by Luis, Maria
I blink.
Refocus on the Tom Brady bobblehead thrashing around on my dashboard.
Open my mouth and mutter, “Now’s not the time for a confessional.”
“I thought I was gonna die.”
“Sorry to disappoint, bud, but you’re still kicking.”
And long enough to promise the owner of that truck that you’re going to repay all the damage you just caused.
Abandoning my Dunkin’s in the cupholder, I crack open the passenger door and round the hood of my car. With firm resolution, I keep my eyes rooted to the concrete instead of checking out the probable mutilation of my poor Honda.
I hear a door slam shut, followed by clipped footfalls that are way too heavy to belong to Topher.
Deep breath in. Deep exhale out.
My lungs give a shallow, eff-you pump.
Looks like all the meditation I do every morning isn’t going to help me in a real-world crisis.
Figures.
Hands on my hips, I raise my gaze from my hot-pink sneakers to the massive feet encased in black running shoes. No socks that I can see. I trail my eyes up, over strong calf muscles dusted with dark springs of hair to black mesh shorts clinging to thick, tree-trunk thighs. Up some more, to the familiar red-and-white London High polo I’m also wearing, and oh, boy, but there goes my breakfast.
My stomach churns uneasily, a sick, foreboding sensation tumbling through me.
Fight or flight.
Since my kid just wreaked havoc on this guy’s truck, fight it is.
Recognition spears me like a two-pronged fork, right in the jugular, as I take in that familiar jawline and that equally familiar cleft chin.
The Hulk.
Whose crotch I face-planted on.
Who called me “cute.”
Who I swear, in my drunkenness, I saw waltz into the house next door to mine, late on Friday night. In the three days that have passed since, there have been no U-Haul trucks or other vehicles parked out front for me to inspect.
I gulp, audibly, and finally look all the way up.
Firm lips are flat and unamused as they part to growl, “Is this what you had in mind when you said, ‘See you when I see you?’”
I’m not prepared for what happens next.
Not the way he flings his baseball hat on the hood of his truck.
Nor the way he drags his fingers through thick, inky-black hair.
And most assuredly not the way my pulse kicks into overdrive when my eyes settle on his rugged features and my suspicions are confirmed.
Standing approximately three feet away, looking like a total, pissed-off male, is none other than Dominic DaSilva.
God help me.
5
Dominic
She knows who I am.
Inside the candlelit world of the Golden Fleece, there was no doubt in my mind that the cute, drunk blonde didn’t recognize me. We’d sat side by side with her mouthing off about how much of an asshole Dominic DaSilva was.
Is.
Shit, does it really matter? End of the day, the anonymity gave me an unexpected thrill. Like an adrenaline junkie watching the ground rise up fast, just before the release of the parachute, I’d done nothing to reveal that I was the same “asshole” clutching his leg on the TV.
Had it been uncomfortable to watch the lowest point of my life play out on screen while a bunch of strangers hollered their joy from every corner of the pub?
Yep.
Had I cared, especially once she ditched the prim and proper attitude and loosened up?
Not even a little.
There’s a special circle of hell reserved for people like you.
A visual of her calling me an asshole just like him—me. Just like me—springs to mind, only to be cast aside by the memory of her landing face-first on my dick.
Embarrassment had pinkened her cheeks and sharpened her tongue, and there’d been one heavy, electric moment when I nearly said “screw it” to my mission of staying in my own lane and away from women and dating and relationships.
Because those pink lips of hers had beckoned. Strongly.
Now, standing mere feet away from her, I’m glad for resisting the urge to lean in and discover how she likes to be kissed. Aggressive, with warring tongues and nipping teeth? Or slow and soul-wrenchingly sweet?
Doesn’t matter.
Considering how she’s gaping at me, oblivious is no longer her middle name. She knows exactly who I am.
I shouldn’t have taken off the damn hat.
Too late now.
Her jaw is hanging open and her eyes are the size of saucers.
One slender hand lifts to clutch her shirt collar—the same one I’m wearing—and an ominous feeling slicks through me.
Red-and-white London High polo.
The Wildcat mascot, paired with a football in motion, is printed over her left breast.
My gaze drifts south, over her loose shorts and the neon-pink tennis shoes on her feet. She’s decked out in workout gear. Her blond hair is tugged up into a high ponytail, the tips of which brush her right shoulder. Unlike the other night, her face is completely devoid of makeup.
Though her lips are still the same berry shade that made me think twice about turning her down. Au natural. They’re full and plump and instead of curving up in a smile like she’s excited to see me, they’re shaped in an O.
“Fuck me.”
At her hushed whisper, I jerk my eyes away from her mouth like I’ve been caught with my hand inching toward the proverbial cookie jar. “What did you say?”
Her hand drops away from her shirt to point an accusing finger at me. “No.”
It’s all she says. No. And yet that one syllable rocks my entire world.
Because if she’s here at London High, dressed like that, at seven in the fucking morning on a Monday, there’s only one conclusion to be made here and we both know what it is:
“Levi.”
Blue eyes, the color of San Francisco Bay at sunrise—so deep a shade they almost don’t appear blue at all—blink back at me, her throat working hard with a swallow. “You know my name.”
I rest a hand against the still-warm grill of my Ford 1-50. “I didn’t then.”
We both know what “then” I’m referring to.
“You let me think you were someone else.”
And I enjoyed every second of stepping out of “Dominic DaSilva’s” size sixteen shoes. Enough that I wouldn’t change a single thing about the hour we spent talking at the pub, including the tense moment when we went from strangers to the intimately acquainted.
I’ve spent the last three days picturing her blond head buried in my lap.
Not that I’ll ever admit that out loud.
Grasping my old hat off the truck, I swipe it against the outside of my thigh. Then shoulder past her so I can check out how much damage we’re looking at here. “A slip of the tongue,” I tell her, fitting the ball cap on my head and squaring off the brim. “We’ll call it even.”
“Even?”
“Even,” I confirm smoothly. “You jacked up my car.”
“You let me call you an asshole and didn’t even have the decency to clue me in that I was making a complete fool of myself!”
“Are we talking about before or after you used my lap as a personal pillow?”
When silence greets me, I glance over my shoulder to see her miming strangulation. No need to question whose throat she’s envisioning caught between her slender hands. I flash her a shit-eating grin. She flashes me the bird. And then I hear a teenage voice shout, “No middle fingers, Ma! Your rules, not mine. Pizza’s on you tonight!”
Ma?
I duck down, one hand planted on her car’s roof, and spot a teenager lounging in the passenger’s seat. As though sensing my stare, his head swivels to the left. I watch his mouth move—“Oh, crap,” he mutters, I think—right before he throws open his door and scrambles out into the parking lot. He zips around the car, nearly careening in
to Levi, who cuts his stride short with a hand to his shoulder.
They’re the same height but look nothing alike.
The kid’s got dark hair flopping over his forehead like a wannabe Justin Bieber. He’s lanky across the chest, wiry down the arms, and his legs could pass for string beans.
Oh, the joys of teenage boyhood.
I remember growing like a weed, too.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Levi hisses to the kid, her hand still locked over his shoulder. “You moved to the passenger’s seat?”
Her son has the good grace to dig his shoe into the gravel and look ten shades of apologetic when he mutters, “It seemed like a good idea at the time. I panicked, Ma. What if my permit got taken away? What if I couldn’t play football anymore? One minute I was sitting there with my hands on the wheel and then, before I knew it, I was crab-crawling over the shifty thing.”
“It’s not called a ‘shifty’ thing.” She throws up air quotes and I bite back a grin. Flustered is a good look on her—objectively speaking, of course. “And I can’t believe you . . .” She sucks in a sharp breath, and I’d have to be blind not to notice the way her ample chest lifts with the inhalation. “It’s bad to lie.”
Then she turns to me, no pointed fingers in sight. Not that they’re necessary when she’s already glaring murder in my direction.
Blue. Her eyes are most definitely blue.
I drop to my haunches and inspect the peeling gray paint. With the heat of the sun beating down on my shoulders, I trace the claw-like scratches marring the side of my truck. It looks like it went to battle with a bear instead of a four-door sedan.
With exaggerated, good guy charm, I murmur, “I agree with you on the lying front.”
Clearly caught off guard, she echoes, “You agree?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I swear I can hear molars grinding, all the way from over here. “You did not just call me ma’am—”
“Take Brien, for instance.” Hands on my bent knees, I shove up to my full height. Six-foot-six in bare feet. Tall as Levi is for a woman, I still dwarf her. And, despite the decades separating who I am today and who I was at her son’s age, there’s still a mischievous part of me that finds great delight in knowing she has to tip her head way on back to maintain eye contact with me. If looks could kill, I’d be skewered and left in a ditch by now. “He let me assume you were a man when he downgraded me to the assistant coach position.”
“A man.” She spits out the words like they’re the most vile thing she’s ever heard.
“Assistant coach?” the last bit comes from the kid, whose face promptly lights up like it’s his birthday and Christmas all rolled into one. “Hell yes!”
Levi catches her son’s arm just as he’s about to raise it for a fist-pump. “Heck,” she corrects stiffly, never letting her gaze wander away from my face. “No cursing.”
His shoulders don’t even slump at the reprimand, he’s too excited. “This is the best day ever! Dominic DaSilva is our coach?”
“Assistant coach,” she snips distastefully, those blue eyes of hers flashing with a heat that has nothing to do with naked bodies or orgasms. Gone is the soft, flirty woman from Friday night. She’s been replaced with a hard-ass. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Topher. He does whatever I say he does. Nothing else.”
But there’s nothing left she can do to dissuade her son—Topher—what kind of hippie dippie name is that?—from letting out a whoop! whoop! and spinning away. He hauls open the driver’s side door, narrowly missing my truck, and tugs out a duffel bag. With it slung over one shoulder, he gives me an enthusiastic wave.
Not wanting to risk looking like an even bigger prick in front of his mom, I wave right on back.
Throwing an excited glance my way, Topher announces, “I’m gonna head down to the field. Give the news to the team, you know? They’re going to be pumped!” That’s when I see it—those blue eyes that are the same deep shade as Levi’s. He might not have her fair coloring, but he’s clearly her son in every other way.
He shuffles backward. “You two just take your time now. The guys will understand. Holy crap, Dominic-freakin’-DaSilva.” He utters the last bit under his breath in complete amazement like I’m some sort of superhero. Louder, he adds, “Sorry about your truck, Coach. My mistake.”
“Topher. It’s more than a mistake. You damaged his—”
“I’m really sorry, Coach!” The kid doesn’t stop at his mother’s chastising tone. He just keeps on waving as he heads to the field, never turning his back on us. “She’s always right!” he shouts out two seconds later. To me, I think. “Just remember that. Aspen Levi is always right!”
Aspen.
Her name settles on my tongue, reminding me of white winters, and crisp, icy breezes, and tumblers of whiskey sipped before a lit fireplace.
Aspen Levi doesn’t fit her namesake.
She’s spitting fire, sunny days, and currently turning my way with that finger already within striking distance.
I catch it with my right hand, demolishing her pretty, little speech before she even has the chance to get started.
“I’m not very good at following orders,” I murmur, slipping my palm fully against hers.
Her nose turns up. “Not good at following orders in general? Or those coming from me because I have a vagina?”
“The first.”
Because I spent eighteen years being shuffled from place to place at the snap of someone else’s fingers.
I don’t know Levi nearly well enough to give her the truth.
Then again, even those I know best know nothing about me at all.
Nothing besides the façade I’ve paraded around over the years.
A façade that’s currently biting me in the ass as Coach Levi warms up her argument with squared-off shoulders and a glacial look in her eye. If I hadn’t earned a paycheck off my quick reflexes, I’d already be moving my hand to protect the family jewels.
“This is just a game for you,” she snaps, yanking fruitlessly at her captive hand. “You don’t care about those boys down there. I don’t even know how you got this job, but I can tell you right now that—”
“Boys like your son?” I lower my head, tugging her imprisoned hand down to her side until I’m intruding in her space. “Brien—college teammate, by the way—told me all about how the Levis are football royalty around here.” Her lips tighten at my mention of her boss, like she hates the idea that she might be stuck with me. The feeling is entirely mutual. “Grandpa Levi kicked the whole family legacy off, is what he told me. Then your dad, and now . . . you.”
Her brows furrow. “So what?”
“Looks to me like London has a little taste for nepotism.”
That gets her hackles roaring. “Nepotism? I’m sorry, but you did not just say that we’re . . . that I would ever stoop to—”
“Should I remind you that we don’t know each other?”
Letting her go, I recline against the side of my truck, crossing my legs at the ankles and my arms over my chest. Like I’m ready to stand here all day and hash this shit out with her. I could, too. There’s nothing that gets me more fired up than a good debate. Probably because I spent so many years not talking to anyone before LSU pulled me out of the hell I’d been living in.
“Should we anticipate Topher taking your spot in about ten to fifteen years? Four generations of Levis all owning this town’s successes.” I whistle low, heavy on the sarcasm. “From where I’m standing, it doesn’t look too good, Coach. You need some fresh blood. Just offerin’ an opinion.”
“Your opinion.” She growls the words seconds before she pushes past me to yank open the back door to her car. She bends over, ass up in the air, and Jesus fu—
My fingers curl in, blunt nails biting into the calloused flesh of my palms. Completely unaware that I’m halfway to a full hard-on, she grabs her belongings and innocently—correction: unknowingly—sticks her perky ass up and out as she digs around for
whatever the hell she’s gathering in her back seat. The hem of her shorts creeps north, revealing more creamy, pale skin.
My dick, traitorous bastard that it is, goes from half-mast to instant erection.
Look away. Right now. Do not keep staring.
I hike my chin up, eyes lifting to the sky, because it’s either that or crawl into the backseat with her, and, amazing ass aside, I’m not interested in a woman like Aspen Levi.
Single mom.
Ball-buster extraordinaire.
So damn cheerful—the last ten minutes notwithstanding—that I’m just waiting to learn that she commands both the sun and its rays, along with the happiness of all humanity.
“—And for the record,” she rants, turning with a bag hanging from one shoulder and a clipboard clasped to her breasts, “I don’t care what this town thinks of me.” The clipboard escapes the confines of her embrace to prod me in the center of my chest with its rounded corner. “I don’t care what you think about me. You might have played for the Bucs, you might have shiny Super Bowl rings that you kiss and coddle every night before bed, but no one knows this game better than I do. No one.”
I quirk a brow at the vehemence in her tone. “Sounds like you’re worried you have something to prove, Coach.”
Another bump of that clipboard against my chest. “Kiss my ass, DaSilva.”
The end of her ponytail thwacks me in the chin as she whips around to head toward the field. Her hips sway angrily, her gait short and clipped like it’s taking everything in her power not to jump in her car and finish off what her son started. Given the right circumstances, I have no doubt she’d run me over and not lose any sleep because of it.
I glance at the two vehicles, to the mirror-image paint scratches.
Once she’s almost reached the path that leads down to the fields, I holler, “Good thing you have that head coach’s salary, Levi!” She darts a suspicious look over her shoulder while I point to my truck. “You’re gonna need it.”
For the second time in less than an hour, she flips me the bird.
And then, because I can, I pretend to catch the “bird” mid-flight, cup its invisible tiny body in my hands, and kiss its furry little head.
