by Kendall Ryan
I study my reflection as I swish mouthwash between my cheeks. Messy bun, no makeup, the last freckles of summer sprinkled over my nose and cheeks. It’s a far cry from the perfectly tousled waves and full face of makeup I had on for our bowling date. Still, despite my escalated heart rate, the girl in the mirror looks calm and collected, not at all like there’s a professional football player lounging on her bed. Let’s hope Wes is fooled too.
When I emerge from the bathroom, I find Wes lying on his stomach, chin in hand, flipping through the channels. He looks like a gossipy middle school girl at a sleepover. I imagine him in fuzzy pink bunny slippers, and the thought makes me giggle.
“Something funny about home renovation?” he asks, referring to the do-it-yourself decorating show he’s landed on.
“There’s something funny about you picking out this show out of a hundred channels.” I sit on the bed next to him, the fluffy white comforter giving way with a soft puff of air.
I never would have guessed just a few short weeks ago that I would find myself in the same hotel room, let alone the same bed, as Weston Chase. And yet here we are, just inches apart, both of us clearly trying to act like this is totally normal.
“Shouldn’t you be watching ESPN or something? Studying up like a good football player?” I tease.
Wes shakes his head, pushing himself up so he’s seated cross legged, his knees pushed up against mine. “It’s all Rangers talk. And a lot of it is just bullshit rumors about me and why I left. I don’t want to hear it.”
I nod, thinking about what Dad told me the day before Wes signed, that his ex-fiancée cheated on him with another Ranger. The tabloids seem to be running with that story, although every one of them wants to take it in a different direction. One magazine says there was a pregnancy scandal, another says they were already married and are in the throes of a pricey divorce. I’ve avoided the topic like the plague, but now that he’s opened the door, I guess I might as well ask the source himself.
“If you want to talk, I’m here,” I say. “After all, you asked me about my past relationships, so it’s only fair.” When he doesn’t say anything, I quickly add, “Unless you don’t want to talk about it, which I would totally understand.”
“Nah, it’s cool. It’s not a secret or anything.” Wes shrugs, looking down at his socks again. “I wish some of these dumb gossip columns would be that straightforward with me and just ask for the truth. They’ve got the basic story down, though. My ex-fiancée was sleeping with another player. A linebacker. I walked in on them on the couch of our apartment. I’d gotten out of a press conference earlier than I told her I would, and thought I’d surprise her . . .” He trails off, swallowing a lump in his throat. It’s clearly still an open wound.
Shit. Now I feel bad that I’ve opened this can of worms.
“In your own apartment? God, I’m so sorry, Wes. I can’t even imagine.”
I instinctively reach out and lay my hand on top of his. It’s a risky move, and I know I should pull away, but Wes meets my touch with a sad, soft smile. He rotates his hand so our palms face each other, his thumb lazily tracing the lines of my palm.
“Let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about you. You’re way more interesting than me.”
I throw my head back with a laugh, which brings back that familiar twinge in my back, making me grimace. Too much time spent hunched over my desk this week.
“You okay?” Wes asks, his hand freezing in mine.
“No, it’s not you. It’s my back. It’s been killing me.”
Wes furrows his brow, releasing my hand to reach for the phone in his sweatpants pocket. “Do you want me to text the team masseuse? I’m sure she can fit you in.”
A giggle escapes from the back of my throat. “Do you think I can pass as a linebacker? Because I think that’s a players-only perk.”
“Oh, come on.” He playfully nudges my knee with his, and I try to act unaffected by his touch. “I’m sure they’d make an exception for the head coach’s daughter.”
“No way,” I say seriously, my joking tone gone. “I never, ever use that to my advantage. Back pain or no back pain.” I grimace again as I press my thumb into the center of the knot in my neck. A massage really would help, but I’m far too stubborn to work my connections to get ahead.
“Fine.” Wes smirks, his eyes narrowing. He’s spotted a challenge. “Then let me do it.”
I know I should protest. If Wes gets his hands on me, I know I’ll be done for, totally unable to hold back from him any longer, but the twinge in my back is making a pretty good argument. If it hurts this much for the game tomorrow, I’ll be completely useless. Obviously, the best thing I can do from a work standpoint is let Weston Chase rub my back. Right?
“Fine.” I surrender, situating myself so my back is facing him. “But just for a few minutes. And then I’ve gotta go to bed.”
Without another word, Wes begins working his hands up and down my back through my oversized shirt. He finds every knot without any guidance, kneading each one with dexterous thumbs.
Holy shit, he’s good. I thought the pedicure was nice, but this is a whole new level of heavenly. His thumbs trace the edges of my shoulder blades, and even through the worn fabric of my shirt, it’s enough to make my toes curl.
“Let’s get rid of this.” Wes tugs gently at my shirt. “It’ll make things easier.”
I turn my head and shoot him a knowing don’t go there look.
“It’s in the way!” he says defensively. Like I’m supposed to believe he has no other intentions. “And I won’t look, I promise.” He smirks, then adds, “Anyway, I’ve seen it all before,” which earns him a slap on the shoulder.
“All right, all right,” he says. “Fine. Over the shirt, it is.”
He turns me back around, returning to his task. All those years of gripping the laces of a football have done him a few favors. Those fingers know exactly how to hold me.
I feel his breath against the back of my neck as he leans into an especially tight muscle. A low hum of satisfaction escapes my lips as his steady, sure hands work down my back and find their grip on my hips.
Shit. I can’t help but give in to those hands. He’s got a hold on me in more ways than one. I feel my shoulders relax into him as he pulls me closer, tilting me back, reclining me into his lap so my chin is lifted toward his.
Wes watches me, probably waiting for me to stop this. I don’t.
Then he presses his mouth against mine.
Holy shit. This isn’t the man I kissed ten years ago.
This man is more certain, tilting my chin to whatever angle suits him best as his lips mold themselves to mine. He still remembers the way I like to be kissed, gently at first, then more deeply. Against my better judgment, I let my hand float up to his cheek, brushing my fingertips across his stubble as his tongue flirts with mine.
Tugging oh-so-gently at my lower lip with his teeth, he pulls away just far enough to get a good look at me, his calloused fingers tracing the outline of my jaw. I know I’m a mess of bed head and under-eye circles, but he gazes down at me like I’m a masterpiece, and I can’t help but feel beautiful. I wish this moment would never end, that we could stay frozen here and forget about reality, about our messy past.
“What happened to us?” he whispers, twirling a strand of my hair that has escaped from my messy bun before tucking it behind my ear. “We really had something. Why did we lose it?”
My heart sinks to the bottom of my stomach. Welcome back to reality, Jane. It’s almost curfew the night before a big game. Are we really going to have this conversation now?
I toy with the idea of telling him I don’t know what happened, or pretending that it was too long ago for me to remember the details. Maybe I could wave off his question and coax him into kissing me again. It would be better that way. Safer. But it wouldn’t be fair. And if he’s brave enough to be honest with me about his ex-fiancée, the least I can do is muster up the courage to tell him the
truth.
“Are you sure you want to know?” I ask, giving him one last out. I don’t want him to be distracted on the field tomorrow.
“I need to know.”
Shit. I shimmy loose from Wes’s arms, unfolding myself from him as I turn so we’re sitting knee to knee.
“It’s more complicated than you think, Wes,” I say softly, picking at a loose thread on my T-shirt to avoid making eye contact. “And I don’t want to throw you off before the game. Let’s just go to bed, talk about it tomorrow.”
Wes cups my chin, tilting it up until my eyes meet his. His gaze is paralyzing. How could I say no to him?
“Jane. Whatever it is, you can tell me. I need to know.”
Easy for him to say. He’s not the one with shaky hands and a quivering lower lip. He’s not the one who has to say it out loud.
My breathing stutters. There’s no easy way to say this, no smooth path through the truth. Might as well just blurt it out, get it over with.
“Wes, I . . . I was pregnant.”
The silence that follows is deafening, those three words hovering in the space between us. There. I said it. The truth I’ve been hanging on to for the last decade. Now the secret isn’t just mine to hold anymore. It’s both terrifying and exhilarating.
“You . . . you were pregnant?”
Tears threaten to roll down my cheeks, so I squeeze my eyes tight, barricading them in for a few moments longer as I give Wes a tiny nod.
“With my baby?”
Of course, you dipshit. I nod again.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Jane?” His tone is stern, almost angry.
But if it’s an explanation he wants, it’s an explanation he’ll get. The words come tumbling out like marbles, and once I start, I can’t stop.
“I tried to tell you. I called you as soon as I found out, but you had some big football party you were going to. You kept ignoring my calls, sending me these stupid short texts that you couldn’t talk. Don’t you remember?”
I give him a chance to recall, to carry on the story from his point of view, but he just gives me a halfhearted shrug, his gaze downcast. He really doesn’t remember this at all. Part of me is envious, wishing I could forget too.
“When you finally picked up, I was practically begging you to drive home that weekend, telling you we needed to talk,” I say. “You didn’t have a game, just football parties and dumb stuff like that. I told you I needed you here, needed you home. And I’ll never forget, you said, ‘I’ve got to focus on football. Maybe in a couple of weeks.’ And you hung up. That’s when I knew. I saw your future, and I saw that I didn’t fit into it, that you wouldn’t sacrifice your plans for me, for our baby. Football would always come first. That’s why I broke things off.”
And he didn’t even fight for me.
I take a long, slow breath, filling my completely emptied lungs. I’m waiting for him to say something, anything, even just a nod, but for what feels like forever, Wes remains frozen, the only movement in the room coming from the slight vibration of his clenched jaw.
Finally, he gives me a response. It’s the question I knew he’d ask.
“What happened to my baby, Jane?” His voice is slow and wavering, muffled by his tensed jaw.
“Our baby,” I say, correcting him. The tears come steadily now, streaming down my cheeks, and I don’t try to stop them. “Our baby hardly made it a couple of weeks. I wasn’t even far enough along to tell my parents, to tell anybody. And then I woke up one morning and there was all this blood, and I drove myself to the clinic . . .”
I wipe the tears off my cheeks with the back of my hand, pushing down the memories of the harsh fluorescent lights, the scratchy paper gown, the apologetic look on the doctor’s face when he returned with the news. I can’t give Wes every detail. I’ll fall apart if I do.
“I was so alone, Wes,” I manage to say through sniffles. “I was alone and scared and angry. I was angry with you, angry with my body. I knew I couldn’t tell you, couldn’t tell anyone. I mean, I was barely eighteen. And I’d just lost the love of my life.”
Silence again. But I have nothing more to say. I take a minute to steady my breath before looking over at him. His gaze is glued to the floor, his hands clenched into two white-knuckled fists, a grip so tight he could crush stone in his palms.
“Wes?” I say his name meekly, hoping he’ll at least look at me, but there’s nothing. Only the flare of his nostrils, the harsh sound of his quickening breath.
Is he angry? If anyone has the right to be angry here, it’s me, not him. I’m the one who had to go through hell and back while he was off drinking at some stupid college football party.
“Wes, please say something.” I’m desperate now.
I gave him the explanation he wanted, even though it meant staring down the memories I’ve tried to suppress for so long. And now what? Nothing. Not a word.
Can’t he at least look at me? Anything? Just moments ago, he was holding me in his arms like I was his prized possession. Now, it’s like there’s a wall between us, and I would do anything to knock it down.
Without so much as a glance at me, he swings his legs over the side of the bed and heads for the door.
“Wes, please.” I squeak out the words in one last pathetic attempt, but it’s not enough to keep him here. The only sound he makes is the click of the door closing as he leaves.
My shoulders heave as I release the sob I’ve been holding back, and I let myself collapse into the padded space of the comforter that still holds his shape.
I’m alone. Again. And it almost hurts worse this time, because this time, he knows what he’s leaving.
Chapter Ten
Weston
Disgusted with myself, I wrench my locker open and rip off my jersey. The Cobras annihilated us, twenty-nine to six. Maybe they would have won no matter what, but they sure wouldn’t have stomped us so hard if I’d been able to focus worth a damn.
I couldn’t make sense of anything that was going on. The action that I normally flow through so easily was choppy chaos. I was sloppy. Useless. I haven’t played that badly since high school.
What the fuck happened?
I know exactly what happened. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Jane said last night. It kept banging around and around my head until all I could see was her angry tears, all I could hear was her teenage voice on my phone, cracking as she pleaded . . . as she told me she needed me.
This is the first time the Hawks have taken a loss since I joined the team, so I don’t know how things normally go with them. But the locker room is dead silent, only the clank of lockers and the hiss of showers. Everyone is avoiding each other . . . or maybe just me. Not even Colin has given me so much as a slap on the shoulder.
Well, good. Let them all stay away. Fuck this city and everyone in it, especially me. I want to be alone. I want to suffer in the knowledge that I left Jane out in the cold, all those years ago.
My hand clenches on the locker door. That’s not fair. I had no idea she was pregnant. Never even suspected it. If I’d known, I would have done things totally differently. Right?
Of course I would have.
But a quiet, nasty voice at the back of my mind whispers, Are you sure?
Obviously, I was an immature dipshit back then. I’m mature enough now to see and admit just how immature I used to be. But even as a dumb teenager, I still would have done the right thing and stepped up to the plate. Even though the idea of quitting football makes me feel like throwing myself off a cliff, I would have dropped out of school to go home and help take care of Jane and the baby. Acted like a real man, a real father. Not like mine. Nothing like the man who knocked up my mom and then ran off to God knows where, abandoned his wife and child . . .
Or maybe there’s a piece of him inside you after all.
I slam my locker shut and stalk off to the showers. I need to stop thinking. My body protests as I scrub off the sweat and dirt and failure. I’m a mess of sore muscle
s and bruises after taking tackles from what felt like every single Cobra on the field, but I’m too pissed off to really feel the pain.
“Well, that sure was a shit show, wasn’t it?” Colin says from the stall next to me.
I can’t muster more than an irritable grunt. The guy on my other side edges away slightly. I probably look about two seconds away from murder.
I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m so fucking mad at Jane right now, I can feel it deep in my bones. She just cut our relationship off at the knees back then, without telling me what was really going on.
How could she hide something so huge from me? How can she blame me for not helping her when I didn’t even know she needed help?
“I’m a trustworthy guy, right?” I ask abruptly.
“What?” Colin sounds baffled. “Where’s this coming from?”
Crap. How do I explain without getting into details? I choose my next words carefully.
“Somebody I knew in college said sh—said they once had a problem. A really big one. But I had no idea they were dealing with it until they got upset at me for doing nothing.”
“Well, did they tell you about it?”
“I just said I had no idea what was going on with them.”
“That doesn’t mean they didn’t tell you.”
“What?” I’m worn out and starting to regret speaking up at all.
“You can get really wrapped up in things. Which is great for the team, but sometimes you go a little nuts. Especially if we’re talking about when we were in college, seems like you were always preoccupied back then. It was like you couldn’t see anything but football.”
“And Jane?”
Colin makes an uncertain eh noise. “To be honest, dude, I didn’t even know you had a girlfriend until our first semester was almost over.”
My hands pause in lathering my hair. I talked that little about Jane? I spent that little time with her?
No way. She was my first love. The center of my world.
But did I act like it?
