Anyone can see that Leo has Gray’s eyes. Down to the exact shade of blue. But I don’t argue. “How’s the business?” I ask instead. My mom owns a chain of bakeries. Ivy was supposed to go into partnership with her but chose to be an agent like our dad instead.
I don’t know who was more shocked by that—Mom, Dad, or me. Ivy hated how Dad’s business pulled him away from our family almost as much as I did. Yet here we are, Ivy as an agent and, hell, me falling for a football player.
As my mom talks about her shops, the image of Dex’s grin—so rare but so gorgeous, framed by his lush, dark beard—pops into my mind. My palms tingle with the need to run over it, to smooth over the massive swell of his hard, hot chest.
I swallow and focus on Mom. She’s telling me about a yeast delivery gone bad, her voice breathy with exasperation, and I blink hard. I miss her. I miss Dex. I miss everyone.
I clutch my phone, feeling lost and abandoned, which is ridiculous. No one has left me behind. I’m here because it’s where I chose to be. This is life. Like some messed-up game of Boggle, it shakes us all up, and we land where we fall.
This isn’t even close to the first time I’ve felt this way. But usually I’m able to distract myself with friends and parties and laughter. Only I can’t find it in me to laugh anymore. And I wonder if this is the only way life can be. Because I want some fucking control back.
Chapter Nineteen
Dex
“Look, it’s Sinatra!” Delgado, my fellow lineman, shouts when I walk into the locker room.
I’m greeted with a rousing chorus of “Gold on the Ceiling,” all of it off-key and loud. I’d been informed by a cackling Gray that video of my karaoke performance had gone viral. If that hadn’t been enough, the ESPN highlight, complete with accompanying jokes, made it clear I’d get my fair share of shit come Monday morning.
“Yeah, yeah,” I wave an idle hand. “Laugh it up, fuzzballs.”
Sampson, a nose tackle, makes an attempt to roar like Chewbacca but ends up choking, which cracks the guys up even more.
Grinning, I sit down and kick off my shoes. Finn Mannus, my QB, saunters over, a smile wide on his face. He gives my shoulder a hearty slap. “So, Dexter, have a good week off?”
“Say what you’re gonna say, Manny, and fuck off,” I tell him lightly.
He’s still grinning at me like a smug fuck. “I must say, I enjoy seeing you hang your balls out, Dex. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Pretty sure there’s a lot you don’t know about me.” I’ve stripped down to get in my gear when I catch his eye. He’s no longer smug but serious.
“That’s kind of the point,” he says. “You’re my center.”
His words give me pause. I like Finn. He’s a rookie, which especially sucks for him because he has to carry the team without the freedom to ease into his job. But he’s also a good quarterback, and it’s my job to protect him. But I don’t know him like I know Drew. I haven’t taken the time. Guilt tilts in my belly.
“Come out for a beer with me later,” I suggest. “And I’ll tell you all about my wild week.”
He looks at me with those famous baby blues that have women all over America sighing and throwing their panties in his direction. Doesn’t do anything for me, but I’m comfortable enough in my manhood to see what chicks dig about him. I guess I’m doomed to always cover pretty boys.
“Yeah,” he says. “Sounds good.” He moves to go but then halts. “Hell. We’ve got that photo shoot at four.”
A scowl works across his face, and now I’m the one who’s laughing. “Ah, the charity calendar. Thought that would be right up your alley, GQ.”
Apparently not, if his disgusted look is anything to go by. “Charity, yes. I’d just rather do it talking to a bunch of kids or something, not offering my ass up like a side of beef.”
“Aw, Manny,” says Sampson, walking past, “but it’s such a big ass. Almost as big as your head.” With that, he snaps a towel at said ass and takes off as Mannus lunges for him.
“Keep running, dickhead,” Mannus calls.
I suit up, more than happy for the attention to slide off of me and back to Mannus, where it belongs. Only that isn’t the case. For the rest of practice, guys serenade me. On the sidelines, when I’m gulping down Gatorade and stretching out my burning quads, Dean Calloway, the offensive line coach stands beside me, his gaze on the other players, but his mouth twitching.
“Guess I know who’ll be the lead in our annual team musical, Dexter.”
“Didn’t know we had a musical, Coach.” I toss my empty bottle into the trash.
He turns to me. “Maybe we should start one now.” Giving me a slap on the back, he ambles off with a, “Good work, Dex.”
I watch him go, and it occurs to me that although I’ve played for this team for going on two years, I haven’t really engaged. It’s too easy for me to hide away from the world. But laughing with my team, not taking shit too seriously, it feels good.
I could be happy, genuinely happy. There’s only one thing missing, and she’s over a thousand miles away.
* * *
Fiona
I’m headed out for drinks when Dex calls. Which has me grinning even before I answer the phone. “Hey.”
“Hey, Cherry.” His deep voice gives me a little thrill. Every single time. “What you up to?”
“Going out for drinks with Anna.” I dart across 5th and weave past a slow-strolling tourist family.
“Drew’s Anna?” Dex asks in obvious surprise.
“Yep. We’ve gotten to know each other over the years. Gray always invites her and Drew to spend Christmas with us.”
Drew lost both his parents when he was in high school, and Gray lost his mother to cancer around the same time. Gray has made it a priority never to let Drew go a holiday without family. “Family” being him, and now Ivy and me.
“Right, I forgot about that. Kind of kicking myself for going home to my parents’ instead of to Gray’s Christmas party last year,” Dex says with a wry laugh.
Because he’d been invited too. Every year.
“You were being a good son,” I say.
“I was avoiding the temptation of you,” he answers.
It makes me stumble. Frowning, I quicken my step. “Why did you avoid me?”
He sighs, and I can imagine him rubbing a hand along his beard the way he does when he doesn’t want to admit something. “Well, last year you were still in college, and I was a rookie in the NFL. There was absolutely no hope of us ever seeing each other. And, besides, you were Gray’s baby sister-in-law.”
“I’m still that. Although I object to the term baby.”
“Fine, younger sister.” There’s a smile in his voice before his tone goes serious. “I asked him, you know. If he objected to me making a play for you.”
“What?” I practically shriek.
“He’s one of my best friends, Fi. It’s man code. And you don’t mess with the code.”
“And what if he’d said no?” The idea of Gray lording over my sex life does not sit well with me.
“Then I’d have laid out a perfectly logical and irrefutable argument for him to change his mind,” Dex says. “Or I’d have pounded on him until he said uncle.”
I laugh. “So much for the man code.”
“Punching out an argument is an accepted form of conflict resolution in the man code. It’s part of our bylaws.”
“And you say women are confusing.” I laugh and hurry along so I’m not late. “So what about you? What are you doing tonight?”
“Same thing. Going out with my QB.”
“Finn Mannus?” I give a little sigh. “He’s dreamy.”
Okay, I’m still a little irked by Dex’s archaic “man code” thing with Gray, and payback is a bitch.
Predictably, Dex makes a noise of disdain. “Thought you didn’t follow football.”
“There’s a difference between following the sport and following a hot player,” I tease.<
br />
“Never thought I’d be the jealous type,” he drawls. “But I guess I am because I have the sudden urge to punch the little shit in the face right about now.”
“Don’t do that! You’ll ruin the pretty!”
“Fi.” Dex sounds ominous. And pained.
Laughing, I put him out of his misery. “Baby, you know I only have eyes for one guy. And he is way sexier than some skinny quarterback.”
“Yeah?” He’s practically purring now.
All my pleasure points stir. “Yeah.”
I hear him sigh, and his voice lowers. “I want to look at that pic you sent me. I want that so badly my dick hurts. But I know if I do, it’ll hurt more. I can’t beat off to thoughts of you anymore, Fi.”
My breath hitches. “Why?”
“I’ve had the real thing. Imagination no longer cuts it.”
“Have you… You used to think of me when you touched yourself?”
I swear I hear him swallow down a groan. “You know I did.”
“We could…” I sidestep a woman running toward the subway. “We could talk through it.”
Another groan from Dex. “No,” he says. “It’ll kill me, Cherry. Not being able to touch you.”
“I can touch myself. Pretend it’s you.” I don’t know why I’m pushing this. I’m in the middle of Manhattan and can’t do a thing. But teasing Dex is fast becoming one of my favorite things. Only because I know he likes it. Even more, he needs it. Dex is too closed off. Which wouldn’t really matter, but I’ve seen that spark of life in him that’s aching to come out and play.
I can hear it now when he gives me a dark chuckle. “Babe, the thought of you touching yourself is even worse. That’s something I need to see, not hear.”
“We could Skype.”
“Fi.”
“Ethan.”
The smile in his voice remains, but he sounds tight. “I don’t have smooth words. I’d fuck it up by saying the wrong thing. You don’t need to hear how today I thought of backing you into a quiet corner of my locker room so I could shove my hand up your skirt and fuck you with my fingers, knowing my guys walked around a few feet away. I’d tell you to be nice and quiet while I did it, not make a sound, even though you were dying to.
“Of how I’d pinch one of your perky little pink nipples with my other hand. Nice and firm the way you like it.”
I’ve slowed to a complete stop, my skin on fire, my breath short and rasping, as the world passes me by. Jesus. My nipple throbs as if he were here now, tweaking it with a rough touch; my sex aches, the ghost of Dex’s thick, long fingers pumping into it.
I clear my throat. “I think you got the talking down pat, Big Guy.”
He pauses and takes an audible breath. “I never got to taste you, Fi. I regret that. I have no idea what a pussy tastes like, and all I can think about is yours. God, I want to spread you wide and take my time, savor every inch, see if your flavor changes when you come.”
“Ethan,” my voice cracks.
“See? It’s too much, isn’t it?”
Somehow I manage to laugh. “Any more and I’m going to spontaneously combust right here on Fifth Avenue.”
“Yeah?” He sounds surprised. Poor, deluded, sexy center.
“I think you’re right,” I say, forcing myself to walk again. “No more sex talk. It’s killing me too.”
A sad sort of half-chuckle rumbles through my phone. “I know. So…” His voice strains as if he’s reaching for lightness. “Tell me something else to take my mind out from under your skirt. How’s work?”
Yeah, right there is an immediate buzz kill.
Fuck, my throat hurts again. I want to tell him everything, right down to the bone-deep agony I feel in failing once again. But I don’t want him to see that side of me. Flighty Fi who can’t keep her shit together. I can’t stand the thought of being diminished in his eyes.
“It’s fine.”
He’s silent for a moment, and for the first time, I’m grateful for the physical distance between us. He can’t see my face.
“I thought you had to leave because of a work issue,” he says carefully.
Great. Either I’m lying about work or I lied about why I left him. Silently cursing, I grind my teeth and search for an answer. “It’s all settled. Not as big a deal as I’d thought.”
“Well,” he says. “That’s good.”
He doesn’t sound like he buys my story. God, I’m fucking up already, building this house-of-cards relationship on a shifty set of lies. But I can’t tell him. I can’t. I’ll start crying here and now.
“I’m at the bar,” I tell him with false levity. “Call you later?”
“Always, Cherry,” he says softly. I hear him take a breath. “Fi?”
My heart pounds as I grip the phone like a life line. “Yeah?”
“Just know I’m with you. Even when I’m far away, I’m with you.”
It’s all I can do not to sob. I stand on the corner of 5th and 25th, the world flowing by me like rippling water, and feel such loneliness I have to hug myself around my middle. “Thank you, Ethan.”
I hang up then, because I can’t say anything more without breaking my heart wide open.
Chapter Twenty
Fiona
Anna and I end up not drinking but buying sandwiches at Eataly and claiming a table in the Flatiron Plaza, the little pedestrian triangle of concrete between Broadway and 5th. The weather is gorgeous in the way of New York in the fall—crisp breezes cutting through sun-warmed air.
I don’t talk about my job issues. I’d rather enjoy the evening than ruin my appetite.
“So, Dex?” Anna grins before taking a sip of her latte.
I don’t know if she found out from Ivy, or if Gray blabbed to Drew—though my money is on Gray. Regardless, I can’t help but grin back. “Yeah. Dex.”
I hold in a dreamy sigh, because that would be overkill. But Anna’s too quick. My satisfaction doesn’t escape her notice.
“That good, eh?” Her cheeks plump, and the breeze sends her red curls spiraling around her head.
“Let’s just say fauxgasms are unnecessary.”
“Fauxgasms?” Anna asks with a laugh.
“Fake orgasms.” I give her a look. “God, please don’t tell me you’ve never had to fake it. I think I’ll die of envy.”
My sex life hasn’t been horrible or anything, but college boys, by and large, are pretty much pump and dump, lather, rinse, repeat.
Dex had been a virgin, and yet he’d put his entire body and soul into the act. I’d felt cherished and my body worshiped. Never mind that Dex is so freaking sexy, all he has to do is look at me and I’m a hot mess.
Anna swallows a bite before shaking her head. “Of course I’ve faked it. Never with Drew, though.”
I roll my eyes at that but laugh. “I hope not since you’re marrying the guy.”
“Oh, he leaves me quite satisfied. Quite.”
We give each other an immature fist bump and dissolve into laughter.
“I have to admit, I’m surprised,” Anna says.
“Why? Because of the athlete thing?”
“Well, partially that. I mean you’ve shrugged off every friend of Drew’s who’s hit on you.”
More than a few guys on Drew’s team have made passes whenever I hang out with him and Anna. And, yes, my refusals were mainly because they were football players. But some were also total meatheads.
“But really,” Anna continues, “it’s more that Dex is so quiet. I mean, I love the guy, but you’re not exactly shy.”
I have to laugh. “He’s not quiet when we’re together. Anyway, I’m pretty sure I’d kill someone who was exactly like me. Imagine all the noise, noise, noise!” I fake a shudder.
Anna gives me an obligatory smile, but then it fades. “So why do you look so sad, Fi?”
Like that I wilt. I could tell her about my job. But that’s not what’s hurting my heart at the moment. “Because I don’t think I’m cut out for a lon
g-distance relationship. I miss him already.” I don’t just miss him. I need him. Here. Now. “I’ve got all this fluttery anticipation and nowhere for it to go until we see each other again. Won’t it get worse the more attached I get?”
Reaching out, she takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. “Shit, I wish I was better at this. I don’t know. I fucking hate it when Drew is gone. But what can you do? We love who we love.”
“I thought falling for someone was supposed to be awesome.”
“Ha.” Anna leans back, her eyes bright. “Best and worst time of your life, kid.”
* * *
Dex
The photographer’s studio is in New Orleans’ Warehouse District. We’ve been scheduled in small groups. I’m here with Rolondo, Finn, and Jake Ryder, our other wide out.
Aside from Ryder, none of us are particularly comfortable with the idea of modeling for the next few hours, but it’s for charity, so we’ll make due.
No one is here to greet us, which is odd. When ringing the bell fails to get a reply, Finn pounds on the metal door with the side of his fist.
“We get the time wrong?” he asks over his shoulder.
“Nope. In fact, we’re a few minutes late.”
“The photographer had better not be having some sort of artistic huff.”
Finn is the one who appears to be five seconds away from a huff, but I shrug. “Maybe he’s on the can or something.”
“Great,” drawls Ryder. “We’ve gotta wait for a shit? That could be half an hour at least.”
Rolondo bends his head back and looks at the ceiling. “Lord, these boys keep leaving themselves wide open for a smack down. It’s almost too easy.”
Ryder smirks, then reaches past me and slams on the door as well. “Dude! Nip it off and open up!”
“Jesus,” I say, my ears ringing. “Have some class.”
He just grins.
The door whips open, ending the conversation. A tall young woman with long, straight hair a saturated shade of magenta gives us a dark scowl that takes our measure. I’m guessing we’re found lacking.