The Ex Effect

by Karla Sorensen

  "You're the worst," I said into his shirt. He wasn't, though.

  Matthew was still smiling as he kissed up the side of my neck and nibbled on the edge of my jaw.

  "Slim," he muttered. "Look at me."

  I pulled back and glanced at him through my lashes.

  "I can't wait to see 'em." He brushed his lips against mine, and I melted, twining my arms around his neck as he tilted his head and deepened the kiss. My tongue wound around his, and his hands gripped me tight until I was writhing against him for relief. He broke away and dragged his nose against mine. "Even if it takes all night to get them off."

  I burst into laughter as he swung me into his arms and marched us to my room.

  Chapter Twelve

  Matthew

  When I was twelve, I helped my dad roll new insulation in the attic of his house. To this day, it was the worst job I've ever done. It was hot and itchy in uncomfortable tight spaces, and by the time we finished, he slapped me on the back as payment. As a kid, I didn't understand the ins and outs of owning a home. How things like those puffy pink rolls of hell we'd put down would lower his heating bill and save him money when he was still forking over child support to my mom every month.

  "You need that stuff, boy. Trust me, there's enough bullshit out there that if you don't insulate from the outside, it’ll bleed into the space you want to feel safe and warm."

  I didn't fully understand what he meant by that until I started seeing Ava. And after so many years, I understood the deeper layer underneath his fairly obvious statement because we absolutely, unashamedly insulated ourselves.

  Today, a couple of days after I first showed up at her place, she beat me from the office and had let herself into my apartment with the key I gave her. I’d told her it was just to make things easier when she gave me a surprised look.

  I opened the door and immediately smelled garlic. Lots and lots of garlic.

  Short of plugging my nose, there was no escaping it.

  "Slim?" I called out as I tossed my duffel bag on the ground by the door.

  "In here!" Her voice came from the kitchen.

  When I found her, she was standing in front of the sprawling kitchen island, her hands propped on her hips and a perplexed look on her face. Her hair was up in a messy bun, and over her petite, slightly curved body, she wore one of my aprons that was about six sizes too big for her.

  Holy shit, my eyes started to water from the smell.

  "Whatcha makin'?" I came up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist, dropping a kiss on her shoulder where the oversized neck of her shirt had slipped off.

  "I was trying to make this pasta dish Allie told me about." She slumped in my arms, and together we stared at the rubbery mess of noodles, and the sauté pan of about fourteen garlic cloves, if I had to count.

  "It looks ... great."

  Over her shoulder, she gave me a disbelieving look.

  "It looks terrible," I amended.

  "I know." Ava turned in my arms and wrapped her hands around my waist, burrowing in like she did when she wanted a tight hug. As always, I was happy to comply. She felt so slender in my arms, perfectly tucked underneath my chin. It's where she slept too, curled into my side, her body wrapped under my arm where it naturally folded over her shoulder, and her leg slung over mine.

  "I didn't know you cooked," I said carefully, dropping a kiss onto the crown of her head.

  "I don't," she said glumly. I laughed, easing back so I could kiss her frowning lips.

  "Why'd you want to try tonight?"

  She shrugged, circling the tip of her pinky around the top button of my Henley. "It felt like the right thing to do."

  I started walking us backward, out of the kitchen, away from the smell. "Yeah?"

  Ava nodded, her lips finally starting to turn up at the edges. "Yeah."

  "Is it the right thing to do to kill me with garlic?"

  Her fingers pinched my side, and I yelped, grabbing her hand so I could bite at her fingertips. Then she grinned because those tasted like garlic.

  We opened the windows and the slider overlooking my private patio to let out the stench. Twenty minutes later, I went to grab the food that was delivered to the door, mine with twice as much protein, no carbs, and double the veggies of her dish.

  I sat on one of the teak chaise loungers and stretched my legs out, patting my lap so she knew where I wanted her to sit.

  She did, facing me with her legs straddling my lap, balancing our plates in front of us.

  "This is ridiculous," she said around a bite of my chicken.

  "The chicken?"

  Ava rolled her eyes, swiping at the side of her mouth. "This. I could sit on my own chair."

  "You could."

  She didn't move, and I didn't make her. Between bites of food, we talked about our day at work.

  "Aww, you made a friend," she teased when I told her Luke invited me out to their place the following weekend.

  I shook my head. "He's just being a good captain. But it has been harder than I thought to get to know the rest of the guys. Maybe training camp will help. Really get into our normal schedule."

  She nodded, fully aware that off-season still included hours of training and weight lifting and running. It was just usually each guy doing his own thing.

  "I love training camp," she said with a sheepish grin. "Almost more than the regular season."

  I settled in my chair after I set my empty plate down on the ground. My hands found her hips, sliding leisurely along the tops of her thighs. "Yeah? How come?"

  Ava took one more bite and set her plate down too, tangling her fingers in mine and letting me direct the movements of our hands. "I love the fans that come and watch and how the players get to interact with them. Retired players come back and help the rookies, and it's like this strange little reunion. There's a different level of excitement at training camp, you know? Before the stress of the season really kicks in."

  I knew exactly what she was talking about. Watching her face while she explained it, though, gave me glimpses of the kid I used to know. The one who asked me about games, who wanted to come to practices.

  This ... this was new for me. Someone who loved the game almost as much as I did.

  "What?" she asked when I didn't speak. I was still staring at her. My expression must have given some of my thoughts away because she blushed and looked away.

  I used my thumb and forefinger to turn her chin back toward me. "I've never been with anyone who got it before."

  And because it was Ava, I didn't have to elaborate what that meant. She leaned forward and gave me a hard kiss. "Not even your ex?"

  We'd skirted around the subject of her sister, but this wasn't the first time she had asked me about Lexi.

  I shook my head. "She liked all the perks that came with football but not the actual day-to-day lifestyle."

  "That makes it hard. Because the day to day is what makes the career a successful one."

  "Exactly. And I'm not the party animal, red carpet guy. The one who rents a huge yacht on bye week so I can throw a party."

  She adopted a grave expression. "I made a poor choice then because that's totally my style."

  That was how it was with us, I was quickly learning. And it fit. Happiness fit me as easily as it seemed to fit her, and we weren't in any rush to break through what was insulating us from all the bullshit outside.

  After three days of almost perfect evenings, making (attempting to make, on her end) food, giving up and ordering takeout, watching movies, talking football, and having sex just about everywhere in both of our apartments, I felt like it couldn't possibly be like this all the time.

  This had to be too good to be true.

  "Why not?" she asked when I posed the question to her while she was helping me work out.

  Helping me by straddling my upper back while I did push-ups. I paused with my arms extended straight out, groaning when she shifted.

  "Well," I said, only slightly ou
t of breath. I'd be damned if a woman who weighed a buck ten managed to make me huff and puff after only a hundred push-ups. "Is this normal for you? That it's this easy?"

  "Who you callin' easy, chump?" She pinched my side.

  I growled over my shoulder at her, catching a glimpse of her wide smile.

  She planted her hands safely on my shoulder blades as I did a few more. "No, this isn't normal for me," she said after a few minutes.

  It wasn’t the first time we'd waded into any topic of her relationship history. But when I’d asked at the bar, I only got a partial answer, and I felt like there was so much more underneath it, maybe even more than she realized. So I took a beat before peppering her with questions even though that was what I wanted to do.

  "How was it different?" I asked as I lowered our bodies to the ground.

  She sighed heavily. "Well, the last guy I dated could do two hundred push-ups with me on his back, so ..."

  Ava squealed when I stood, dumping her onto the ground when I did. I prowled over her as she sprawled laughing on the floor. Her punishment started with her skirt rucked up around her waist, my head ducked underneath, and tongue, lips, and teeth everywhere but where she really wanted me. In the next five minutes, I heard language that would make a man's ears blister, but I refused to give her what she wanted until she was begging and clawing at my back.

  I lifted my head from between her legs, and she pinched my ear.

  "Ow," I said then bit the side of her inner thigh.

  "You're the worst sort of tease, Matthew Hawkins," she groaned. "Go, get back to work."

  "Yes, ma'am." I notched two fingers against my temple and saluted her, which earned me a grin.

  She laughed when I tickled the inside of her knee, then her sounds changed to quiet whimpers and soft moans as I feasted on her.

  When Ava was limp from her release, I carried her inside, something I found I loved to do because of how slight she was, how naturally she fit in my arms. I fell back on the couch with an oof, and she nuzzled into my chest.

  "You missed your calling, Hawkins."

  "Yeah?"

  "Eff football, you could perform cunnilingus for a living and probably make more money."

  The couch shook from the force of my deep, booming laughter. I swept her hair away from her face so I could see it better. "And who am I performing for?"

  Her eyes flashed. "Me."

  That slight bolt of jealousy made her eyes almost unholy green, and I wished I had a picture of her looking just like that. My cheek rested easily on the crown of her head, and I stared down at where my hand curved up over the edge of her thigh.

  "I'm going to say something, and you can't make fun of me."

  Ava snickered. "Okay."

  "That would make a good picture."

  She glanced up at me. "What would?"

  I nodded down at her legs, my hand, a tangle of skin. "That would."

  "You gonna post it on your Instagram with some poetic caption?" she teased, nibbling at the bottom of my jaw.

  Normally, I'd find her lips with mine and finish what I'd started on the floor because, underneath her, I was ready to finish what we'd started.

  Instead, I watched her face carefully as I answered. "What if I did?"

  Her smile dropped, and she briefly held my eyes before looking back down at my hand on her leg. Ava was quiet for a long moment before she answered. "Well, your fans would freak the hell out. You haven't posted pictures with a woman since Lexi, and you didn't have much of a social media presence then."

  I smirked. Someone just admitted to doing some cyberstalking. "True."

  Neither of us spoke, and until that beat of silence, I didn't realize how much I wanted this. I wanted to give the world some hint of what I'd been sharing with her.

  I held my breath while she thought because I knew she was sliding naturally into 'PR for the team' mode. Even worse, I could practically see her bring those gloves up in front of her face to protect against some unknown assailant. Hopefully, she didn’t think it was me.

  "How many followers do you have?" she asked.

  Not what I expected, but okay. "Uhh, a couple of million, I think."

  She laughed under her breath. "A couple of million, he thinks," she muttered. She gripped my chin and kissed me fiercely. "You have three and a half million followers, Matthew. They will unleash holy hell trying to figure out whose leg your hand is on. They'll see that freckle on my right thigh and start searching until they can match it to someone. Are we ready for that? I don't know that I'm ready to make this harder than it needs to be, you know?"

  There was nothing but truth in what she said. Because I'd been not just high profile but also single for so many years, there was always speculation about my love life and even my sexuality after Lexi divorced me. I wanted to stand on the proverbial rooftop and scream to the world that there was the seed of something amazing here, but I also knew she wasn't wrong.

  Slowly, Ava moved so she was straddling my legs, and she gripped my face in her small hands. Her thumbs brushed over my lips, and I kissed them as they did.

  "Nothing about this relationship is normal for me, Matthew." Her face was so vulnerable, I wanted to bury her in my arms until she felt better, looked happier. And that should have scared me. My desire to make her happy should have scared me, but it didn't. "And I'm glad for that. I'm so happy with what we are right now," she told me, holding my face so I couldn't look away even if I'd wanted to. I smoothed my hands up her back.

  Ava leaned forward and touched her lips to mine. A slow glide of her tongue into my mouth had me clasping her tightly against my body, and the way her breasts pressed against my chest had my heart racing.

  When she spoke next, it was into the skin of my neck. "It's not about you or questioning whether this is something I still want. It's just ... everything outside of us that makes me feel like I'm not ready. Like it complicates this more than necessary. Does that make sense?"

  I closed my eyes and kissed her temple, breathing in the sweet citrusy scent of her shampoo.

  "Yeah, it does," I told her. It was the first lie I told myself about Ava, and at that moment, I believed it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Matthew

  "Three days till training camp," someone yelled at the end of the weight room. "We ready?"

  A chorus of hell yeah and damn straight rang out among the clanging of weights, the grunts and yells of the defense sweating out our frustrations and our desires for the upcoming season.

  "Need a spot?" one of the safeties, Christiansen, asked as he passed me doing bench presses.

  "Thanks," I groaned. He held his hand under the bar as I gritted my teeth, relished the burn in my muscles.

  "Come on, old man," he teased. "You've got two more in ya."

  "Oh, screw you," I said, but we both damn well knew I was going to do three more since he asked for two. I planted my feet firmly on the ground, and even though my arms felt like they were being licked by fire, and my face was dripping with sweat, I puffed air in my cheeks and finished my third before he helped me fit the metal bar in the holders.

  I sat up and stretched, only managing to wince once before I smiled up at him. "Thanks."

  "You get laid or something, Hawkins?"

  My entire body froze as did about five or six players who were within earshot. "What?"

  "Aww, come on, man," Lopez asked from the weight machine to my left. "You've been walking around here grinnin' like a damn fool for the past week."

  A sweat towel from the floor served as an excellent way to hide my face as I thought about what to say. I snapped it at Lopez when he started elbowing Christiansen. "Can't a guy just be in a good mood?"

  Someone coughed obnoxiously, and I glared as effectively as possible to the small audience that'd gathered. Stupid Christiansen. And it wasn't annoying because I didn't want to tell them. I wished I could. But this was probably the one place where I understood Ava's hesitance.

  "If I did
get laid," I said as I stood from the weight bench, "I wouldn't tell you assholes."

  Laughter answered that one, which started a few stories from the single guys of their own weekend conquests.

  I shook my head, shoving at Christiansen as we walked back toward the locker room.

  "Dick."

  He laughed. "Sorry. You've just been pretty quiet since you got here. I was the new guy two years ago when I got traded from Arizona. It ain't easy all the time."

  "No, it's not," I agreed. We stopped so he could refill his water bottle.

  The door to the weight room pushed open, and Logan Ward strolled in.

  "Afternoon," he said, lifting his chin at both of us.

  "Ward," Lopez bellowed from the machine. "You need to start doing what Hawkins is doin'. Maybe you'll lighten up too."

  Logan glanced at me and then back at Lopez.

  Lopez shook his head. "He's not even gonna ask."

  "Why would I need to lighten up?" Logan asked, looking genuinely confused.

  The entire weight room cracked up, and even I managed a smile. Maybe he wasn't a complete asshole, just ... serious. Or maybe he was an asshole. Who knew.

  "You need to get laid, Ward," Christiansen said, shoving at Logan's back. "Why do you think Hawkins is all smiles and heart eyes the past couple of weeks?"

  Logan narrowed his eyes at me but didn't say anything.

  I held up my hands. "Don't look at me. I have nothing to do with this."

  He sighed, a consternated look on his hardened face. Logan had been in the league longer than just about anyone on the team, except maybe Luke Pierson, so he probably got sick of stuff like this really easily.

  "Back to work, guys. Shit like this won't win us any games."

  I had to lift my eyebrows in concession because he was right. But a little camaraderie didn't hurt either. Except everyone seemed to take his gruffness with ease, a few jokes in his direction. I followed Christiansen out of the weight room and stopped to grab my duffel.

  "You gonna grab a shower, man?" he asked, stripping his shirt off and tossing it on the floor.