by Luis, Maria
Nick winces. “Mina and I saw the article this morning. It was . . .”
Usually, the mention of Nick’s fiancée, Mina, would have me asking where she is and why she hasn’t popped in to say hi yet. But I’m so tightly wound up that pleasantries have sailed right out the window. “Shit,” I growl, my shoulders flexing as I rip out another section of awful shag carpeting, “that’s what it is. A pathetic excuse for journalism.”
“I was going to say it was a little harsh.”
“That too.”
“You gotta let it go, man. You know how many times they wrote about me and Mina before I popped the question and asked her to marry me? Look at it this way—it’s your turn to shoulder the limelight now.”
With a satisfying shripppppp the carpet comes free. “I’m done with the limelight. Why the hell do you think I moved to bumfuck-middle-of-nowhere Maine?”
“Because you like the ocean.”
Truth.
“And because you enjoyed Maine when we went up to Bethel for that weekend away, even though you had to stand guard and watch your door all night,” Nick adds with a chuckle.
Also the truth.
Mina’s not-quite friend Sophia is a female menace with tentacles for limbs, sucking in all single men who make the mistake of entering her orbit. Nice girl, I guess, but not my type.
Even so, I enjoyed that weekend trip.
For the first time in years, I’d breathed a sigh of relief. There wasn’t any paparazzi waiting to pop out of a bush or a laundromat or a dumpster and charge at me with their cameras. They didn’t tail me from the grocery store to where I parked my car in the lot. They sure as hell didn’t sneak around and grab pictures of me naked.
Maine is paradise.
The mountains. The winding rivers. The solitude.
And thanks to one reporter who’s looking to do a little social climbing by ensuring his article goes viral, that paradise is now laid to waste.
It’s only a matter of time before the paps find their way to quaint London.
My lungs clamp tight as I adjust my grasp on the carpet from another angle and give it a hardy pull. “How long do you think the school is going to allow me around underage kids when the media flocks here like rabid vultures?” It’s a rhetorical question. Even if it wasn’t, I don’t give Nick long enough to come up with a satisfying answer. “Not long, Stamos. I’m gonna get my ass handed to me the first time a pap crosses school lines and pisses off a parent.”
“Would it matter? You haven’t said anything about London that gives me the impression that you’re in it for the long haul.” When I cut a glance his way, Nick holds up his hands. In one, he’s gripping a hammer. Probably doing work on one of his many restoration projects, I’m sure. “I’m not going to pretend to know what it’s like to be bad boy Dominic DaSilva—”
I roll my eyes at his overt sarcasm.
“But you’ve got the money, man. If the town isn’t working out for you anymore, you can just . . . leave.”
Two weeks ago I may have agreed with him.
Before Levi face-planted on my dick in front of an entire pub.
Before I had her ass grinding down on me in a deserted classroom like we were preteens instead of rapidly-hurtling-toward-middle-aged adults.
Before she looked me in the eye and dared me to acknowledge that unless I’m flipping the world a middle finger, I’m not satisfied with my life.
“Leaving isn’t gonna work for me,” I mutter, dropping to my haunches to grab my water bottle from the floor. The heat hasn’t cooled off in the last few days, and I’m already envisioning stripping down to a pair of swim trunks later and making use of the private access down to the water.
A private access that links with Levi’s halfway down to the beach.
Bottle perched on my knee, I ask, “You ever regret going on the show?”
For a beat, Nick’s silent. Then, “Are you asking me if I regret losing my anonymity?” A small, minute pause that seems to stretch for far too long. “Or are you askin’ if I regret Savannah Rose?”
We both know Nick wasn’t feeling Savannah. Oh, he tried his best to make it work—but when he confided in me that they mutually decided to skip the overnight date, there was no denying that the passion wasn’t there for them.
Hadn’t been that way for me and Savannah.
I’d liked kissing her. More specifically, I’d liked the way she made me feel: like I, as a person, was more interesting than the money in my bank account and the football accolades attached to my name. With her, I felt . . . special. Here was this beauty out of New Orleans—a woman whose family is wealthy and influential—looking at me—a poor kid out of Cali who spent five years in and out of juvie by the time I was sixteen—like I had something worthy to offer her.
Except I wasn’t worthy at all.
Because the producers had paid me to come on the show as a contestant and I never once turned down the six-figure check. Because my own boss had suggested I go on Put A Ring On It to help increase views for Sports 24/7 and I never once told him to fuck off, that saying yes meant I could fuck up someone else’s life.
Bad Boy Dom.
The moniker is laughable.
The media—the world—has no clue how bad I am. Down to my core. Down even further to the rot in my veins that bleeds not red but black sludge, infecting everyone and everything.
So, yeah, I went on that overnight date with Savannah. I kissed her and reveled in the revelatory sensation of being with a woman who cared about me, and I forgot all about the dollar signs and the ratings and the freebie commercial runs the Put A Ring On It producers guaranteed Sports 24/7 every Wednesday night when new episodes would air.
Savannah stopped me just as I went to remove her pants.
Her hand on my shoulder, her fingers curled in a fist like she wasn’t even sure she wanted to be touching me. And then it all went to shit—she’d overheard the producers talking about me and how surprised they were that I lasted as long as I did, and how great a liar I must be to keep all my dirty secrets under wraps.
She wanted me to leave, and I did, knowing full well that I had damned myself the moment I signed the NDA form and agreed to the terms of my casting.
Two days later, Savannah Rose dumped me when I asked her to take a chance—a real chance—on me. A month after that, I found myself standing on her front stoop with an apology already formed on my tongue.
I didn’t ask her to change her mind about our relationship. Hell, I didn’t even spend more than ten minutes inside her home before I was back in my rental car and driving to the closest ramshackle bar I could find.
Good guys with golden hearts like Nick deserve women like Savannah Rose.
Not guys like me.
“Savannah,” I finally murmur, lifting my gaze so I can see Nick’s face on the screen. “You regret her?”
Even though we’re hundreds of miles apart, him in Boston, me here in London, I feel the weight of my best friend’s stare. Like always, he looks like he’s trying to work out a puzzle. Trying to figure me out.
“I can’t regret her,” he tells me, hammer resting against one shoulder. “If it weren’t for her then I’d have no idea that Mina is everything I ever wanted or that she’s the woman I want to marry and wake up to forever.”
I nearly chuck my water bottle at the iPad. “Jesus fuck,” I mutter, rolling my eyes as envy cuts through my system, “you know how disgusting the two of you are? Women get pregnant just by looking at you together.”
Nick whistles. “That’s a skill I’d like to add to my resume. Mina’s gonna be pleased.”
“As opposed to what? Being annoyed by your very presence? Tell her I can commiserate fully with that.”
“She loves me.”
“So you both keep telling me.”
“Asshole.” He throws his head back with a laugh. “I swear, between the two of you I’m surprised I’m not bleeding from all the verbal jabs.”
“What can I say?�
� My shoulders hike up in a casual shrug. “We have a common target—you.”
“In other words, you both love to fuck with me.”
“At the risk of you turning back into Sour Puss McGhee, someone’s got to. We keep you on your toes, her more so than me.”
“Oh, oh right. Like you’re one to talk, Mr. Woefully Distracted.”
I grimace.
Unfortunately for Mr. Deegan Homer, I spent our entire interview distracted by one perky head football coach. The curve of her ass as she leaned forward in the chair, tucking one ankle behind the other, all demure-like. The straight line of her back as she talked about the team with pride and excitement. The bow of her upper lip that stretched a little unevenly when she smiled.
“DaSilva.”
I snap to attention. “Yeah.”
“What do you regret?” Nick asks, the words spoken low and carefully like he’s aware of how easily they’ll spook me.
I think of Levi dry-humping me like her life depended on it.
And then I think of the boys on my team—boys like Topher, who mentioned how much he wouldn’t mind another round of mini-golf with hope in his blue eyes—who’re downright thrilled to have me here to coach them. Not the charming Dominic. Or the unfeeling Dominic. Or the bad-to-the-bone Dominic.
But rather the Dominic who cares, the one who started Junior Buccaneers and spends more time than not working with charities across the country that are directly involved with kids in foster care.
That’s the version of me that they see and idolize.
Tossing the capped bottle to the side, I turn to look back at my master bedroom. It’s in complete upheaval—not that it bothers me. I’ve slept on the couch ever since I moved in. Same way I’ve slept on the couch at every place I’ve ever lived in for as long as I can remember.
“I regret believing that my life was so predictable that I had to do something insane, like go on a dating show, to prove to myself that I was still alive.”
Nick’s delayed response proves he doesn’t get it.
Levi would, though.
Levi would understand all that I hadn’t said in a heartbeat.
20
Aspen
Moonlight slips through the drawn curtains when I feel a vibration coming from within the bedsheets.
With my face buried in my pillow, I flatten a hand and thump around for my phone. My alarm clock is only inches away on my nightstand, but without my glasses, the digital numbers are nothing but a blur of neon red.
I flip onto my back, eyes screwed tightly shut.
Feel around for another second and yes, right . . . there.
Not even bothering to look at the incoming caller, I answer and then tap the general vicinity on the screen where the speakerphone option is. Dropping the phone on my chest, I sleepily croak out, “’ellow?”
“Hey.”
That voice.
My eyes spring open. “Dominic?”
“Yeah, it’s . . . me.”
I can almost imagine him repositioning his baseball hat on his head. Except that it’s—
“What time is it?” I flop onto my side, taking my phone with me as I snatch up the alarm clock and shove it front and center in my face. “Three. It’s three in the morning and you’re calling”—alarm bells go off in my head as panic settles in—“are you okay? Did something happen?” My legs scissor the sheets as I drop the clock back in its spot and shoot up in the bed. “Tell me what you need.”
“I wanted to know if you might go for a swim with me.”
I stop short of rolling out of my king-sized bed as his words sink in to my sleep-addled brain. He didn’t say . . . No, he wouldn’t actually be calling me this late at night—early in the morning?—to go for a . . .
“A swim,” I say, drawing out each individual letter. “You just asked me to go swimming.”
“I did, yeah.”
I hear the rustle of sheets, and a visual of Dominic leisurely resting in bed hops into my brain. Black sheets—his favorite color—would be tangled around his hips, revealing the dark happy trail that could entice even the most innocent into doing naughty, sinful activities. His inky hair would be mussed, like he’s combed his fingers through it all night. His chest . . . oh, he’d be shirtless, hard pectoral muscles all on display.
A feast for the gods.
Or, more specifically, a feast for me—one mere mortal woman who wouldn’t mind partaking in a Dominic DaSilva buffet.
“Levi? You there?”
Slipping from the bed, I quietly pad over to my large window, which overlooks Frenchman Bay. I part the heavy curtains, allowing more moonlight to filter in. It turns the black shadows dancing in my room into warmer hues—soft blues, deep purples. Without my glasses on, I can’t see much of anything besides blocks of color.
Holding the phone close to my mouth, I drop my voice to a whisper, then think better of it and untap the speakerphone button. Tuck the phone between my shoulder and my ear. “It’s too late.”
“You mean we’ve got practice in the morning.”
8 a.m. sharp.
I need two cups of coffee, no cream, no sugar, on seven hours of sleep, to function like a normal human being. Never mind how much it would take to get me going after a nighttime jaunt in the chilly waters.
Not wanting to come right out and say no, I scramble for another reasonable excuse. “It’s pitch-black out.”
“That’s part of the fun, Coach.”
“Being eaten by a shark that I can’t see coming is not my idea of a good time.”
“How do you know? You ever tried it?”
I clap a hand over my mouth to stop the stem of laughter before I wake up Topher, whose bedroom is just down the hall. From behind my fingers, I burst out, “You’re insane.”
“I’m tryin’ to have us meet in the middle.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah.” His voice drops to a low, seductive rumble that I feel like a caress all the way down to my toes. “I told you that to feel alive I like to hit rock bottom first—”
“You do realize that rock bottom has a very different connotation when you’re talking about open waters, right? I mean, there’s rock bottom and then there’s ocean bottom.”
“—and you told me that you feel best when you’re safe.”
At the utter conviction in his tone, I lift my free hand and press it to my chest. Over my heart, which is beating as fast it did when he kissed me, up against a row of high school lockers, and stole my breath away.
Letting my lids fall shut, I simultaneously allow my forehead to kiss the cool glass window. “It’s three in the morning. My son is sleeping down the hall. I’m all he’s got, and while I appreciate you sort of promising to keep me safe from hangry sharks, I can’t just sneak out of my house in the dead of night like I’m fifteen all over again.”
The line descends into silence, long enough for me to question my decision to tell him no.
“Dom, I’m sorry. I—”
“I want your trust.”
The unexpectedness of his words has me accidentally thwacking my forehead on the glass. Ow. I finger the knot, hoping it won’t bruise tomorrow. It’ll be just my luck if it does. “You have it, Dominic.”
“Thirty minutes,” he counters swiftly. “It’s all I’m asking for. Five to get down to the water, five to get back up. Twenty out in the bay. I’ll wear a watch—waterproof, obviously. I promise you, no dillydallying.”
The fact that he—a six-foot-six football player who must weigh close to three-hundred pounds—used the word “dillydallying” makes me crack a grin. “Why are you pushing so hard for this?” I ask softly.
“Because there have been nights my entire life when I’ve felt so goddamn adrift, it threatens to pull me under.” I hear his deep, indrawn breath, followed by a slow and steady exhale that brings goose bumps of awareness to my skin. “But tonight I don’t want to feel alone and I don’t want to feel like I’m in an ocean swimming all by myself wit
hout an anchor to keep me moored.”
It hurts to breathe.
I know my lungs are in my chest and I know, logically, that they’re healthy and pumping oxygen as they should be.
And yet, blood roars in my head and my heart pounds to a rhythm I don’t quite know and for the first time in fifteen years, I feel my inner recklessness rearing its head and demanding its due.
I step back from the window and move toward my bedroom door. Cracking it open, I slip through on quiet feet, all the while Dominic waits on the other end of the line—in a house only twenty feet away from mine. I feel my way down the hall with a hand trailing the wall. Down past the bathroom Topher exclusively uses. Down past the guestroom Topher passed up when we first moved in because he claimed it was too big for just him.
We can keep that one open for when Mariah and my friends come to visit.
My boy—always looking out for others.
His door is shut, and I turn the knob with my heart in my throat.
For fifteen years, I’ve played it safe. I’ve stayed behind the metaphorical curtain and kept my own needs silent—sometimes out of fear, because I knew Rick was vindictive, and sometimes out of an effort to put my head down and keep hustling. Just because I was a young mother didn’t mean I couldn’t be the best one for Topher. When Rick started flaking out on us, I worked even harder to be everything my son needed.
Topher’s snoring greets me, even though I still can’t see a damn thing without my glasses. He’s passed out cold, like always. Even as a newborn, he slept like a rock. He won’t be up until his alarm has gone off twice and I’m ripping the sheets away from his curled-up body.
“Levi?” Dominic says softly in my ear as I back out of my son’s room. “Forget I asked, okay? I’m not trying to make you do anything you don’t want to do. I’m not that kinda guy. Maybe the three of us—me, you, and Topher—can go out on the water this weekend. I’ll grill some burgers or something. Make a day out of it or—”
I close Topher’s bedroom door behind me and press my back to the wood. I pray I’m not making a huge mistake when I give in with a hushed, “Thirty minutes. Not a minute longer.”
