CHAPTER 7
Week 1 – Monday, September 8
“You gonna eat that?” Slade asked.
“Huh? Oh…no.” I pushed my plate over to him. My food resembled dark splotches of mush in the dim candlelight. He’d chosen a small, quiet restaurant for our first date night since I’d joined him in New York a little more than a week ago. It was almost midnight, but Slade insisted he take me out after his epic debut. Slade introduced himself to the country by completing 21 of 26 passes for 315 yards while adding 12 carries for 84 rushing yards and a third touchdown in a 31-28 win over Detroit. Lara and I screamed, so loudly that Slade now had trouble hearing me at our secluded table in a barely populated restaurant. I’d been reduced to nothing but a hoarse squawk.
A cute older couple with matching gray curls owned the place. They regarded Slade from their position at the corner bar and slapped away a camera phone from a member of one of their waitstaff when he walked by to get a better angle.
“You don’t like it?” he asked me.
“I do. You know steak and potatoes are my favorite. My throat’s a little raw, that’s all.” I pointed to it. “Hurts to swallow.”
I was a rural girl at heart. Previously, I’d suspected Slade thought my homegrown habits were cute, like my proclivity for red meat and my hatred for all things fancy, such as pâté and caviar and decorative butter shapes. Now, I was wondering if he thought it was more unsophisticated than charming.
“I was assured this was the best steak in town,” he said between bites. “And believe me, I looked.”
I tilted my beer, staring at the foamy swirl. “You did?”
“Of course I did.” He set his fork down with a clink against the plate and reached over the white tablecloth. He enveloped my hand with his and stopped me from playing with my pint. “Are you still thinking about that woman?”
I squeezed his hand. “I’m fine.”
“No, Char, you’re not.” He tugged my fingers, forcing my eyes to his. “You don’t have to lie to me.”
“I’m not…” I glanced over to the bar where the older woman had an affectionate smile on her face. She placed her hand on her heart as she watched Slade stroke my fingers. I pulled my hand away. “Not exactly.”
He leaned back with an exhale and scooped more mashed potatoes with his fork. “She broke through security. I had no idea who she was. She somehow snuck in as press. Or maybe she was press; hell if I know. The newscasters neglected to highlight the part where she was jumped by security and peeled off me.”
“I don’t care about that. Honestly.”
“Then what is it?” he asked, setting down his fork. “It’s not your throat that’s clamming you up. Talk to me, Char.”
“It’s…” I found it difficult to form the words. How do I explain that a world he’d worked so hard for, now that it was here, was scaring the shit out of me?
“All right, how about I tell you,” he said. This time he used both hands to clasp mine and hold them steady.
I felt so many eyes on us, from the owners to the waiters to the few patrons dispersed throughout the dining room. We were at a corner table in the darkest part of the restaurant with more candlelight than electricity. The place was small with light piano music coming from speakers behind the bar. In any other life, I’d be comfortable in this unpretentious, charming little steakhouse hidden away in Chelsea. But in this life, I was with a famous quarterback who had a perfect face to go along with his flawless record. The attention he received was astronomical.
“One,” he said, lifting my fork to shove a cherry tomato into my mouth. I frowned as he poked me in the lips until, against my will, I smiled and opened them. “Law school is killing you, and you’re used to annihilating school. Two: I haven’t been around much this summer, and for that I’m sorry.” He squeezed. “This has been rough on you.”
I swallowed the gooey burst of the tomato, rotating my hand so my palm met his.
“You’ve been trying to hide it—all this media stuff, all the crap that’s been written about you—and out of respect for you, I’ve been letting you,” he said.
I pressed my lips together and chewed the loose skin of my lower lip. Emotion was welling up, and I needed to seal it in.
“Whenever you’re embarrassed, you retreat. You hate when people bring it up; you never want to talk about it. It upsets you.” His voice lowered to whisper. “Just like you’re upset now.”
A muffled sound came from me, but I refused to believe it was a sniffle.
“Oh, honey.”
He moved his chair so he was beside me and kissed my forehead. He was heedless of the attention, but I was attuned to it. I heard whispered conversations stop and the scraping of chairs as diners focused their attention on us. I closed my eyes, wanting so badly to push away from him and stay strong and normal but unable to. I needed him.
“I’m putting a stop to this,” he said into my hair.
A teardrop stained the lap of my lavender silk dress, and I blinked back any more from falling.
“I’m not letting them do this to you anymore. You don’t deserve it.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” I said to the floor.
“There damn well is.” He pushed me away from him so he could meet my eyes. “You need to know everything they say, write, print, what the fuck ever, is a blatant, bullshit lie. You’re beautiful. Char, look at me. Come on.”
My gaze skated around for a while, taking in the detailed scarlet wallpaper, the carved wooden embellishments, and the engraved tin ceiling, but landed on his when he touched his fingers to my chin. I hated it when he saw me cry.
“I don’t need you in a dress,” he said, pulling delicately on one of the straps. “Or in lipstick. Or tanned or impeccable or styled. You know what I need?” He stopped, waiting for me to meet his eyes again. When I did, he finished with, “You in sweats and your hair a mess. Your face all rosy because I just made you laugh—or something else.” He waggled his brows, becoming so lecherous a burst of noise came from my throat, kind of like a bark of laughter. It was an embarrassing blare of sound I made only when someone was savvy enough to catch me off guard. Slade made it his goal to produce it regularly.
“See this?” He traced his fingers across my lips. “Your fantastic smile. I need you. I love you, Charlotte Marie Miller.”
Suddenly all the noise and movement behind me seemed insignificant. Here he sat, a man who made me see more of myself than any mirror ever could. “I love you, too, Jason Connor Sladerman.”
I placed my lips on his cheek right where that rogue woman put her magenta-painted lips last night. I claimed it as my own.
“Don’t listen to the white noise,” he said, his blue eyes almost black in the candlelight. The tiny flame coming from the tea light on the table reflected in their depths. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I put my arms around him and kissed him but pulled away just as he started to deepen it. His words meant everything, of course, but he would never rid me of my knee-jerk recoil from all PDA or anything slightly attention-grabbing in public. That was something not even Lara could remove.
He understood, whispering, “Scandalous!” as he dragged his chair back to his side of the table. I glared at him, but my lips betrayed me by lifting up.
“Excuse me, Sir…Ma’am,” the waiter said, his white button-down bright in our dark little den. He bent down and set a woven basket in the middle of our table. “But I saw you could use more bread.”
I wiped the dampness from my cheeks with the heels of my hands and smiled at the waiter before folding back the linen napkin in the basket.
“So tell me about your nemesis,” Slade said. He lifted his water glass to his mouth. “This Hell Hammer. Sounds like he should be out in the field.”
I was about to reply, but I couldn’t stop staring at the breadbasket. My fingers clenched around the napkin at the sight.
Right there, nestled prettily in between the hand-rolled buns, was a beautiful, decorative
butter shape swirled into a rose, talking to me in its elaborate perfection.
You don’t belong here.
SNAPPED: Part 1 Page 10
