we step outside, the heat of the day hits me. The sun feels so good on my skin. I slip my sunglasses off the top of my head and over my eyes to shield them from the brightness. We both must have needed the sun, as we casually walk the block and a half to the little deli where we both end up ordering the daily special, which is a chicken caesar wrap.
“Looks like all their outside seating is full, do you want to head back to the office and sit outside?” I suggest.
“It is scary just how much we think alike.” She chuckles. “I was going to suggest the same thing.”
We walk back to the office. Our team offices are connected to the large stadium, so we have lots of outside access. We find a table that offers sunshine, but not so much we’re blinded by it.
“So,” Carly says between bites of her wrap. “Have you given any more thought into a dating app?”
“Ugh.” I groan and finish the mouth full of food I have. “Those are the worst,” I tell her. “All guys want to do on them is send you dick pics, meet up for a quick fuck, or to catfish you,” I explain, pausing long enough to take a quick drink of my lemonade.
“What’s wrong?” She quirks an eyebrow. “You don’t like looking at random peen? I thought you liked the D?” She smirks.
“Oh, I like me some D, but random pictures of it, no, thank you. That shit isn’t pretty.”
“You know who probably has a pretty dick?” she says, but more as a statement than a question. “Lucas,” she adds before I can answer her, and I almost spit out my lemonade.
“Where did that come from?” I ask her, wiping at my face with a napkin.
“He just has that edge of cockiness to him. Like he knows he’s all that and a bag of chips,” she says, shrugging her shoulders in a “what are you going to do about it, you know I’m right” kind of gesture.
“He’s cocky, that’s for sure. And a pain in my ass,” I add for good measure.
“I bet he could put something in your ass.” She smirks.
“Carly!” I practically screech her name.
“What?” she asks, trying to feign innocence. “You can’t tell me you haven’t thought for just one second what he’d be like in bed. I’m in a happy committed relationship with a man I love deeply, and I’ve still had a thought or two about what he’s packing below the belt and how well he knows how to swing that bat,” she says, giving me a pointed look.
“Fine.” I roll my eyes at her. “I might have had a thought or two about him. He might have made an appearance or two in my thoughts while in
