Dream Maker (Dream Team 1)

He made a move?

When did he make a move?

“You made a move?” I asked.

Axl sighed.

He’d made a move.

And she blew him off.

Ouch.

This was disappointing, and sucky for Axl, but it really wasn’t a surprise.

“How about I prime her for you to make a second move?” I suggested.

“Evie, you and Lots are just gonna have to chill.”

Lottie might not be there coaxing me to buy sex shoes.

But I knew she was riding the high of her success with me and Mag, so she’d been on all the guys to step shit up.

I thought about what Boone had said, and asked, “Does this mean you’re gonna find someone else?”

“Babe, I’m not gonna go monk, waiting for a woman I want who doesn’t want me.”

Okay, good.

He wanted her.

Because of that, I leaned closer, took a chance and probably broke the girlfriend code (but for a good cause, and that cause was partly for the good of my girlfriend, as well as my guy friend).

I then whispered, “I think she wants you too.”

“Evie—”

I heard my phone ring upon cutting him off, saying, “Axl.”

He got closer too.

And he did this to say, “Think about it. Lots put you and Mag together, you met him, you were interested. He wasn’t ready to move on from Nikki, had other things going on with his life, and made it clear he had no intention of going there. Would you be all in to put yourself out there?”

The very thought of that made me shiver.

Dammit, I could no longer debate this either, because he was again right.

And now I was all worried about him because he was hanging with us, Hattie was right there, and even though she was into him like he was into her, if he’d made a move, and she’d rebuffed him, this could not be super fun for him to be close to her.

But, and I might have been wrong, she was crazy shy, and he was a commando, so really, it was up to him to pull his finger out.

I decided not to carry on with this (at that time). I’d get back into it with him later.

Instead, I gave him a look, turned, huffed off toward my still-ringing phone, and made a mental note that huffing off in heels seemed way more dramatic than doing it in Rothy’s (or the like).

I pulled my phone out of the bag, saw it said DANNY on the screen (obviously, I’d changed his name in my phone, though I’d managed to refrain from changing it to MY HOT GUY COMMANDO BOYFRIEND), and all at once, I plopped down, leaned forward to unstrap my shoes and took the call.

This was unwise.

It meant I lost my balance and nearly fell flat on my face.

But thankfully I shifted my weight fast enough to my ass that didn’t happen.

“Hey,” I greeted once I was safely seated.

“Hey,” he replied. “What’s up?”

I felt a gooey feeling in my stomach because he did this. He called just to touch base. Connect while we were apart. Find out what was going on. How I was doing. Discuss dinner options. Reaffirm that he did not want me to move his plates to the cupboard closer to the dishwasher (which was insane, you just took them out of the machine, reached up, and boom, plate put away—he had spices and oils there, which was madness—he said he prepared food in that zone, so he needed the spices and oils to be handy, and although this seemed logical, he was still wrong).

“We’re at the Nordstrom shoe department,” I told him.

“Is Elvira there with you?”

Although I’d heard this name, and knew she worked with the team, I did not know this woman, so I could not fathom why Mag was asking this question.

I still answered, “No.”

“I think there’s a chair there, upholstered in purple, that’s reserved for her.”

Ah.

So Elvira liked shoes.

Apparently, a lot.

“And that’s the chair she was sitting in when her husband proposed to her,” Mag carried on.

Ah.

So Elvira might like shoes but a trip to Nordstrom for her was a sentimental journey.

I grinned and slid the first shoe off. “It’s just the girls and Axl and I.”

“This means Axl didn’t tell her where you were.”

I kept grinning but said nothing.

“It also means Axl probably wants to shoot me right now,” he went on.

I continued grinning and did not attempt to deny this truth as I went after the buckle on the other shoe and asked, “What are you up to?”

“Fighting the urge to find Mo and hold him at gunpoint to tell me where they disappeared Snag so I can find that asshole and strangle him, because I got at least another week of being benched because of this shoulder and sitting around on my ass is driving me up the wall.”

I sat still, one hand with the phone to my ear, bent over, the fingers of the other hand on the strap of my shoe, and I said nothing.