Bachelors In Love

by Jestine Spooner

  “Yeah,” Eli’s eyes unfocused for a second and he pursed his lips. “Maybe. Even if I go back to the team, I was hoping you’d still train with me more regularly than that.”

  Both Eli and Ricky paused over Eli’s wording. Was he saying that there was a chance he might not go back to the team? Ricky knew that Eli was doing well physically. It would be a hell of a month or two, but he could get back into star quarterback shape in time for the season. So he must be saying that he hadn’t decided for other reasons yet.

  Eli held Ricky’s gaze, almost daring him to say something, but Ricky just shrugged. “Sure, man. It’s up to you. As long as you give me enough notice to make sure my schedule is clear for you.”

  Eli nodded and smiled. It was one of the many reasons that Eli liked Ricky. He wasn’t starstruck by him. And he wouldn’t stiff other, lesser known, clients just because of Eli. Eli could respect that. And now he liked him even more for not sweating him about that slip up about the team. “Fair enough. I’m gonna run through my stretches and get out of here.”

  Eli sat down and started diligently stretching every muscle in his body. Especially the ones in his stomach and ribs. Even if it made him grit his teeth. The last thing he needed was to get tight and crampy over his achy ribs.

  The truth was, Eli had to admit to himself as he stretched, he owed Coach Best a phone call. Even though they’d talked last week about Eli’s health, Eli had yet to give him a decision about this coming season. Whether he was on the roster or not.

  Eli couldn’t remember a time in his life when he hadn’t been sure about wanting to play football. It disconcerted him.

  He didn’t bother showering off in the facility. He just wanted to get home and get cleaned up. He had a date with Tia later that afternoon and, despite the uncertainty of his future with football, Eli was in a great mood. He was juiced from his workout and going to see his girl. What could be better?

  “Elijah!” a voice called as he crossed the parking lot toward his car.

  Eli’s head snapped around toward his name on reflex. A flashbulb immediately went off in his eyes.

  Great. He squeezed his eyes shut against the glare and pressed his hand against his car to steady himself. A member of the paparazzi. And he was pretty sure he knew which one. He blinked the bubbles out of his eyes and turned. “Hey, Sid.”

  “Heya, Elijah,” the skinny, bushy haired man said. He bounced on the balls of his toes like a kid waiting in line for the bathroom. Sid Eskey had been following Eli for years. The most tenacious of all the paparazzi. And he’d caught some of Eli’s worst moments on camera. Drunken moments. With girls and parties and…god. It made a hot lick of shame singe Eli just to think about it all now. “You’re working pretty hard at that PT, huh? This mean you’re off the bench this year?”

  Eli pulled his car door open and slid in. “You’ll just have to find out with the rest of the fans.”

  “Come on, Elijah. I don’t get no professional courtesy?” Sid whined, but it was behind a smile as he snapped another two photos of Eli driving away.

  Eli didn’t hate Sid, exactly. Even if he didn’t respect paparazzi in general. The man was snivelly, ruthless, and good at his job. Which meant that Sid Eskey was responsible for a huge amount of the gossip that got spread about Eli. But Eli knew better than to yell or rage or even act bitter toward the paparazzi. Don’t feed the sharks.

  He pulled into his driveway ten minutes later and was surprised when he saw Tia’s car sitting in his driveway. He was supposed to pick her up from her house in an hour.

  “Hey!” he called over the top of his car as they both slid out. “Did I get the time wrong?”

  “No,” she said, her hair shining in the little bit of sun that was trying to peek through the flat gray clouds. “I just wanted to come ask you something before I got too nervous and chickened out.”

  Eli cocked his head to one side and smiled. “Alright. Let’s go inside.”

  He followed her in and closed the door firmly behind him, turning to her. “I want to pick you up and kiss you breathless, but I don’t want to mess up that pretty dress.” He nodded at the neat, yellow sundress she wore, and then at his own sweaty, messy body.

  “Oh.” Tia peered down at her dress, a little frown on her face. And then she shocked the shit out of him by grabbing the dress in her hands and yanking it over her head. She tossed it to the side and stood in front of him in a pair of low heels and matching white silk underwear and a bra.

  The air puffed out of Eli’s chest like a bellows.

  Tia cocked her head to one side. “Oh, but you probably don’t want to get these messy either, huh?” She gestured to her pristine underwear. And then, standing five feet away from him in his front foyer, she slid out of her bra and stepped out of her underwear.

  Eli raked a hand over his eyes and forced himself to stand in place for a second. To just look at her. Because, good lord, she was so gorgeous. Almost painfully so. Golden and peachy and curvy and soft. Her hair fell over her shoulder in a messy braid and she wore contacts again. As much as he loved all her glasses, when she wore contacts, he felt like her eyes could see right through him. He loved the thrill it gave him.

  But, being just a mortal man, he had to touch her. The looking portion was going to give him a heart attack if he pushed it much longer. He was across the foyer in one giant step, making Tia laugh with surprise as he hoisted her right up.

  Eli held her against him, kicking off one tennis shoe and then the other. He buried his face in her neck. “Are you sure you don’t mind the sweat?”

  “Mmm,” Tia said in lieu of a real reply, burying her own face in his shoulder. He couldn’t help but nip at her neck, her collarbones, as he carried her through the house. He was energized by the fact that his fatigue from his workout registered much more than the ache in his ribs.

  The same couldn’t be said, however, for the ache he felt in other places. For Tia. She had full control over his body, like a conductor with an orchestra. Every place that she touched him was alive and begging for more, his skin like fire, his muscles heated. Her heels dug into his back where she pressed against him, her arms like vines around his neck.

  He stumbled down his back hall and into his bathroom, turning the shower on with one hand and stepping them both under the stream, he with all his clothes on still.

  Tia tightened against the chilly water, but laughed and took his mouth with her own. When the water warmed, and she went, at the same time, fierce and pliant against him, Eli could wait no longer.

  He yanked his shorts, heavy and stubborn with water, down to his knees and plunged up and into the woman he loved.

  The thought stilled him completely. And the force of his thrust stilled her as well. For a few seconds they froze there, in the dozy steam of the shower. She with her back arched, her head fallen back as she acclimated to his size, and he with his eyes slammed shut, his heart about to beat out of his chest.

  He loved her. He felt that string that connected the two of them pull tight and tighter yet. This woman who’d held his life in her hands. This calm, serious woman who was soft in every place inside of her.

  And when her eyes met his, clear and silver and burning right through him, Eli had the terrifying thought that he’d just rearranged his entire life. Tia was at the top now. He felt everything tumble away, down to the bottom of the pile. And there was Tia, held up in his arms.

  He used his hips to pin her there, at the top of his life, where she belonged, where he needed her to be. Tia arched against him and let him take her there. And when they clenched and exploded against one another, they laughed, her with joyous relief and he with just joy.

  She purred in his arms as he washed her hair with his shampoo. And he just grinned when she did his. They dried each other off and he jogged, naked, through his house to retrieve her clothes.

  “What did you have to ask me? That you were scared you’d chicken out from?” he asked as he sat on the edge of his bed in his boxe
rs, watching Tia braid her damp hair in just her underwear and bra. I love you.

  The words were at the tip of his tongue but he held them back. He figured a guy was entitled to get used to the feeling on his own for a little while.

  She turned to him and opened her mouth. Closed it. She stepped into her sundress and straightened it in the mirror, as if she were fastening on a little bit of armor.

  “Well, I’m going to go see my parents this evening.”

  “Oh, you wanted to ask if we could reschedule our date?” He tipped his head to one side, trying to get a read on her.

  “No,” she shook her head and bit her lip, turning to face him completely. “Will you come with me?”

  Surprise and pleasure raced through him. She wanted him to meet her folks. “Yes! Of course.” Eli sprang to his feet and dragged her into his chest, resting his cheek on her hair as he pressed her into him. And then a thought hit him. He stepped away from her and flung open his closet. “Crap. But I don’t think I have anything ‘meet the parents’ to wear.”

  Tia pressed her hand over her smile. God, he was cute. All humongous and half naked and pawing through his closet to find something acceptable to wear. She leaned against the closet door and watched as he gripped at his hair, making it stand up, as he turned a slow circle, looking for something to wear.

  “I think just a button-down shirt,” Tia prompted, doing her best not to laugh. “And maybe a nice pair of jeans? Or khakis, if you have them?”

  “Right. Right.” He turned to a drawer and pawed through for the khakis. “You choose the shirt.”

  Tia stepped into his closet and almost closed her eyes against the deliciousness of the scent in there. Exercise and fabric softener. Just the way he always smelled. She licked her lips as she turned to his shirts. “Hmm. This one.”

  She pulled a navy blue button-down off the hanger and her eyes fell to his many pairs of shoes in a jumble below. “And these.”

  She selected a nice pair of leather sneakers. Eli pulled on the khakis, shrugged into the shirt and stepped into the sneakers. And looked all out of sorts.

  Genuinely laughing now, Tia dragged him out of the closet and sat him on the edge of the bed. She started buttoning up his shirt, straightening the collar, smoothing his hair. “You have nothing to worry about. Seriously. You would have had nothing to worry about when they were all there, healthy. They would have loved you. And now? You really have nothing to worry about.”

  Eli cleared his throat. “What are they like?”

  “When they were healthy? Or now?”

  “Both.”

  “Well, back in the day, my mom was a real firecracker. She had such a temper and was always the one disciplining me and Laura. She’s always been messy. And a great cook. She has a really loud voice and you could always hear her yelling about something from up the block. Usually about sports.”

  “She’s a sports fan?”

  “Yup. Huge Stingrays fan, actually.” She poked him playfully. “And she still likes to have a game on, even if she can’t follow it the way she used to. She, uh, doesn’t remember me or Laura. I think she remembers my dad sometimes. They live together in the home. So maybe that’s why. But she’s kind of in her own world.”

  “And your dad?”

  “He’s always been quiet. And funny. The kind of guy you want to stand next to at a party, or else you’ll miss all his jokes. He was really, really devoted to me and Laura. Never missed a game. That kind of thing. And he still floats in and out. Sometimes he remembers and sometimes he doesn’t. It’s worse when he does. Because it makes him so sad. He knows he’s missing things, but he just doesn’t know what. He always wants to know that we’re happy. We have to tell him a million times in a row before he’ll settle down.”

  “God,” Eli reached out for her hands. “And they both went at the same time?”

  Tia sighed. “No. My mother got a closed head injury about ten years ago, she fell off a ladder at an apple orchard. And the dementia kind of crept in, slowly but surely. We ended up having to get a nurse for her about five years ago, because her mental clarity had degraded so badly. And when she wasn’t all my dad’s responsibility anymore, when he didn’t have to hold everything together, he just sort of started to slide away.”

  “Alzheimer’s?”

  Tia shook her head. “We’re not sure. Most indicators are a yes, but whatever it is, he’s not all there.”

  Eli took her hand and followed her outside. Tia went automatically to her own car to drive so Eli went around to the passenger side without questioning. He figured she probably had some sort of pregame ritual to get her ready for seeing her parents. He didn’t want to mess that up at all.

  They were quiet on the drive over and Eli was about to ask if she was sure about him coming along when she reached over and took his hand in hers.

  She led him into the nursing home and the woman behind the desk brightened immediately. “Tia! I’m so glad you’re here I—Elijah Bird? Oh my GAWD, are you Elijah Bird?”

  The woman behind the desk sprang to her feet, her dyed red hair bouncing on her shoulders as she straightened her wire rim glasses. “It really is you! Oh my gawd.”

  Eli grinned and stepped toward her, mostly so she’d stop screaming in the quiet front hallway of the nursing home. He held his hand out to her for a shake and she blinked at it. Bringing her own hand up to shake his in a quiet, reverent way.

  “Nice to meet you,” he squinted at the name tag on her shirt. “Valerie.”

  “Are they in the room?” Tia asked, interrupting the moment.

  Valerie jumped, blushed and glanced at the clock on the wall behind her. “Um. Yes. They’ve all just finished their early dinner and they should be back in their rooms by now.”

  “Thanks, Val. We’ll catch you on the way out,” Tia said, tugging Eli along behind her.

  “Do they all do things on the same schedule here?” Eli asked, thinking privately that eating dinner at 4:30 and then retiring to your room seemed like hell.

  Tia shrugged. “Usually. It helps for people like my parents to have a steady, expected schedule. Your body gets used to it and then you can trust it to tell you what’s next. Hungry? Probably time to eat. Tired? Time to rest. That kind of thing.”

  It made sense to him. But this place was kind of giving Eli the creeps. He could vaguely smell that hospital scent he hated so much and the walls were all this falsely cheery yellow.

  Tia stopped in front of a door marked Roger and Darlene Camellia. She gave his hand a squeeze and pushed open the door.

  “Tia!” A young man in scrubs rose from where he’d been placing a set of shoes in a little cubby. The young man was baby faced with black hair and a crooked nose. Eli instantly recognized the look on the kid’s face. It was the same one that Eli himself wore every time he looked at Tia. Huh.

  “Hey, Michael,” Tia said, stepping forward to give him a quick hug. “This is my boyfriend, Eli.”

  Michael straightened up as his eyes frosted significantly. He swept his gaze over Eli and then froze, obviously recognizing him. Eli saw the first signs of a mega fan start to reveal themselves. The wide eyes, the open mouth. But then the kid’s eyes went back to Tia. And then back to Eli. His expression was stuck somewhere between wishing Eli was dead and wanting to fall at his feet in worship.

  Eli decided on giving him a polite smile and then turning his attention to Tia. He swept his eyes around the rooms they’d just entered and was relieved to feel nothing of a hospital feel in here. There were wide windows that looked out onto a park and paintings on the deep green walls. Pictures hung here and there. They were in a sort of foyer area. Beyond it, Eli could see easy chairs and a television. And on his other side he could see a bedroom.

  There were flowers in vases scattered around the place and a few bookshelves. Knickknacks warmed the space as well. Eli could tell that Laura and Tia had gone to great pains to make this place as homey as possible for their parents. His heart warmed to the w
oman in front of him even more.

  He stepped up behind Tia and stroked a hand over her shoulder, ignoring the fire that was exploding out of Michael’s eyes.

  “How are they today?” Tia asked.

  Michael’s eyes lost their vengeful hell fire as he turned them onto Tia. “Good. It’s been a good day. I’ve got ESPN on for your mom and your dad’s been talking a bit, memories, that kind of thing.”

  “Is he coherent at all?”

  “Ah. No, not really. But the things he’s talking about might make more sense to you than they do to me.”

  “Okay. Well, we’re gonna be with them for about an hour, if you wanna take a break.”

  Michael’s eyes slid between Eli and Tia again as he nodded his head. “Sure.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Eli said as the kid slid out the front door. He didn’t hear anything in response.

  “That was rude.” Tia’s eyebrows furrowed. “How weird. He’s usually so warm and friendly.”

  “Trust me. It’s not that weird.” She looked up at him in confusion and Eli traced a hand down her braid. “I’ll explain later. Let’s go see your parents.”

  It was always a shock to Tia. Even after the decade they’d slowly deteriorated and the few years that they’d really gone downhill, sometimes she still expected to walk into the room and have her father look up and say, “Hey there, ladybug!”

  Just like he used to.

  But of course, Tia stepped into the room to see her mother, salt and pepper hair in a ponytail and a baggy sweater over her jeans, leaning toward the television, watching the sports highlights of yesterday.

  Her father sat quietly at a window, looking for all the world exactly the same. His hair was combed back and he wore a Harvard sweatshirt. He looked up when they came in. And there it was. The blank non-recognition in his eyes.

  “Hi Dad. Mom.” Tia fought through the blinding sadness. She walked to each, holding her hands out in a double hand squeeze. She and Laura had learned the hard way that running up to them with your arms out for a hug was a good way to have a hysterical patient on your hands.