Almost as if I’d conjured him, my phone lit up on the nightstand next to me and I peered down at the screen.
Can’t stop thinking about the locker room…You?
Oh, hell yes. Even if my Swiss cheese mind lost everything else, that would be iron-clad. I was sure of it.
I found myself smiling like a clown as I read the message, once, twice, three times.
I typed in a yes and as I turned out the light, it was Cal I saw in the darkness.
But it was Renee’s voice I heard, over and over again in my dreams.
16
Cal
“Come on, you wuss. My grandmother can stretch farther than that.”
It was barely seven in the morning, and the Panthers stadium was empty except for us two nutcases. I squinted in the orange sunlight rising over the stadium walls as I looked up at Bee. Her face was scrunched in concentration as she watched my every move. She’s been barking orders at me for the past hour like a five-star general. Half of me wanted to kiss her, and the other half wanted to drop-kick her out of the stadium.
Lucky for her, the part that wanted to kiss her was winning out. I reached hard for my toes, but I’d never been able to touch them, not even when I was one hundred percent.
“This is my limit. Really.”
She wrinkled her nose, then came behind me, her hands pressed on my shoulders, urging me forward another inch. What do you know? My fingertips just grazed my toes.
“See? Stop holding out.”
I grinned at her and flipped her the finger.
I’d always thought girls would get in the way of football. But Bee’d had the opposite effect on me. In the past two weeks, we’d taken our PT sessions to the next level and had been working pretty much every day. Sure, it wasn’t all work. There was a lot of fooling around mixed in there, too. But little by little, my knee fell in line and started getting better, just like she’d said it would. Coach had been stunned at practice the day before, telling me my rehabilitation was nothing short of miraculous.
Our first playoff game was just a day away and, if we lost, it’d be my last game as a Panther. I sure as hell planned to be on the field for it. It was against the first-seed Raiders, so it’d be balls hard, but we’d have to win in order to advance. Two weeks ago, my chances of getting off the bench seemed slim. I’d all but given up on those childhood hopes of playing pro. Even now, I knew the scouts had probably already wiped me from their clipboards, so it’d be an uphill climb.
I should’ve been a lot more stressed than I was, but instead, I was completely zen about it. Bee had a lot to do with it. I’d shared my thoughts with her and she never wavered. She’d told me that undoubtedly, I’d be ready. As if it was ridiculous to think otherwise. Every time I wanted to give up, or call it quits early so I could taste that sweet little body of hers, I had to answer to her. She was one tough son of a bitch.
And sexy as hell.
Breathing deep, I pulled the ankle of my bum leg to my backside in a hamstring stretch. No pain. It felt good, even. Powerful, like the old days.
Today was the ultimate test. I was going to be declared fit to play or not, depending on whether my knee was with me, or against me.
Go big or go home.
We were heading into December, and it was warmer than it had been pretty much all fall. The snow and ice that had come down like a mother early in the season had melted, and the air was back to feeling crisp, but not frigid. I sucked some into my lungs, and with each exhalation, I told myself, You’re ready, you’re ready, you’re ready.
Now or never.
“All right, enough,” Bee said, marching over to the forty-yard line. She stood there in her track pants and oversized sweatshirt, holding her clipboard and twirling a whistle. She called, “Come on. Run it. Toward me.”
I didn’t have to strain to make out her face. The snarl was gone. Now she was smiling encouragingly. She knew as much as I did what was riding on this.
“Ready,” she called.
I dug my heel into the ground and leaned over, touching the turf, getting into starting position.
“Set…Go!”
I’d like to say I surged forward like my ass was fired from a gun. Not quite.
After all, it wouldn’t take much to destroy my dreams. Just one click. One pop. Game over. So I started slow at first, and yeah, Bee’s grandmother probably could’ve paced me. I guess I was half-waiting for my knee to show me who was boss and say, Not so fast, buster…
But it didn’t. After a few strides, a familiar feeling settled inside me. One by one, my muscles woke up, remembering who I was and what I was put on this earth to do. And one by one, every fiber in my body rose to the occasion.
I’ve got this. This didn’t hurt. It felt good. Powerful.
It was pure poetry. My cleats dug into the Astroturf as my breathing naturally synched with my footfalls. In, out. My breath puffed out in front of me in the cold morning air.
And even at that, it didn’t feel like enough. A voice inside me pushed harder. Go faster, Cal. Go, go, go!
Bee must’ve felt it, too. “Come on, Cal! You can go faster than that!” she called to me. “Gun it! Dig deep!”
I narrowed my gaze, focusing hard on her shape downfield. I stretched my stride, quickened my pace. And damn if that knee didn’t fall right into line, working like the finely tuned machine it had been in the pre-injury days. I pumped my arms hard at my sides and blew past the rows of bleachers until they blurred around me. In another second I couldn’t even feel the pounding of my cleats hitting the ground. My legs just took over, propelling me down the field, sending me practically airborne.
Bee’s voice echoed in my head. “Yeah! That’s it!”
Blood pumped hard and hot through my veins, along with a sudden feeling of immortality, a feeling that grew with every stride. Hope you enjoy the view from the bench, Weber.
I only slowed after I cleared the goal-line. I jogged to a stop, then slumped over, panting, my hands on my knees. I expected burning lungs, ragged breathing, dizziness. After all, I hadn’t really pushed myself like that in months. But no, my whole body felt like it was thanking me, like it never wanted to stop again.
Bee squealed and I could hear her footsteps coming from behind me. “How did that feel?”
I straightened and nodded slowly. “Damn good.”
“Eeee!” she shrieked, tossing her clipboard on the turf and throwing her arms around my neck. “So you think you’re ready?”
“Well, it feels that way, but I need confirmation from my PT.” I quirked a smile in her direction. “What does she say?”
She grinned. “I say hell yeah.”
I resisted the urge to pick her up and swing her around, settling instead for a kiss. I felt stronger than ever, but that didn’t mean I had to tempt fate. Her lips were soft and sweet against mine and I groaned, pulling her flush against me. The tingling sensation of sweat cooling in the frigid air and adrenaline coursing through my veins created pure electricity between us. My cock thickened, wanting its own turn at a workout.
“Let’s go back to my apartment,” I murmured. “We should celebrate.”
She nodded dreamily, sending a thrill of excitement through me. But something must’ve brought her crashing back to earth, because she suddenly stuck out her lower lip. “Oh, shit. I forgot. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I promised my parents I’d go over there this afternoon for Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Oh, yeah?”
My mom was in Florida visiting her sister for the holiday, and I hadn’t even given it any thought, but at that moment, I felt a little pang of homesickness. We never had much, but before I was old enough to pitch in with after school jobs, my mom had always made one of those big chickens with the boxed stuffing and we’d sit around and play board games and goof around. Now I was looking at an afternoon of football on the tube and KFC takeout.
“Family bonding time fun around the holidays?” I asked
with a smile, shoving back the melancholy. I should be one hundred percent stoked right now. I was going to play in the big game. Who gave a shit about some turkey day? Or that Bee was going to her family’s house less than an hour away and hadn’t asked me to join her…
“Not really,” she said with a low chuckle. “It basically consists of my mom asking me about my weight and wondering when I’m going to start wearing make-up. Then somewhere between the one o’clock and the four o’clock game, my dad graces us with his presence, half-sloshed, scarfs down his dinner, and then retreats back into his man cave to get fully sloshed. Good times.”
She was still smiling, but her face was cloudier. She hadn’t brought up her dad very much, but every time she did, her voice went bitter. I squeezed her hand. “Well, it beats cafeteria food, right?”
“Yeah, I guess,” she said in a faraway voice, mulling it over. Then she cringed. “Actually, given the choice between rubbery cafeteria chicken and having to listen to my dad rattle on about the glory days, I’d take cafeteria chicken every time.”
I squinted at her. “Come on. It can’t be that bad.”
“Oh, it can be.” She pulled away from me and went to pick up her clipboard. “Trust me.”
I followed her toward the locker room and before I could stop them, the words were out. “You want company?”
She whirled around. “What?”
“You know. Company. As in, me, going with you.”
She scoffed. “You’re serious?” When I nodded, she studied me, as if I just invited myself into a wolf pit at dinnertime. I could see the gears in her head turning. “If you’re thinking meeting my dad will give you some inside knowledge about going pro, believe me, it won’t. He only thinks of himself.”
I frowned. That was the thing about Bee. In the past few weeks, we’d had great times, but I never quite shook the feeling that I had to prove myself to her. That I had to work extra hard to convince her I wasn’t one of those asshole walking egos. I knew she’d come by the feelings honestly enough, and every time I heard more about her dad, I understood it better, but sometimes, it pissed me off.
“I’m going to be alone for Thanksgiving and I’d rather be with you. And I assumed—wrongly, I guess—that if I went to your parents’, it would make for a more pleasant day there for you. But forget I asked.”
Her face flooded with guilt and regret as she reached for my arm. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. Thank you for offering. Really, that’s so…nice.”
She’d said nice, but I couldn’t shake that the word she was actually thinking was, weird. Because meeting the parents is a big step in any relationship. And I hadn’t even thought about that. She was obviously distraught at having to go, and the only thing that had gone through my mind was how to make her feel better about it.
She shot me a dubious look and gnawed on her lower lip. "Umm, maybe it wouldn’t be that bad.”
“So is that a?” I stooped to see her at eye level, so I could search for the verdict in her eyes, since I must have surprised her mute. “Insert answer here.”
She bumped her head with the heel of her hand. “Yes. Sure. I’d love for you to come with me. Really.” She let out a nervous laugh. “I just don’t want you to run screaming from the house or, like, dump me or something when you see how crazy my family is.”
She didn’t look worried, exactly. More like, scared to death. Questions filtered through my mind. Her family couldn’t be that bad, could they?
“Hey, my family is crazy too,” I said, smiling encouragingly. I put my arm around her and opened the locker room door. “I mean, my mom collects bird figurines. Like, thousands of them. You can’t look anywhere in our apartment without seeing one.”
She cocked her head at me dubiously. “That’s interesting,” she said, without much interest.
“Point is, it’ll be fine. I’m totally up for it. I have to go shower and whatnot and I’ll pick you up at your house at what? Noon?”
She nodded absently, her eyes trained on the ground. Two minutes ago, we’d both been ecstatic. Now she looked miserable.
“What?” I asked, giving her a nudge.
She shrugged, then managed a pathetic smile. “I was just thinking. Your mom would be really happy if you were drafted by the Eagles, then.”
I got the feeling that that was far from the only thing she was thinking about, but I nodded anyway.
“Yeah. Or the Ravens. Or the Seahawks. Or the Cardinals. Or the Falcons. Actually, who am I kidding? Any team would totally make her day.”
She was still smiling, but I could see something behind her eyes. Fear.
Shit.
Was me going with her only making the situation worse for her? I kissed her goodbye as she headed back to her house to shower. And then I spent the couple hours kicking myself and hoping this wasn’t a decision I would come to regret.
17
Bee
I stared out the window as we drove and tried to let my mind wander instead of doing what it wanted to do, which was obsess.
Was my mom going to squeeze my cheeks in front of Cal and make that sad little face at all the inches she could pinch? Was my dad going to sit there and humiliate me by talking about how hot some girl on the TV was with my mom sitting four feet away? And, worst of all, was Cal going to smell the coffee and realize that not only was he way out of my league, but that my family was bat-shit crazy to boot, and then walk away?
“At least it's warmer out. Nice for a change,” Cal murmured, taking a hand off the wheel and patting my leg gently.
“Yeah,” I said, forcing a bright smile in return. “Super nice out.”
The tense silence enveloped us again and I reached for the radio. No way I could take it for the next thirty minutes. Before I could flip it on though, he reached out and took my hand.
“Look, Bee, I'm really sorry you're struggling with this, but it's going to be fine. I promise. And all you're doing right now is stressing me out along with you. I already have to meet my girl's parents, and now adding all this to the plate is making me twitchy as fuck.” He flipped on his blinker and made a left turn into what looked like not much more than a path.
“Wh-what are you doing?”
He let out a crack of laughter and squeezed my fingers before releasing me to put both hands back on the wheel and negotiate the sad, sort-of road. “Taking you in the woods to murder you, what do you think?”
“Har, har,” I muttered under my breath. Already, though, I was feeling a little lighter now that we had ceased our descent toward the black hole that was my parents' house and were seemingly off the grid. “Are you going to pull up to a little lake and let us commune with nature...find our center or something like that?” I asked, a smile tugging at my lips now.
“Something like that,” he agreed softly.
Something in the way he said it—maybe it was the husky edge, or maybe it was the way he flicked a glance toward me before turning his gaze back to the trail in front of him—sent a little sizzle through me. “We have to be there no later than one,” I reminded him as his truck churned through the muddy terrain. “If you think it's going to be rough, just watch what happens if we're late and the turkey dries out.”
We pulled up into a thicket of ancient pine trees, so tall, they looked like a sentry of giants watching over the area. Cal slowed the truck to a stop and popped it into park.
He turned off the ignition and cocked his head to one side, his too-blue gaze capturing mine. “You know how we do PT as a way to treat my knee?”
I nodded dumbly, my stomach doing a little flop as he reached out a finger and traced my bottom lip.
“I bet you didn't know that I have some skills in the physical therapy area as well...”
I opened my mouth to tell him I did, indeed, know that since we'd slept together half a dozen times in the past two weeks. But the second I parted my lips, he slipped his thumb inside to test the tender flesh of my inner lip. The urge to nip was too strong
to resist and I closed my teeth over the tip of his thumb. His pupils dilated and his jaw clenched as he leaned in.
“If you’re game, I can see about relieving a little of this stress. What do you say, Bee?”
My throat was stuck together, suddenly dry as the Sahara, as I stared into his handsome face.
Dinner will be served at one, Belinda. The sound of my mother's voice rang in my head and I swallowed hard. But we'll be late, and...
And what? Turkey was the driest of all the meats in the universe anyway, and besides, we'd have plenty of gravy. And it wasn't like getting there on time would matter anyway. It was going to be a shit show whether we got there at one o'clock or two o'clock.
I was about to tell him that when he closed the last of the distance between us and spoke against my mouth, lips brushing against mine with every word. “It's twelve fifteen now. We've got another half hour or so to drive. I don't want to oversell it, but I can make you come twice and still have ten minutes to spare.”
A shudder ran through me as I tried to make my brain do the math, but hell, what did it matter? He had me like whoa already.
I let out a little whimper and dove at him, smashing my lips tighter against his and slinging my arms around his wide shoulders. I didn't care that it was broad daylight, or that some random hiker might find their way into our little clearing. All I cared about was the few minutes of bliss and release Cal could give me.
I was just getting started when he pulled back with a harsh laugh. “If you want me to make good on my promise, it's on you to stay still like a good girl while I work. Got it?”
I nodded wordlessly, heart knocking against my ribs like a door-to-door salesman. He laid one hand on my chest and pressed me back against the passenger’s door before reaching down and releasing the catch on my seatbelt. He hooked one of my legs with his arm and swung it up onto the seat and left the other planted firmly on the floor so that they were spread wide. I'd worn a skirt in honor of the holiday and it had flipped up to my waist during the maneuvering. He apparently approved, because his hungry gaze was locked on my peach underwear as he stared down at me for a long moment.
Score (Skin in the Game Book 1) Page 14
