Mr. Match: The Boxed Set

by Delancey Stewart

  No reply came, and it was clear enough why. I could still see the team on the wide screen at Adam and Chloe's, filtering into the locker room with broad smiles on their faces.

  Chloe drove me home, and as I hugged her goodnight, she whispered, "It will all be fine."

  I nodded, believing it a little more than I had earlier. And when I'd gotten myself into bed, after drinking a generous glass of water and taking a few precautionary aspirin, my phone chimed with a text that confirmed it.

  Trace: Thanks. I can't believe you watched. You said you weren’t into soccer.

  Magalie: I never had a reason to be into it before, but I loved watching. It was really incredible. Congratulations again.

  Three dots appeared, and I watched them wiggle and then disappear. I'd just put my phone aside when it chimed once more time.

  Trace: No pressure, but would love it if you'd come out with the team tomorrow evening. We'll be back in town, at McDaughtry's in the Gaslamp Quarter.

  It was my turn to think. I held the phone in front of my face, staring at the message as I lay warm in my bed. If our fake engagement was going to convince my mother, it'd be best if we knew each other a little better. But that wasn't why I wanted to say yes.

  Even if it felt a bit like leading him on, even if I wasn't sure I was capable of a real relationship once I'd disentangled myself from the mess my mother had made, I wanted to see Trace again.

  Magalie: I'd love to. Just text me the time and I'll meet you there.

  Chapter 56

  Control Your Tannins, Man

  Trace

  After the game in Orlando, I'd been stoked. To say the game had gone well would be a massive understatement, and to suggest I was responsible would also be understating things. I blocked every single fucking ball that came my way. My shoulder felt good, and when the high of the win was beginning to wane, there was the text from Magalie.

  I hadn't been expecting it, that was for sure.

  "Good game, man," Fuerte said, bumping me hard in the shoulder as he passed me in the locker room after we left the pitch. “Engagement suits you.”

  “Yeah.” I’d had to address the engagement issue with my teammates, who obviously had heard the news after Mr. Match’s interview with my sister. They’d all been supportive, for the most part, though Fernando knew the whole truth and thought I was every bit as nuts as my sister did. Still, we were good at leaving that kind of thing off the field.

  This had been the kind of game where every guy on the team had played a part in the win. Fuerte and Max had driven relentlessly to score, Hoss had run incredible defense, clearing half the balls the Orlando team managed to get past center. And Isley, Evans, Hammer, and the other guys all did their parts too. We were riding high, but as I started to contemplate heading back to the quiet darkness of my hotel room alone, my mood began to deflate.

  "You coming out?" Hoss asked me as we headed back outside to the bus that would take us to the hotel.

  I usually said yes. Hell, I always said yes.

  But my heart wasn't in it. I imagined myself at some bar, with girls hanging around us all, smiling up at us and pressing their chests into our personal space. And while that had once been exactly the kind of celebrating I was into after a win—maybe with a burrito or two thrown in for good measure, tonight it just felt empty. "Nah," I answered. "Think I'll just get some rest, start thinking about playoffs."

  "Which are a month out," Erick Evans noted, one side of his mouth lifting in a wry smile.

  "Yeah, I was just trying to preserve your feelings. I don't want to hang out with you assholes tonight, okay? Honesty work better for you?" I laughed as I said it, and they all took it as it was meant—half-joking, half-serious.

  "Fine, have it your way, man." Evans said, climbing the steps to the bus. “This what it’s gonna be like once you’re married? Even Isley still goes out.”

  "Leave him alone, man,” Hoss told him. “It’s cool, man. Can’t wait to meet her. Great playing tonight."

  "You too," I said.

  It was just after I'd stepped into my room that I noticed Magalie's text. I'd assumed it would be my sister, though her congratulations to me generally came later now that she was hooked up with Fuerte. I guessed he got most of her excitement at this point, and that was how it probably should be. They deserved to be happy. And as I read Magalie's text, I had a fleeting thought that maybe I did too.

  But then I remembered that she wasn't into me that way.

  Even though her kiss had told a different story.

  I was feeling too good coming off the win to overthink. I thanked her for watching, surprise filling me as I considered that she might have just spent the last three hours watching one of the best performances of my life. Pride expanded my chest, pulled my spine a little straighter as I walked across the hotel room and stood at the wide panes of glass looking out toward Orlando. When she responded again, enthusiastically, I took a chance. I took a deep breath and invited her to meet us out the following night.

  When she accepted, I put the phone down and vowed not to overthink it, though her dark eyes and all that soft thick hair might have populated my fantasies as I lay in bed later that night. The way her breath had caught as we'd kissed, the soft little moan I'd heard as my arms had gone around her—those things might have made the soundtrack for a very satisfying pre-sleep experience.

  I'd had three pints before Magalie showed up at McDaughtry's. For a two-hundred-sixy-pound guy, that's not a lot, but it was enough to fill me with a warm buzz and a confidence I didn't come by naturally.

  She stepped in the door from the sidewalk, and I swear, every dude in the place turned to stare.

  Magalie wore a pair of tight black pants and a modest flowered shirt that flowed loosely around her, but dropped low enough in the front to offer just a glimpse of some undoubtedly delicious breasts. Her hair had been swept to the back of her head, revealing her long slender neck, her delicate jaw, and making those big dark eyes pop as she scanned the dim bar for me.

  I lifted a hand and a wide smile took over her face as she saw me. To my surprise, she practically dashed across the space to my side, bringing the gazes of most of the guys in the bar along for the ride. When she popped up on her toes and kissed both my cheeks, a laugh rolled out of me. My eyes went to her hand, and I found I was hoping to see the ring glittering there. But she wasn’t wearing it, and an unexpected disappointment flooded me.

  I had to remind myself we weren’t really engaged. It didn’t matter if she wore the damned ring.

  "It's good to see you," she said, and for some reason, the words sounded genuine and honest. I tried to sift through the syllables, looking for reluctance to actually spend time with me, or hesitancy about being friendly with someone who she just needed as an actor, but her eyes and her smile and her words all agreed. Maybe she was a good actress. But I hoped not.

  "Good to see you too," I told her. "Can I get you a drink?"

  She nodded and asked for a gin and tonic, and once we both had drinks in our hands and had toasted one another, I sat wordless, unsure how to speak to my fake fiancée.

  Erica and Fuerte had made dinner plans, so they weren’t here, and I was glad I hadn’t told my sister Magalie was coming.

  A few guys on the team wandered up and introduced themselves, and I watched Magalie sweetly greet Buck and Toofer, and then we were alone again and I scrambled for the right words. My hands were sweating. Why was this so hard?

  Magalie filled in the gap. "I had no idea I would enjoy watching a football match so much," she said, and I was somewhat mesmerized by the way her eyes glowed in the low light. "It was truly exciting," she went on. "I had Adam—the winemaker I work with—explain some things to me as it went on, but it was fascinating."

  "Fascinating," I repeated. Even my sister, who used to work for the Sharks and was dating a player, wouldn't call the sometimes three-hour long games fascinating. Three points was a high-scoring game. Soccer was a sport of finesse, o
f strategy and skill—we didn't pull the same fans as American football because the US attention span just didn't support long games where no one scored for an hour.

  "Yes, fascinating." She leaned in and put a hand on my arm, causing every muscle in my body to tighten involuntarily. "I actually found myself holding my breath every time they got near your goal, but you were always there. It was incredible."

  I wished I could better control the pleased smile I felt slide across my face when she said that. She didn’t need to know how much I enjoyed hearing her praise. But it had been incredible. And while I was used to praise from my teammates, and from my sister, I couldn't remember a genuine compliment on my game from anyone else who mattered to me—except maybe my agent. Not in years, maybe not ever. The families we’d lived with growing up liked soccer because it kept me out of their way, and the girls who hung around the team would ooh and ahh at us, but they weren't real fans. They were groupies. There was a difference. Having someone actually supporting you, cheering for you . . . well, that was new to me. "Thanks," I said, ducking my head just to cut the hot intensity of our connected gaze.

  If my goal was to turn this from fake dating into real dating, I thought maybe I didn’t have that far to go. We had a connection, and I didn’t think Magalie was merely acting. The way she looked at me, the way her hand felt on my arm. I couldn’t be imagining it all, could I?

  "So," I said, scrambling to turn the focus from me. "What's up in the exciting world of wine?"

  She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head, making one curling tendril fall down into her face. I watched as her delicate hand pushed it away, and felt a little flip in my stomach. "Wine is fascinating to me, but it is probably not exciting to most people."

  "Try me," I suggested, taking a healthy gulp of my drink to distract me from the magnetic pull I felt to her body, which was so close to mine I could feel the heat radiating off her thighs. We were facing each other, both of us seated at stools next to the bar. That meant my knees were bracketing hers, and her little frame was trapped within the cage of my legs, though we weren't touching.

  "We're blending last year's harvest right now, trying to predict the way the different grapes will age, and hoping to offset the tannin in the Syrah with the roundness of the Grenache and Mourvèdre."

  "Ah yes, the tannins," I said knowingly, nodding. She might as well have been speaking a different language, but I still wanted to hear more.

  She laughed, probably understanding that I had no clue what she was talking about. "The tannins are what make a red wine bitter, astringent. Like when you eat a walnut and your tongue gets . . ." she stuck out her tongue and made a little motion with her fingers above it like she was trying to draw something together on top of it, scrape something unpleasant off.

  "Oh, like that," I said, giving her the same goofy knowing nod and trying not to imagine that tongue in other scenarios.

  "You'll just have to come taste with me and I'll show you," she laughed.

  "I'd love that." The words slipped out accidentally, before I'd had a chance to consider that telling her I wanted nothing more than to spend more time with her, to be near the compelling pull of her curvy body, the open and friendly draw of her deep brown eyes, maybe wasn't the right thing to do in our situation. I didn’t know what the right thing was. There was no rulebook for this scenario. My mind was fuzzy and a little fizz of panic started low inside me.

  Her warm smile was still trained on me, making my heart feel like it was actually reaching from my chest trying to get closer to her. This was probably not good. I needed a distraction, something to give me some breathing room, some time to think. Because if she continued smiling at me like that, I was taking her home tonight. I’d spend whatever time she’d let me have with her, convincing myself she felt something too, and then when the time was up, I’d watch her walk away and I’d be a complete mess.

  I shielded myself from her happy smile and cleared my throat, pushing back my stool until I stood in front of her and could step slightly away, breaking the warm connection between us. I needed some breathing room. Some space. I needed to think a little bit.

  Desperate to turn the tide so I didn't continue to fawn over her like a lovelorn puppy, I pivoted to the bar, seeing the little rows of saltine crackers in a dish, left from where someone had ordered soup.

  "I have an idea,” I told her, knowing this was a bad idea. “Saltine challenge!" I announced, reaching for the saltine packets and stacking them in front of myself.

  "Aw, Trace, c'mon man. Is this going to be like the ketchup challenge? I still have nightmares about you puking red all over my shoes," Hoss moaned, leaning on the bar on his forearms. “Doesn’t your fiancée deserve better?” Hoss winked at Magalie.

  Magalie laughed, shaking her head in confusion. "What is this?"

  "Hello," Hoss said, sidling up on Magalie's other side. "We haven't been properly introduced because Trace here is rude. But I'm Edward Hostetler. Everyone calls me Hoss."

  "Then should I call you Hoss? Or Edward?" Magalie asked.

  Hoss put a finger to his lip, raising his brown eyes to the ceiling like he was thinking hard about the question. "I think you can call me Edward," he said, and when he smiled at her in a way I recognized from countless post-game bar celebrations in the past, I wanted to punch him right in his pretty-boy mouth. Hoss was a good enough guy—one of those polished types the ladies seemed to like well enough. But I didn't like the way he was smiling at Magalie, and since we were fake engaged, it needed to stop right away.

  "No barfing," I said, interrupting whatever charming lyrics Hoss was planning to drop next, as Hamish, who we called Hammer, stepped near on my other side, his dark beard showing a few remnants of whatever snacks he'd already had. He'd put on his kilt for the night, and was smiling in a way that told me he was either planning to get lucky or would end up face down on someone's couch until morning. He grinned at Magalie. “Hello, lass. Have you really agreed to hitch your wagon to this bit of insanity here?” He elbowed me.

  Magalie laughed. “I have, actually.” If I didn’t know we were pretending, her smile would have made me believe anything she said. “And I think a bit of insanity can be fun, non?”

  God. The “non” again. I felt my balls tighten. Why did that do it for me?

  “Remains to be seen, I guess,” Hammer said. “Congratulations, nonetheless. Pleased to have you in the family.”

  “Thank you,” she told him, taking my arm in a way that forced me to swallow down fantasies in which she might still be at my side when this was all over.

  “You might want to rethink that,” I told her. “And whatever you do, don’t give him your number or you’ll be on the receiving end of some of the most disturbing emoji texts you’ve ever seen.”

  Magalie looked between us in confusion, and Hamish actually blushed. “I had them specially made,” he said.

  “Do not text her,” I warned. I still hadn’t recovered from the first string of dick emojis Hamish had sent me. “Okay. Challenge time.”

  "So what's the challenge?" Magalie asked, picking up a pack of crackers.

  "Six crackers in sixty seconds. No liquid,” I said.

  She raised an eyebrow, looking at the crackers in her hand skeptically. "Seems easy."

  I nodded. It felt a bit like I was watching myself from above. I was about to do something ridiculous. Something as inarguably unsexy as possible, and only a tiny part of me understood why.

  "It does sound easy," I said. “But it’s not.” I turned to Hammer and then swung my gaze to Hoss. "You in?"

  Hoss rolled his eyes at me—maybe he'd done this one before—but Hammer was grinning from ear to ear (at least as far as I could tell beneath the beard).

  Here's the thing about the Saltine Challenge. It was fairly benign compared to my usual food challenges (which I did not partake in during the season, generally speaking. I couldn't afford to spend a day puking up mayonnaise or lolling around regretting Indian food overind
ulgence.) But it was disgusting to watch. And there was something rising up inside me that wanted to play defense against whatever these warm unfamiliar feelings were that Magalie had stirred up. I was a keeper. Defense was my happy place.

  The Saltine Challenge was many things. But it was not sexy. And if I was sure Magalie was disgusted by me and wanted little to do with me in any real way, then I wouldn't have to drive myself nuts trying to interpret every roll of those pretty little shoulders or every brush of her hand.

  "It's on," I said, and we set to work unwrapping crackers.

  Chapter 57

  No Celery Was Harmed

  Magalie

  "You're not going to destroy my bar again, are you Trace?" The bartender stood in front of Trace, arms crossed.

  I listened, fascinated. Trace had done this before?

  "You're probably referring to the Bloody Mary challenge," Trace said, smiling at him. "Don't worry, this is nothing like that. No vegetables will be harmed in this effort."

  "It's not the celery I'm thinking of," the man said. What had happened, I wondered, in the Bloody Mary challenge? I’d have to ask him later. Either way, this was turning into a very entertaining evening.

  "Settle down, Jones. It'll be fine," Trace assured him. "Just set up a few waters here for the weenies when they lose."

  I looked at the little piles of crackers in front of Trace, Edward and the big dark-bearded man Trace had called "Hammer." I was intrigued. I'd never witnessed anything referred to as a “food challenge” before, and while some of what the men were referencing sounded a little bit disgusting, it also sounded kind of fun.

  "Just a minute," I said, stopping them as Trace was about to hit start on the sixty-second timer he'd set on his phone. "I haven't got my crackers ready."