by Erica Hobbs
I shrugged. “It’s not always this big, but it’s not weird to go to parties in a limousine. The masks are for fun as well as for privacy. A lot of the people here are famous in different ways. Sometimes we just want to party without it all being on camera. It’s when people’s identities are hidden that they really become themselves.”
She nodded and looked up at me.
“Does that mean no one knows who you are, who we are, either?”
I shook my head.
I watched her face as she realized what that meant. We walked together, and I watched her reactions as she took in the setting. Everywhere, couples were dressed in dresses and tuxedos, masks covering different parts of their faces. I watched her move in the dress I’d gotten her. She was born for a life like this. She fit right in, carrying herself as if she was royalty just like the other woman.
The night was a dream itself. We danced, we ate, and I introduced her to Luke. She moved off to the side, talking to women who drew her into the conversation. Luke held onto his drink, with one hand in his pocket.
“This is unlike you,” he said, looking at Alyssa. “She’s different.”
I nodded. “That’s why I like her.”
He glanced at me. With his mask, I couldn’t tell if he was amused or alarmed.
“You like her? You never like the girls you’re with.”
I shrugged. “I told you, she’s different,” I said again.
We both looked at her. Her eyes trailed around and finally landed on mine. Her lips curled in a secret smile. God, I wanted to be with her. I wanted to spend time with her, to get to know her. I wanted to sleep with her. And not just sex. I wanted to fall asleep next to her after not doing anything at all, holding her against me, feeling her breathe.
I walked to her, slipping my arm around her lower waist. She leaned into my body.
“Are you having fun?” I asked.
She smiled at me and nodded. “I am. This is nothing like anything I’ve ever done before.”
“Come with me,” I said and took her hand. I led her through the crowd, away from the people. The music faded into a distant thump in the background. The maze loomed in front of us. The hedge walls were taller than I was. Once you were inside you couldn’t see the way out.
“Is this a real maze?” She asked.
I nodded and led her through the entrance.
“We’re going inside?”
“I want to get lost with you,” I said. The atmosphere suddenly changed between us. It became charged, and we disappeared into the maze.
We walked, following the path leading through the maze. Twice we ran into dead ends, and we had to turn back. Eventually, though, we got to the middle of it. A bench sat lonely in the middle of a formal rose garden. I led her to the bench, and we sat down.
“This is beautiful,” she said, looking around. “I feel like I’m in a different era in here.”
I nodded. It felt as if we were stuck in a dream.
“Have I told you how stunning you look tonight?” I asked. How was I going to tell this woman how fantastic she was, how different? How was I going to tell her how hopelessly attracted I was to her?
I leaned forward and kissed her. It was easier than finding the words. She let me kiss her. Her lips were soft. She tasted like champagne and berry lipstick. When I broke the kiss, she took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
She hesitated, looking around as if the answers were buried between the roses.
“That I hope to God you’ll catch me.”
“Catch you?”
She nodded, looking down and I swore she was blushing under her mask. I reached for it and slowly took it off so I could see her face. I took mine off, too, so it was fair.
“When I fall for you,” she whispered. The words were so soft I barely heard them, but they hit me solidly in the chest, and for a moment there I was gasping for air.
“I can’t tell you how much you affect me,” I said. “I…”
I didn’t get to finish my sentence. A camera flashed, and I spun around. Someone stood in the opening of the maze we’d just come from with a camera, taking pictures.
“Shit,” I said and pressed my mask against my face. Alyssa did the same, but it was too late. A photo had already been taken without our masks. They knew who I was and they’d already seen her face.
The fairy tale shattered at our feet.
“Mr. Nash!” The man came closer.
“Come,” I said to Alyssa. I pulled her up, and we headed for the other opening, the one that was supposed to lead us to the exit of the maze. I walked fast. Alyssa struggled to keep up, her heels slowing her down. I didn’t know if he was following us. My head spun. They knew who she was now. They knew I’d been with her. This would just be another story in the news, another guess as to what my intentions were with her. I didn’t want that. I wanted to keep her hidden from my public life, from the one where people always speculated things about my motives and painted me like a terrible person.
“Jake, no one is following us,” she said. I heard the words, but I couldn’t make sense of them. I’d been caught off guard. I’d let myself relax. What a fool.
“Jake,” she said again and yanked her hand out of mine. It snapped me back to reality, and I stopped, turning to her.
“I’m sorry,” I said, breathing hard like I’d run a marathon, and not power walked through a maze. I swallowed hard. “I just… I didn’t expect to have to put on my camera face. The tabloids… they always paint me as someone horrible.”
She nodded. She didn’t say anything, though. Her hair was starting to come undone, strands sweeping her neck and shoulders. In her disheveled state, she still looked ethereal, but she was distant, now. The romance, the charge I’d felt between us earlier, was gone.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I lost it for a moment. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “It’s okay, Jake.”
I frowned. It wasn’t okay. I wasn’t sure what it was or what was it that bugged her, but she didn’t seem okay.
“What is it?”
She shook her head again. She was shutting me out. The woman who had opened to me a moment before was gone, replaced by someone with hidden secrets and locked doors.
“Talk to me, Alyssa.”
She blinked at me.
“I can’t be one of your stories,” she said. “I can’t be another girl in your gossip columns.”
I looked over her shoulder, checking we really were alone. The camera man hadn’t followed us. He didn’t need to – he already had a photo of us. Dammit.
“You’re not,” I said. “You’re not like that.”
“But there are so many.”
She’d looked me up. I knew she would have, but now that it was real, that she admitted it, it felt like a slap in the face.
“You’re not like them,” I said.
She shook her head. “I can’t do this.”
“What?” I couldn’t lose her now. I didn’t even have her yet. “Talk to me.”
She shook her head again.
I took both her hands in mine.
“Look at me,” I said and waited until she turned those dark liquid eyes to me. “You’re not one of those girls to me, okay? I don’t want that with you. I want more.”
There, I’d said it. Out loud. I wanted more. God, help me. I was at the point where I wanted to offer a piece of me I might never get back.
“How do I know?” She asked.
“Know what?”
“That there’s no one else? That I’m the only one?”
I frowned. “I don’t want anyone else. They don’t come close to you.”
She swallowed and pulled her hands out of mine.
“I’ve always been the other woman, Jake. I can’t do second place. I can’t do competition. I can’t…”
She swallowed, and her breathing hitched like she might cry. I reached up and touched her face. Her e
yes turned to mine, and they were big and watery.
“You can’t compete with someone if you’ve already won.”
Hot For Sports – Book 3
Chapter 18
Alyssa
Every time I thought I had it all figured out Jake threw me another curveball. When I’d met him, he was the epitome of a man – or at least, what I had come to think a man was. I was starting to realize that not only had my definition been skewed, but Jake was nothing like what I’d thought at first.
He was caring and gentle and kind. Under the mask of arrogance, under all the money, charm and talent, was a gentleman. And I was falling for him. There was no denying it. Everything I’d read in the tabloids felt like it was about someone else who only looked like Jake. His public face and the face he showed me were two different people completely.
And I was happy. For the first time in a very long time, I was happy. And I was allowing myself to be happy. That was a big deal.
A strange thing happens when you find out you’re the other woman in a relationship. You accept that the man you were with was an asshole, but you forget to address the feelings of inadequacy. The ones that made you feel that you had nothing better to offer than sex, that you weren’t good enough to make it to girlfriend status. You got stuck at ‘mistress,’ and you had to live with the fact that no matter what, someone else was first, better; the person you had believed yourself to be.
After James, I had pushed all these emotions away. I had told myself he was the one who had messed up so badly and I deserved only sympathy for what happened. I’d never considered I needed someone to erase what had been created in my mind.
Not until now that Jake was erasing it for me. For the first time since James, I felt worthy of it.
We went back to the party. We had managed to get rid of the photographer – I suppose this kind of things always happen when you’re as famous as Jake – and we couldn’t just disappear during the rest of the night. It was rude, and it would look bad.
But it was different now. Jake held my hand as if he would never let go. I felt anchored in something I had never seen coming. We moved through the crowd, just a couple in masks like everyone else, but everything was different. I felt tethered to Jake in a way I hadn’t before.
‘You can’t compete with someone if you’ve already won.’
His words echoed in my mind, and every time my stomach turned. This was what it felt like to be in love. This stomach-rolling giddiness that riddled me in waves.
Jake glanced at me, his eyes impossibly green under his mask and they were soft and smiling.
“Can I take you home?” he asked after we’d spent some more time on the dance floor. “I want to make sure you’re safe.”
There was no pressure. He was asking, but he wasn’t leading me in any direction. If he’d demanded the way he had at first, I would have told him no. I would have clutched onto my right to be independent. But he wasn’t asking as if he expected a yes.
So, I nodded. I’d already given him my address to deliver the dress I was wearing. If he wanted he could have come there uninvited anyway. But he was asking for an invitation. He was waiting for me to let my guard down.
And I was doing it. I was letting him in. I’d walked to the edge, peered into the abyss, and now I was going to jump.
“Let’s go,” he said. “I want to get out of here.”
I felt it, too. Suddenly the crowd was stifling. The mask – which had been a thrill before – felt like it was trapping me now, but I didn’t want to take it off. I didn’t know if more cameras were hiding nearby.
Jake held onto me as if I would slip away if he let me go. We thanked the host for the party and made our way through the massive house. It had looked like a palace a while ago, yet now it seemed too big to me; with dark corners were dangers could lurk. Jake appeared to understand my uncertainty. He walked close to me. I could feel his body heat, smell his cologne, and I relaxed.
The limo was ready for us. Had the driver been waiting here the whole time? Jake opened the door for me, and I stepped into the car. The leather seats ran smooth under my fingers. I waited for Jake to get in and close the door behind him before I pulled off my mask.
When Jake’s mask was off, too, he looked at me, and his face was riddled with concern.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I nodded. It was now that I was starting to see who he really was and what I really meant to him.
“I’m sorry about tonight. The photographer, the maze. I thought we would have privacy in there. Instead, it became a trap.”
I shook my head. “If I’m going to be trapped with anyone, let it be you.”
The words were out before I had the chance to think about them and I blushed. I used to be open, comfortable with my lines, my flirtations, and my intentions. But now, I was so restricted with my emotions, it felt like I was wearing clothes two sizes too small.
Jake put his arm around me and pulled me against him. His warmth seeped through me, and I took a deep breath, letting it out again.
“Thank you, for coming with me, tonight,” he said.
“Thank you, for asking me.” I couldn’t help but smile. Jake turned his face to look down at me and smiled. He planted a kiss on my forehead, and we spent the rest of the way back home in silence like that, our bodies united as one.
In no time at all, we stopped in front of my house. Jake peered out of the window.
“This is a beautiful place,” he said.
“I’m sure it’s nothing like what you have.”
Jake shrugged. “It’s like what I had before.” His face changed, and for a moment the atmosphere felt heavier, but he smiled at me, and his eyes sparkled. Whatever had crept in, it had now disappeared.
“Can I call you?” he asked just like before.
I nodded. “You don’t have to keep asking. I’m always going to say yes.”
His face split into a broad smile. He leaned in and kissed me.
“Sweet dreams, princess,” he said, and my stomach erupted in butterflies at the sound of that. He opened his door and slid out, offering me a hand to help me out of the car. I walked toward the house and only when I reached the door did the limo pull off. I watched the long black car slip into the night and opened the door.
“Ali, is that you?” my mom asked a second before appearing in the hallway. I froze. She froze. She looked me up and down. “This is unexpected.”
I swallowed and shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Why did I feel like I’d been caught sneaking in after running away?
“That dress,” she breathed. I looked down. I knew I looked fantastic – Jake had many things, and taste was a frontrunner. “Where did you get it? Where did you go?”
I swallowed again. “I uh… was at an event. With a friend.”
My mom looked at me, her face unreadable for a moment before she smiled.
“A friend?”
I blushed. I couldn’t help it. It was a dead giveaway, and my mom caught it.
“It’s nothing serious.” Not yet.
My mom turned toward the kitchen. “Why don’t you get out of that outfit,” she said over her shoulder, “and then join me. I want to know all about it.”
Damn! I didn’t want her to know. I didn’t want to bring Jake into everyone’s lives if I didn’t know for sure that he would stick around. I went to the bedroom and did as she’d asked, changing into pajamas. I got rid of my makeup and pulled my hair into a ponytail after brushing it out.
Mom was making coffee when I walked into the kitchen. She glanced at me and poured milk into both of the cups she had in front of her.
“You’re not hiding anything from us, are you?” she asked.
“You know I’m not like that,” I said. And it was true; I never had secrets from my parents. At least, not more than any other young adult. “I just want to see how things go.”
Mom nodded and brought the coffee to the kitchen table, placing mine in front of me
and sitting down opposite me with hers.
“Is he nice?” she asked.
I blew over the rim of my cup before sipping the hot liquid. I nodded when I put the cup down. I wrapped my fingers around the warmth and held it there as long as I could before it burned.
“He is. I just don’t know him very well.”
