by Lexi Ryan
“When do you start?” Chris asks.
“I guess right away. He gave me some stuff to work on tonight, and we’re meeting to talk about it tomorrow.” My stomach shimmies with nerves at the thought.
“That’s awesome,” Chris says. He nods to the door. “I’m about to head out on a run, but I wanted to hear about the interview before I left.”
“I thought you were doing two-a-days with the team.”
He nods and sighs. “Yeah, I’m a little antsy.” He shrugs as if it’s nothing, but I can tell something’s bothering him. “I need to blow off some of this energy. I’ll feel better after a few miles.”
I nod stupidly, as if I know anything about training for football or even basic working out.
“If you ever want to come with me,” he says, “you’d be welcome.”
I blink at him. “Like, running?”
He cocks his head to the side. “Yeah. The apartment complex doesn’t have a gym, and since you’re not a student you can’t use the university one, and I figure you don’t want to waste money on a membership to a gym. I just wanted you to know you could run with me if you wanted.”
I drop my gaze to my feet and then back up to him. “These legs don’t run. I don’t understand why anyone would inflict such torture on themselves.”
“It’s not torture once you get used to it.”
“You can keep lying to yourself, but I’m fine knowing the truth.”
“You’re a trip,” he mutters, rubbing his palm and turning toward the bedroom.
“Hey, wait a minute,” I say, stopping him. “Let me have a look at that hand.”
He turns back to me and extends his hand. The wound isn’t bandaged anymore and it’s scabbed over into a thin red line. “It’s fine,” he says, his voice rough.
“I think you’ll live.” I lift my eyes to meet his and find him studying my mouth. I want him to dip his head and kiss me so badly, I can hardly breathe.
Pulling his gaze from my lips, he meets my eyes. “I need to grab my headphones,” he says, but he doesn’t pull away.
“Chris?”
His lips part. “Yeah?”
I have no idea what I want to say. Kiss me? Don’t look at me like that? Do you feel this thing between us? I release his hand. “Thanks for letting me stay here this summer.”
He blinks at me. “No problem.”
The moment gone, he goes to the bedroom, and I open up the cabinet and find the box of Lucky Charms, pouring myself a bowl and adding milk before I take a seat at the counter with my cereal and the stack of papers from Mr. Gregory. I need to think about something other than Chris and his eyes on my mouth. And anyway, I want to impress Mr. Gregory when I see him tomorrow. I want to learn everything I can from this man.
When I open up the folder and start leafing through the hundreds of papers, my stomach sinks. I want to impress Drew Gregory, and I’ve already fucked up.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chris
I grab my earbuds out of my top drawer and fist them in my hand, forcing myself to take a deep breath before heading back out to the kitchen. I’ve used running and exercise as a tool for clearing my head since I was a kid. Judging by past experience, I should be able to shake off this day if I just run roughly four hundred miles.
Because fuck. I’ve never felt less control of my life than I do right now.
I had less than sixteen hours where I got to lie to myself and pretend that maybe, just maybe, my father wasn’t in town to interview for the head coach job. That optimism was shot to hell the minute I walked into the locker room this morning and everyone was buzzing with the news that Colt Montgomery is considering leaving Texas Bright University to take the position at BHU.
I pushed hard through morning practice and made Mason stay for an hour of his break to run routes. I threw and threw and threw until my arm felt like lead and Mason was cussing at me.
Then Grace. Grace.
I planned on a good run to get this ugliness out of my system, but then she took my hand in hers. Her simple touch sent a shock wave through my body and I imagined something else that would be a hell of a lot more effective in taking my mind off how fucked my season is about to get.
I feel frenzied and chaotic inside, but the second she walked in those doors and grinned, everything dropped away, and for a few seconds, football didn’t matter.
Last night, I fell asleep before she came into the room, but it didn’t stop me from thinking about her while I drifted off. About how it felt to have her soft hair slide through my fingers and how much I like having that wide smile aimed in my direction.
The thing is, I fucking know she’s trouble. I know it from the way we ended up kissing at Willow’s, and I know it from the questions that come out of that wicked mouth of hers. I’ve always avoided trouble and have never been attracted to it, but trouble in the form of Grace Lee seems to be my exception. All I want is to be close to her. Right now, I want to break every promise I made to her father and myself and be closer than I should.
She’d quiet the chaos in my brain. She’d make everything feel right again.
Instead, I’m going to run fast and hard until my lungs burn.
When I return to the kitchen, she’s sitting at the bar flipping frantically through papers, stress all over her face.
“Grace?” I put my hand on her arm.
She jumps then shakes her head when she sees it’s just me.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m supposed to go through his notes and get ideas for a production. But there are no notes here. I don’t know if I lost them, or if they’re in invisible ink, or if he gave me the wrong file, but there are blank dog-eared pages, and I feel like I’m losing my mind. Surely he wouldn’t have given me a file full of blank pages, right?” Her hands shake, and I take them in mine and squeeze them tight.
“It’s gonna be okay. We’ll figure it out, all right?”
She shakes her head. “I’m so out of my league, and I don’t want to fuck it up. I feel like I failed my first job, and it’s my fault because he gave me the file and I didn’t want to look at what was inside. I didn’t even ask what play he had in mind. I w-w-was so afraid I’d s-s-say something s-s-s-stupid.” She stops, squeezes her eyes shut, and takes a long, slow breath. “I just wanted to leave.”
“Hey, look at me.” I dip my head and force her to meet my gaze. She bites her lip as her big green eyes meet mine. “It’s gonna be okay. We’ll figure it out.” Her shoulders fall a little as she relaxes. “They’re all blank?”
She nods. “Every single page. Do you think it’s some kind of a joke? Maybe he doesn’t mean for me to work for him. Maybe he knows that I’m . . .” She bites her lip again.
“Have you called him?”
“What?”
“Keegan’s uncle. What’s his name?”
“Drew Gregory.”
“Have you called Drew at his office to tell him what’s in the file?”
She shakes her head. “He’s going to think I’m an idiot.”
“Grace.” I look down at the pile of white paper and flip through them. “You’re not an idiot, and this was probably an honest mistake. Just call him and let him know you’ll come by to pick up the right file so you can get started for tomorrow.”
She nods and takes a deep breath. “I don’t normally flip out like this,” she says quietly, her eyes fixed on the blank pages. “I just really don’t want to fuck this up.”
“This job means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”
She nods, and my chest aches for her. I can see all over her face the anxiety I feel every time someone wants to talk to me about the draft.
Having someone hand you your wish on a silver platter seems like reason to celebrate, like endless happiness, but the reality of it is that it’s terrifying. Someone gift-wraps an opportunity for you—your dream—and hands it over, and even though you’re grateful to have it, you can’t stop thinking about how it’s in your hands now, and
if it drops to the ground and shatters, it’s your fault.
Last semester, I watched Arrow nearly throw away his football career. He almost lost his dream. Now I’m the one with the ball on the five-yard line and the defense lining up to cover the pass, and I need the courage to rush it in.
I don’t know anything about writing or plays, but I can see it in her face. Working for Drew Gregory is her NFL draft.
I realize I’m still holding one of her hands, and I force myself to let it go.
I grab her purse off the end table and bring it to the counter, and she pulls her phone from inside and shoots me a grateful smile as she dials.
A minute later, she’s frowning as she ends the call. “He’s not answering. I guess I’ll send him an email?”
“Great idea. It’s going to be fine. You’ll see.” I barely resist the urge to lean forward and press a kiss to the wrinkle in her brow. “You good?”
She nods slowly. “I’ll email him. You go run.”
“Good. I have my phone. Call me if you need to, okay?”
“Sure,” she says, and I make myself leave the apartment. Because all I want to do is stand by her side and convince her it’s going to be okay, and somehow that seems far more dangerous than how much I want to touch her again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Grace
After Chris leaves, I type a quick email to Drew Gregory—oh my God, my first email to Drew Gregory and it’s to admit that I’m an idiot. Awesome!—and then my phone buzzes with a text.
A quick look tells me it’s from an unknown number, and I tap my screen to open it.
Unknown: Talk is that Chris’s dad might be his new coach. I’m wondering if Coach knows what a whore Chris’s new “roommate” is. I doubt he’d approve.
I know without asking that the text is from Jewel or one of her cronies. I wish she didn’t know anything about my life or living situation, but in Champagne, gossip spreads faster than syphilis at a sex club.
I read the text three times, and with each pass something different stabs me in the gut. The word whore. The quotes around roommate. The implicit threat. The fact that if what she says is true, it’s big news for Chris and he hasn’t said a word about it to me.
I won’t reply. You don’t bait the trolls. I’ll let her think I didn’t see it, let her wonder if I changed my number, anything but give her the pleasure of knowing she’s gotten through to me.
But doing nothing makes me want to pull my hair out, so I do the next most obvious thing. I pull out a bottle of Bailey-recommended cheap red, and I start drinking.
Half a bottle of wine and a disproportionately sized pity party later, I decide there’s no reason to be in my interview clothes when I can be in pajamas. I find a pair of cotton sleep shorts and a fitted polka-dot tank top and brush my hair into a ponytail.
When I get back to the living room, I stop in my tracks. Chris is lying in the middle of the floor, shirtless and sweaty, and doing sit-ups. He’s so focused on the movement that he doesn’t notice me at first. I just stand there for a minute, admiring the way the muscles in his abdomen bunch and flex, and concocting inappropriate fantasies in which I put the look of sheer concentration on his face into another context.
When he spots me, he stops and pushes himself off the floor. “Hey!” He grabs his shirt from the back of the couch and uses it to dry the sweat off his face.
I swallow hard just to keep the drool from dripping down my chin. “Were you exposed to radioactive slime as a child?” I swear, his chest has gotten even broader since I last saw him.
Frowning, he looks down at his sweaty skin, confused. “What?”
“You know, like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Were you exposed to the slime that turned them from adorable little creatures into mammoth-sized heroes?”
He laughs and heads to the kitchen, where he fills up a glass of water. “No slime and no rat dojo.”
He lifts it to his lips and drains it in one go, his neck working as he swallows gulp after gulp. A bead of sweat rolls down the side of his face and along his neck, and I practically have to bite back a whimper as it hits his pecs. His shirt is still in his fist and not covering his body. I’m going to need him to not do that. I don’t think I can stand a whole summer of him walking around shirtless and sweaty.
“We’re going to have to set some rules,” I say, scanning his chest.
He sets the empty glass down. “Yeah? Rules about what?”
“Maybe you should wear a shirt.” I nod. The wine left me feeling fuzzy. “I think shirts should be required. If we’re going to live together this summer, we should both keep our shirts on.”
He coughs and wipes the back of his mouth with his hand. “Wow. Um . . . does this bother you?” He drops his gaze to his bare chest, and when he lifts it back up to meet mine, there’s a shit-eating grin on his face. Bastard. “I don’t even think about it. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
I’m not uncomfortable. I’m thirsty. For Chris. “It’s good that you’re comfortable in your own skin, but since your mom probably doesn’t want me hatching dirty fantasies about her baby boy, covering it up would be a good idea.”
He squeezes his eyes shut and drags a hand over his face, muttering something I can’t make out. He cracks one eye open to peek at me. “How dirty? Do I want to know?”
“Seriously dirty. Tumblr-porn dirty. NC-17 dirty. It’s not personal. I’m just genetically programmed to drool over excess muscle. So, rule number one: Wear a shirt. I will return the favor in kind.”
His gaze drifts down to skim over my polka-dot tank. “You got it, boss. Anything else? Any other rules I should be aware of?”
I’ve given away too much. I was going for bold and unapologetic, but I feel like he can see that my attraction is about more than his muscles, and Jewel’s text has left me raw. “If I bring a date home, we need some sort of system so that, you know, I can have privacy.” His eyes go wide, and I say, “I’d do the same for you, of course. I mean, at some point this summer you’re going to want to have that room to yourself, right?”
He freezes, and it’s as if he’s not even breathing. Then he exhales slowly. “Is this about Sebastian?”
“Doesn’t matter who it is, does it?”
His jaw goes hard. “Do you think it’s a good idea to date this summer?”
“Were you expecting me to be abstinent under your watch?”
“I wasn’t . . . I . . . It’s not like . . .”
“You were.” I exhale heavily. “Newsflash, Mr. Perfect: Girls like sex, too.”
“I know that.” He’s all adorable when he’s defensive. He frowns and those dimples disappear, as if they never existed.
“Not just making love. Girls like fucking. Doing the nasty.”
“Is the distinction important?”
“Sometimes.” I grin. “Come on, Chris. I’m not a nun, and it’s not like I’m looking for a husband. Summer’s a long time, and I imagine I might go on a date or two.” He just stares at me, so I add, “If my babysitter is okay with that? I mean, I assume you weren’t planning on going without all summer?”
“Jesus, Grace.” He turns around and runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t think working out a system to hang a sock on the doorknob was what your dad had in mind when he—”
“Let me guess. He probably used the words ‘misguided’ and ‘attention-seeking.’ My poor judgment was probably mentioned once or twice?”
“He’s just worried about you.”
I prop my hands on my hips. “You really are my babysitter, aren’t you?”
“Stop calling me that.”
“If the shoe fits.”
“He wants me to keep an eye on you. But listen to you, Grace. Can you blame him? You haven’t even been on a date and you’re planning—”
I’m going to tear my hair out. “Don’t be so sexist.”
“How am I being sexist?”
“If a guy planned on eventually having sex even wh
en he hadn’t had a date, you wouldn’t label him as trouble or needing a keeper. You’d think he was a healthy, normal guy.” I shake my head. “I thought you were above all that double-standard bullshit, Chris.”
He throws up his hands. “Fine. You want the room, give me notice. I’ll plan on sleeping on the couch.”
“And if you plan on bringing a girl home,” I say, “you can tell me in advance.”
“That’s not likely.”
I don’t know why that annoys me. It’s not like I want him to be with other girls. “Why not?”
“I don’t—” He shakes his head.
“You don’t date? Don’t screw? Don’t like to get off every once in a while?” I saunter up to him so we’re inches apart. I lift my chin and meet his eyes. I want to rub who I am in his face. I might not be brave enough to tell him, but he’ll find out soon enough anyway. Jewel will make sure of it. I’m the slut. Easy Gee-Gee. And his father certainly wouldn’t approve. “You never bring a girl home and push her to her knees? You never slide your hand into her hair and show her just how fast you need her to move while she sucks you off?”
“Grace . . .” His voice is low and he takes a step back. “You’re trouble.”
And don’t forget it. “You didn’t answer my question.” I shake my head. “But no, you only date good girls, right? Not the kind who come home with you just to fuck? Not the kind who get off on pleasing you? You wouldn’t be caught dead with the kind of girl who cares more about getting off than whether or not you call the next day. You wouldn’t want that kind of girl, would you?”
His eyes drop to my mouth, and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard. “And what kind of girl are you, Grace?”
“I’m the easy lay.” And fuck me, because the words come out sad. I want to say it without apology, to throw who I am in his face and not back down. But there it is—sadness in my voice. Because Christopher Montgomery was my hero once, and then he turned around and became the reminder of what I’d accidentally become, a reminder of who I couldn’t be and what I couldn’t have.
