Looking to Score - CoraLee June, Carrie Gray Page 0,69
a lot of deliberate online stalking, I found three news outlets wanting exclusives. My hope was that they wouldn’t know who I was since Dad expertly buried the footage from when I decided to publicly, and nakedly, humiliate myself. Threatening to sue was apparently good enough to keep it out of the news.
I was starting to feel semi-confident that this weekend wouldn’t be a complete shit show. I could handle this. It was time to stop feeling sorry for myself and ignoring my feelings. Someone knocked on the door, and I got up to open it, half expecting to find Shelby on the other side. She was always forgetting her keys. But to my surprise, it wasn’t Shelby. No, it was Oakley, dressed in a fucking killer suit with a bouquet clutched in his palm.
“What’s all this?” I asked.
“We have some celebrating to do. My mother sends these,” he explained, holding out the fist full of flowers. “Not to brag, but I arranged them. Also, she wants to meet you.”
Just this morning, he didn’t want to label us, now I was meeting his mother? Talk about emotional whiplash. “Wait, what are we celebrating?”
Oakley walked inside and started shuffling around my kitchen. “Where do you keep the vases? We need to put these in water.”
“Oakley...what are we celebrating?”
He spun around to look at me. “I’ve been turning down scouts for years. But today, I told Coach I wanted to work hard this season and that I’d be open to meetings. I don’t know if they’ll even want me—”
“Of course they’ll want you,” I reassured. I’d seen the evidence of it in his email. Plenty of agents, coaches, and scouts had reached out, but he strictly instructed me to ignore them. “What changed?”
“I don’t want to work in a flower shop,” he replied. “That was always my sister’s dream, and my mother has her empire handled. She just opened another shop in New York, actually.”
“So what are you saying?” I was excited for him. So much had changed so quickly.
“I’m saying I just want to do things differently. A few big wigs are going to the USC game and want to chat afterward. This could be it.” I let out the breath I was holding. Wow. I didn’t even know what to say. “Now don’t get a big head about this,” he teased.
“Oh, I’m totally taking credit for this.”
“Get dressed, I’m taking you out, Solver.”
I took a few extra minutes getting ready. I had to at least try to look hot; Oakley was in a suit, after all. While I was applying the best smoky eye I could, I thought about the injustice that was men getting ready versus women. It’s really not fair how fucking good men look in a well tailored suit. All they had to do was get dressed and smell nice, and they’re sex gods.
I chose the sexiest dress I owned. Out of habit, I started looking for my Spanx. It took me a good three minutes of searching to remember that I didn’t own them anymore. It was so weird. I used them like a shield of armor. I shimmied into my favorite little black dress. The dress hugged my hips and stopped mid-thigh. The plunging neckline was held up by straps that crossed in the back, and it had just enough sequins to be sexy but not enough to cross the line into trashy. This dress made me feel powerful and confident.
I slipped on some black heels and small diamond stud earrings and headed out to the living room. Oakley was watching the enormous sixty inch TV when I came in. I waited patiently for him to turn around and drink in the sight of me, but his eyes were glued to the screen. He must not have heard me. Seriously? Didn’t he know I was making an entrance here? I cleared my throat dramatically and waited for his reaction.
He stood up and drank me in. His eyes worked their way up from my heels to the soft curls I had put in my hair. He lingered on the spot where my hemline stopped on my thigh and again at my breasts where the neckline dipped.
“You look fucking incredible,” he told me in a low raspy voice. “Maybe we can just stay in tonight. I’m not sure I want to share you with the rest of the world, after all.”
“Not a chance, cowboy. I got all dolled up, you’re taking me out,” I said and then