Free Against the Ropes by Jeanette Murray Page B

you?”
    â€œAnother meal, another question.”
    The answer came so quickly, she knew he hadn’t come up with it on the fly. “If you want another date—”
    â€œYou said it was dinner,” he teased.
    â€œDate,” she repeated firmly, using his own word now, “then why don’t you just ask? Drop the game and let me coach you, then we can keep them separate.”
    â€œNot as fun.”
    â€œWhy does it have to be fun?”
    He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her fingertips. “Fun’s the reason for everything.”
    *   *   *
    FUN is the reason for everything?
    Reagan tossed her keys on the kitchen counter and let her purse slide across it until it hit the microwave. Since her kitchen was the size of a shoebox, that slide was approximately seven inches long. She opened the refrigerator, hoping there was still a bottle of water in there. The door stuck, and it took her three tries to get it open before she could check.
    Stupid landlord. The damn man was supposed to look at that. And the broken window she’d had to board up herself. And the toilet that flushed only when it was in the mood. And the hot water heater that should be more aptly called the whatever-temperature-I-want water heater.
    The place was a hole, no doubt about it. But it was all she could afford, thanks to an entry-level salary and student loan debt that would make a mortgage look like small potatoes.
    And that was exactly why she didn’t want Greg picking her up at her place. He’d either be scared off, or he’d feel sorry for her. That was definitely not what she wanted.
    Toeing off her shoes, she picked them up and walkedthem to the closet, placing them reverently in their shoebox and sliding them out of sight. It was the only way she could justify buying the expensive heels . . . she took excellent care of them and expected them to last her years.
    Her clothing she dealt with a little more recklessly. It landed in a heap somewhere close to but not really by the hamper. Good enough. Slipping into some comfortable sweatpants, she went to her laptop—another post-graduation splurge—and decided to do some digging on Greg Higgs.
    That was totally legit, right? Not only was he someone she needed to know more about for professional reasons, but she was, apparently, dating him.
    Did one date count as “dating?” Maybe. Or maybe not.
    Either way, it wasn’t sketchy. It was just good business, no matter which angle she came at it from.
    Not that it did her any good. She came up empty. His Facebook page was so generic—funny
SNL
skits, memes and posts about sports—that she couldn’t glean much of his personality from it. He either didn’t have a social media profile on any of the other major platforms, or he was so good at his privacy settings, he was all but invisible by regular searching means. From a PR standpoint, that was a pretty good deal. Guys who kept a low social media profile were often the least worrisome. From the dating standpoint . . . dammit. She wanted more information.
    So she went back to the tiny desk she’d found at the local thrift store for fifteen bucks and brought back to her place, found the files of the team members and did exactly what she’d been doing the last few nights.
    She opened Greg’s file and stared at his ID photo, along with the mere trickle of information he’d listed on his form. The exercise was pointless. It wasn’t as if his photo was going to magically start talking, Hogwarts-style, and give her all the answers she sought. No mysteries of the universe lay in that file folder. But it didn’t stop her from looking at it every night and wondering, just a little, if this was for her.
    This job. This area of the country. This man.
    He’d asked her out on a date. He’d charmed her. He’d enticed her. He’d made her laugh. And yet,