The Perfect Catch

by Shania Tyler

  “Well, damn, man,” Tommy sighed. “You know I can’t keep things from Jean.”

  “Then you better pray she never asks a question about my love life because I need you to swear this stays between you and me,” I told him. The last thing I needed was for word to get out about this, especially with everything that had been on the Internet.

  “Does this have something to do with your hottie boss?” Tommy asked, and I cursed him for always knowing me so well. He could always tell what was wrong with me before I’d even mentioned anything.

  “Tommy, promise me,” I insisted. I wasn’t going to tell him anything until he had at least done that.

  “All right, all right.” I could almost imagine him putting his hands up in surrender. “I promise I will not tell another living soul about this conversation.”

  “And you promise that after we’ve spoken about it, you will never bring it up again unless I bring it up?” I couldn’t stand the thought of him teasing me about this afterward. He had a nasty habit of mocking me for the stupid things I’d done in the past and I didn’t want to add this one to the list.

  “Sure, man,” Tommy sighed as though he was fed up with having to jump through my hoops. “Would you just spit it out?”

  “I can’t get her out of my head.” I placed my hand over my face as my head began to ache. Ruby had been swimming around my thoughts all day. The tight purple dress she’d been wearing had left little to the imagination and the way that the other men in the room stared at her had frustrated me all day long. “I know I shouldn’t be thinking like this, but I can’t get her out of my brain. It’s like she’s infected me.”

  “Oh, hell, you’ve got it bad, haven’t you?” Tommy gasped, and I flinched at the tone of his voice. He was right. I did have it bad whatever ‘it’ was and I had never had it so bad in my entire life. Never before had I been consumed with thoughts and images of a woman I could never hope to have. Never before had I been so filled with desire that I felt as though I might burst at a single glance from her sparking eyes.

  “What do I do?” I asked.

  “I suggest you pack your bags and move to another country,” Tommy laughed, and I cringed at his words. Though he was joking, I imagined that it would be the only way I could fully remove myself from the situation I found myself in.

  “I’m serious, Tommy,” I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t stop thinking about her and if I try to do anything about it, I will lose my job or worse. She will lose hers.”

  The thought that I was putting her entire livelihood at risk by simply being attracted to her was the worst part of all. I could only imagine the way she would look at me with disgust and hatred if that ever came to pass. One night of pleasure could turn everything to hell for the both of us, yet I was growing less certain by the day whether I might be able to avoid that moment.

  “Then maybe it’s time to ask yourself what’s more important,” Tommy said. “A night of passion or your career. That is unless you think this might be more than that?”

  I knew he was fishing for more information. I could hear it in his tone and I knew what he was thinking. I had been thinking the same thing myself, yet I couldn’t allow myself to admit it, at least not yet and not to Tommy.

  “The truth is I just don’t know,” I sighed as I felt the stress headache growing with intensity.

  “I never thought I’d see the day when Major Lawson fell in—” Tommy began but I quickly cut him off, clearing my throat.

  “Do not say it!” I couldn’t allow myself to admit it because I was scared. What if she didn’t feel the same way?

  “You need to speak to her,” Tommy advised. “Maybe she will feel the same way and if she does, I’m sure you could come up with a plan between you that would stop you both from losing your careers.”

  “Maybe I should just ignore it?” I suggested. Although I said the words aloud so that Tommy could hear, I was actually asking myself the question. “Maybe if I ignore it, it’ll just go away and that will be that.”

  “Sorry, but if this is what I think it is, then it isn’t just going to go away like that,” Tommy told me and all I could do was sigh. “Once it gets a hold of you, it doesn’t let go.”

  I found myself praying that he was wrong. I wished that I had never taken the stupid job with the Houston Buckskins. I wished I’d never heard Ruby’s sweet angel voice on my answering machine telling me to come down to her office and speak to her about employment. Maybe then I wouldn’t be faced with the impossible decision of choosing between my feelings and my career. I couldn’t have both. Yet as I sat there thinking about my options, I realized that if it came down to one or the other, there was no doubt in my mind which one I would pick.

  “I have to go,” I said suddenly into the phone.

  “You all right, Major?” Tommy asked. He must have heard the urgency in my voice.

  “I have to go,” I repeated and with that, I hung up. My friend would understand my urgency one day. He always forgave me for putting the phone down on him.

  I dialed a second number almost as quickly as I’d dialed the first and pressed the phone to my ear. My heart hammered in my chest as I waited impatiently for her to answer. The thought of hearing her angelic voice filled me with both delight and dread. Her voice alone could have me on my knees.

  Damn voicemail. Why did it have to be her voicemail that answered? How could it get my hopes up like that just to dash them to the curb when I realized that it wasn’t in fact her but a recorded message of her voice?

  I didn’t wait for the beep to come. Instead, I ended the call and pushed myself to my feet. I couldn’t wait for her to call back. I couldn’t leave a message on her phone and lie in bed all night wondering whether she had gotten it. I was a practical man and that meant action. Pushing my feet into my boots, I walked through the hotel room, grabbed my keys from the bowl by the door, and headed out to the elevator. If she wasn’t going to answer her phone, then I would just have to do this in person.

  My entire body was shaking as I stood in the elevator. I was so impatient that my toes tapped on the floor of the cart was I waited for it to descend and for the doors to slide open in the lobby. Even more annoying was the fact that it seemed to stop every other floor to let other people on. They were so inconsiderate of my mission, causing my progress to the finish line to slow drastically.

  “Come on, come on,” I huffed under my breath when an elderly couple took their time hobbling onto the elevator.

  Come on, keep your cool Major, I thought to myself. The last thing I needed was to be arrested for giving a little old lady a heart attack. I gritted my teeth and endured the ride down to the ground floor. By the time we reached the bottom I was forced back against the back wall of the elevator and had to wait for everyone else to disembark. First waiting for the elderly couple to shimmy off was like watching paint dry and the rest of them seemed to move just as slowly. I clenched my hands into fists at my sides and gritted my teeth as I waited.

  It’s going to be a long night, I sighed to myself as I eventually managed to throw myself from the elevator before the doors closed on me and blocked my path again.

  * * *

  24

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  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

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  Ruby

  I wasn’t sure how I always managed to get myself into these kinds of situations but the minute I sat down on Ash’s couch and he handed me the glass of wine I knew exactly where my night was going. Sure, Ash was hot, and any woman would be lucky to get him into bed but the thought of it made me more than a little nervous. I hadn’t gone to bed with any man for a long time, not since Scotty had royally messed me up. I hadn’t even thought about sex in such a long time. That was until Major showed up and my every waking thought turned to him undressing me and taking me from behind
.

  Yet I couldn’t have Major so here I was. I needed to get rid of this frustration somehow. Maybe Ash could help me do that. I was sure he wouldn’t mind being my guinea pig for the night. Every guy wanted a girl who would give him what he wanted and then leave right? At least that was what I told myself as I felt Ash inching towards me on the couch.

  “So, Ruby, what brings you here tonight?” he asked me with a smile before he took a sip of wine from his own glass. I took a swig of my own before answering that question.

  “I just left the worst date of my life,” I admitted with a shrug of my shoulders and Ash’s eyebrow rose with interest. I felt his arm slip over the back of the couch, resting just beyond my shoulders, not quite touching me but close enough for me to be able to feel the warmth of his flesh against the bare skin of my back where my backless dress revealed plenty of my own flesh.

  “What’s a pretty girl like you doing on bad dates?” he frowned and shook his head, “We can’t have that can we?”

  “I’m sure everyone gets a bad date every night and again,” I brushed it away trying not to think about it anymore. The last thing I wanted to think about was Scotty. It was right up there with the fact that I couldn’t have Major.

  Stop thinking about him, I snapped at myself and in an effort to get him out of my head I found myself inching a little closer to Ash. He seemed to take it as a hint that he was able to touch me, and I felt his hand slip onto my shoulder.

  “Maybe I could turn your night around for the good?” he suggested and when he placed his wine glass on the coffee table I knew that the game was on.

  “Maybe you could,” I agreed as I placed my own glass on the table beside his. My heart hammered in my chest as I leaned back, and he came towards me. Our eyes connected for a moment and I quickly blinked mine shut as I felt his lips drawing towards my own. I was more than a little nervous now. I wasn’t sure whether it was how fast things had begun to happen or whether it was the fact that I really didn’t want it, but something simply didn’t feel right.

  Yes, I felt my stomach flip as he kissed me, but I didn’t feel the butterflies that I knew I should feel when someone kissed me. The ones I’d felt with Major. I didn’t feel the tingling sensation of lust deep in my body. In fact, I didn’t feel much of anything at all and I quickly pulled my face away from his own.

  All too late, I realized that I was hemmed in by his arms and my heart hammered in my chest as I suddenly remembered being pinned to the wall in the alleyway.

  “Get the hell off me!” I yelled at him as I shoved him away from me. I didn’t realize my own strength and Ash suddenly went flying towards the coffee table, completely unprepared for my sudden change of heart.

  “What the hell?” he gasped as he managed to catch himself midair right before he hit the table, “Are you crazy?”

  Oh, how I hated it when men called me that. Just because I didn’t want somebody touching me I was automatically crazy. I guess every woman was crazy for not wanting a hot man like Ash to touch her.

  “I’m sorry,” I shook my head as I forced myself onto my feet and grabbed my handbag from where it was resting against the couch on the floor, “I can’t do this.”

  Before Ash had the chance to question me on what the hell was going through my mind I turned and began to race down the corridor to the front door of his apartment. I could imagine his disgusted face watching me as I slipped out of the door and slammed it shut behind me causing it to lock instantly. There was no turning back now and I was sure that even if I had the moment was ruined anyway.

  I stood for a moment looking at the floor, panting with the effort of my sudden sprint and I could feel tears burning in the corners of my eyes at the thought of what I had just been about to do.

  “I should never have come here,” I told myself as I suddenly thought of what Major would think if he saw me now.

  “Ruby?” a familiar voice hit my ears and my face flew up to see Tessa stood on her doormat with her key in the door, “What are you doing here?”

  She raised her eyebrow at me and glanced at the door behind me, “Did you just come out of Ash’s apartment?”

  She stepped away from her own door and took a step towards me.

  “I know, I know,” I raised my hands at her in order to stop her from saying anything, “I know exactly how this looks and if you had come an hour later you might have been right, but I didn’t go through with it.”

  “Through with what? What are you talking about?” Tessa scowled at me as though she couldn’t understand what I was saying. From the look on her face I might as well have been speaking in a foreign language.

  “I…I almost slept with Ash,” I squeezed my eyes shut tight and shook my head, “Don’t judge me okay!”

  I heard her gasp and my eyes flew open to see the shocked look on her face.

  “I think you had better come inside and tell me exactly what is going on,” she told me as she stepped back up to her door, unlocked it and pushed it open, gesturing me inside.

  “Only if you have a bottle of wine,” I told her, and she smiled at me.

  “Tessa always has wine,” she laughed, and I couldn’t help but smile. My best friend always had more than one bottle of wine in her apartment ready for just these such occasions, “Come on. Let’s go inside and talk this through, whatever this is.”

  She gestured down at my overdressed state and I suddenly realized that I hadn’t told her about my blackmail date with Scotty. At lot seemed to have happened since I’d seen her the night before and I knew that our next conversation was going to be a long one.

  The minute we settled on her couch and I kicked off my heels I began to feel a little better. She handed me a glass of wine much like Ash had but I knew that she wasn’t going to try to kiss me and that made me feel ever better than I had a few minutes before.

  “So, what’s going on with you?” she scowled at me as though she was worried and the concerned glint in her eye made me feel a little nauseous. I was the mother bear of this relationship and I knew that things much be serious if she was having to take on that role for me.

  “I went on a sort of date with Scotty because he’s been sending me gifts and he left me a note on my office door this morning telling me that if I didn’t go on a date with him then the rumors about me and Major would only get worse,” I explained, “I went just to tell him that he couldn’t blackmail me and if he tried again I would make him wish he was never born. Then I came here to talk to you about it, but you weren’t here and then Ash found me downstairs and I felt so lonely and I just wanted to forget everything so I….”

  I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence, but it seemed that I didn’t need to.

  “So, you did a me,” Steph sighed. We both knew that she was the one who always slept with men to keep herself from feeling lonely. She was the girl who hated being in a long-term relationship. She hated being tied down to one man, but she also hated being alone and that was why she had a different man in her bed every week.

  “I guess you could say that,” I shrugged my shoulders, “Only I couldn’t go through with it and I almost pushed Ash through his glass coffee table and I can’t get…..” I had been about to tell her that I couldn’t get Major out of my head, but something stopped me. Perhaps it was the fact that if I said it out loud then it made it real or maybe it was the fact that I was scared I would see my own judgement reflected in my best friend’s eyes.

  “I’m sure Ash wouldn’t be the first guy you’ve had meaningless sex with so why the sudden drama?” Tessa frowned further, and I knew that she was trying to read me. She had a habit of always being able to hit the nail on the head and I was sure that if I allowed her to look at me for too long she would see right through me, so I turned my face down towards my glass.

  “I’m not sure I should say it,” I sighed, “If I say it out loud then it becomes real and if this becomes real then I am in deep crap.”

  “Well now you absolutely have to tell
me,” she twisted on the couch so that she was facing me, looking at me as though she was waiting for the juiciest bit of gossip she’d heard all year and the thing was that for her it probably would be.

  “How strict do you think the rules are on employee relationships in the football industry?” I flinched as I said the words and Steph gasped instantly.

  “I knew it! You’ve got a thing for coach hottie, haven’t you? A serious thing…” she practically bounced on the couch and I clenched my glass a little tighter to stop from spilling it as I took a swig to stop myself from having to answer straight away.

  “I’ll admit that he’s definitely attractive, and the sex was great, but I just can’t go there, can I?” I sighed as I tried to push myself away from the idea yet again, “I can’t afford to risk losing my career over some guy, no matter how hot he is.”

  “Ruby, I saw the way he was looking at you in the club last night,” Tessa sighed, “That guy looked like he wanted to whisk you away to a secret location and never let you go again. There is no way that this is a one night stand kind of deal. I bet right now, he’s even trying to figure out how to have a repeat of you guys again.”

  For a moment I allowed myself to imagine just what it was that Tessa was telling me but then I had to force the thought away. She could be wrong. She was most likely wrong. I couldn’t allow myself to think that this was something more than it was. It was a simple workplace crush, and one night of physical release, and nothing more. Nothing would ever come of it because I wasn’t going to allow anything to come of it. I couldn’t afford to.

  “I can’t lose my job,” I shook my head and took another swig of my drink, “I’ve been working so hard for this since I left college.”

  “I know,” Tessa sighed, “But one day you will look back at your life and do you really want the only thing you see to be work?”