by Lexi Cross
It was also worth it to get the bartender to drink a few more shots with us. As sexy and tempting as her body was, I wasn’t feeling it. As we were leaving the bar, I told her I’d come back for her another night. She smiled and giggled, but she wasn’t buying it. To her, I was probably just another drunk declaring his true love for her.
We had to work on our image anyway. I knew we couldn’t be seen leaving the bar as late as we were, but it was also incredibly unlikely that anyone would be watching. It was before the official start of the season, and we hadn’t started any fights or anything like that. We were okay, but we agreed to party discreetly once the season started, if that was even possible.
I made the guys hop in the car with me so they weren’t driving home after as many drinks as we’d consumed. I told my driver where to take everyone, and he made sure we all got home alright.
I stumbled into the house, tired and a little tipsy. I knew if I had another drink or two, it would push me over the edge, and I wouldn’t be able to make it to practice on time in the morning.
I saw dishes in the sink, and an amazing aroma filled the kitchen. Then I remembered Brooke had been at the house all night while I had been out drinking with the guys. Even though we weren’t really together, it felt weird to be coming home late like I was.
I had figured it would have been alright to go out and leave her to her own devices, but when I realized she’d been alone all night, it hit me that I was going to have to step up to the plate a little better. I had a lot to figure out, and there was no way I was going to come to any coherent conclusions in my current state.
I went to the fridge to pull out something to eat, and found a note stuck to the door.
Your dinner is in the oven.
“In the oven?” I asked the note, as if the piece of paper could have told me anything more than it already had.
I walked over to the oven and opened it to find a plate of food wrapped in foil. I set it on the counter and peeled back the foil to find a steak, a baked potato, and some asparagus on my plate. I tested the steak and potato with my finger. It was still warm enough to eat. She must have cooked it pretty late, I thought.
I grabbed a knife and a fork, and took my plate into the dining room, where I sat at the table and started to eat. I cut into the juicy, tender steak to find that it was mostly pink on the inside. I took my first bite, sinking my teeth into the meat, bursting with flavor.
Before I realized it, I had devoured the steak. I grabbed a few pieces of asparagus and bit into them. They tasted like they’d been cooked alongside the steak. And the potato was perfectly cooked as well.
If I had known she was such a good cook, I would have come straight home from practice. I definitely felt like I could have grown accustomed to that kind of food every night. I felt horrible for running out on her and leaving her to fend for herself and eat such an amazing dinner all alone.
Truthfully, I hadn’t even expected her to cook for me. But the night I ran into her for the first time in over a decade, we’d been at the grocery store, and she’d been picking up food to prepare just for herself. I should have paid more attention. I should have been more aware of her when making my plans. I also needed to start letting her know where I was going to be and when I was going to be out of the house.
I put my empty plate in the sink and started looking for her to thank her for dinner. It was late, but I didn’t want to wait until morning. I knocked on her bedroom door, and when there wasn’t an answer, I tried the doorknob. Surprised to find it unlocked, I opened her door and crept inside. She wasn’t in bed.
She wasn’t in the pool or on the patio. She wasn’t on any of the balconies looking over the grounds. She wasn’t in my room, which really would have been a pleasant surprise.
I finally found her in my library. I laughed to myself as I entered the room to find the lamp next to the big armchair on. My sister had insisted on setting up the library for me. But this was the first time it had ever been used. I hadn’t even set foot in the library since the house had been built. Literary masterpieces simply weren’t my thing.
Apparently, they were Brooke’s thing. She sat in the large armchair, engrossed in the pages of a hardcover book. I didn’t even know what was on my shelves. I just knew that my sister had chosen some of what she considered the most valuable books ever written. She was the literature student, not me.
Brooke looked at home with her face buried in a book. She wore silk pajamas that showed off her thin body and hugged her subtle curves. She sat with her legs crossed and the book resting open in her lap. I didn’t say anything as I approached her, as I didn’t want to disturb her from her reading.
I watched her blue eyes as they followed the text on the pages. She devoured the words before her as if they were as delicious as the steak she had cooked for me. I watched in awe of her silent beauty until she looked up from the book to find me standing before her.
Chapter Nine
Brooke
I was engrossed in the world of Jane Austen in the wealthy English countryside when I noticed Jake standing in front of me. I had no idea how late it was, but he looked like he’d been out drinking all night. He stared at me like a lost puppy. A sad, lost, green-eyed puppy.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t home,” he said.
“You shouldn’t be,” I assured him. “Did you find your dinner?”
“I did, and I’m sorry you had to cook and eat alone. That’s not right. I owe you more respect than that, even just as an old friend,” he continued.
I closed the book and gave him a kind smile. “You don’t owe me anything, Jake. Did you enjoy what I cooked for you?”
“It was some of the best steak I’ve ever eaten,” he told me. I detected a slight slur in his speech, and I knew I had been right at first. He’d been out drinking, probably with a couple of guys from the team.
“Well, I’m glad you liked it. You should probably get to bed. You’ve got an early day ahead of you tomorrow with practice, I’m sure.” It was all I could do to keep my tone even and professional. This was business. My visit with Jane Austen had been personal. My conversations with Jake were not. It needed to stay that way.
“I do have an early start, but I’m also going to start letting you know where I am and what I’m up to, so you’re not sitting at home waiting for me to return from practice, or a game, or whatever,” he said.
“That’s fine.”
“I’d like for you to do the same. I think it’s only fair if we keep up with each other, you know, just in case anyone asks.”
“I think that’s fair,” I said slowly. I figured it was okay to agree with him since he probably wouldn’t remember in the morning, but I didn’t know how I felt about letting him keep up with me like that. My father didn’t even know where I was if I wasn’t at his house or at the office. Even then, he didn’t always know when I was at the office. I sort of came and went as I pleased. It was what I’d done for most of my adult life.
I had been responsible for myself since I was in school. While my father had been building his empire, I had been forced to fend for myself. He had his work, and school had been my work, making it my sole responsibility.
I wasn’t fond of the idea of having an authority figure of any kind over me, and that was exactly what it felt like was happening again. I knew he didn’t mean it that way, but it felt like I was granting him authority over my movements. I wasn’t really okay with that, but he didn’t seem to be in a good state to really discuss it at that moment. Any discussion would have to wait until he was sober.
“Okay, it’s settled, then. Good night, Brooke.”
“Good night, Jake.”
He looked so pitiful as he turned and walked back out of the room. It was odd to watch someone so big and strong stand with slumped shoulders and a lost look in his sparkling green eyes. I chalked it up to the alcohol in his system. It was amusing to see him put himself in such a vulnerable position.
I left Jane Austen in
the armchair and cut off the lamp on the table before leaving the room. I was going to turn in as well. I figured once he was through with practice and I came back from work the next day, we would be able to talk about monitoring each other a little more.
Work ended up taking me out of town to meet with one of my father’s business partners the next day after lunch, so I decided to text Jake to let him know when I would be home for dinner. I wanted to give his plan a shot to see how it felt to let him keep up with me.
Going to a meeting out of town after lunch. Will be home around seven tonight.
The world didn’t explode after I texted him. Nothing happened. It did feel a little strange, a little foreign to be so connected with someone for the first time ever, but other than that, everything was fine. Part of me felt like I would eventually get used to it. Another part of me wanted to scream and run away.
I was torn between the comfortable feeling of being kept and the anxiety of being controlled. I wasn’t sure how long our relationship was going to work out if I had to do that every day, or every time I left the house, or at all. It was one thing to let him know if I was going to be late, it was another thing entirely to let him know what I was doing at all times.
I tried not to let it bother me as I drove out to meet with one of my father’s oldest partners. We were trying to work out a new investment deal in the company. Mr. Edwards wanted to change the amount of money he was putting into our operations, and I was heading out with some documents prepared by the company’s finance department. I offered to have our financial directors meet with him, but Mr. Edwards had insisted on meeting just with me or with my father.
The drive out to his old ranch-style home wasn’t that bad. The meeting even went well. I’d met with Mr. Edwards before with my father, but it was the first time in the five years since my father retired that he wanted to make any changes to his investment. He wanted to put more money in so he could get more money out, but he wanted to look over the portfolio from the last few years. He wanted to see how we had been doing and what we were doing to ensure continued growth given the stagnant state of the current market.
He had pledged to invest more money before I left, which I knew would please my father as much as it pleased me. Mr. Edwards had been one of our top investors for as long as I could remember.
On the way back, however, things didn’t go so well. A few miles out of town, I heard a loud pop underneath the car. Then, I heard the blown tire flapping on the road as I drove. I slowed down and pulled off to the side of the road.
I had no bars, no service on my phone.
There was no chance I could get ahold of Jake, or anyone else, to come out and help me, and all I could think about was how I hadn’t told Jake exactly where I was going to be. He knew I was going to be a little late getting home, but he had no idea where I was.
I had a spare, but I had never changed a tire before in my life. I had no idea how to even start to do it. I was also dressed for work, so getting someone else to do it for me was definitely preferable to doing it myself.
I sat in the car and stared at my phone, waiting for a signal to just magically appear, but I was in a dead zone. The signal didn’t even fluctuate.
I had told him I was going to be home by a certain time, dammit, and I was determined to do everything I could to get home by that time. I popped the trunk and got out of the car, leaving my suit jacket in the passenger seat.
In heels and a skirt, I drug the spare tire out of the trunk and rolled it over to the passenger side rear tire. I grabbed the jack and the tire iron. I placed the jack under the back of the car and inserted the tool to turn it and lift the car.
I was just guessing at that point. I didn’t know if I was doing anything correctly, but when the car started to lift off the ground, I figured I was doing something right. Once the wheel was off the ground, I took the tool and put it on the lug nuts. I tried to loosen them, but not a single one would come loose.
It was embarrassing to find myself stuck on the side of the road with no way to call for help and unable to do something that seemed as simple as changing my own damn tire. I checked my phone to see if I had enough signal to text Jake and let him know where I was.
It was after seven already. I was late getting home. I knew he would probably wonder where I was or what I was doing. He knew me well enough to assume I was just testing him, too, and that was probably the worst part of it.
I went back to the wheel but still couldn’t loosen anything.
I heard a car pull up behind me after trying for a few more minutes. The engine kept running as I heard the door close. I stood up with the tire iron in my hand, in case it was someone who planned on taking advantage of me.
It was Jake.
“How the hell did you find me?” I asked as I threw my arms around his neck.
“I called your father and asked who you would be going to see out of town for work. He told me where to find you,” he said. “Looks like you have a flat tire.”
“No shit, Sherlock. Can you help?”
He looked at me as if to say you gotta be kidding me. “Hand me the tire iron. I’ll get you fixed up in a jiffy.”
A few moments later, he was swapping out the tires and tightening the lug nuts on my spare. He tossed the tools and the blown tire into my trunk.
“We need to get you a new tire as soon as we can, like tomorrow. You don’t need to drive around on that doughnut too long,” he told me.
“Thanks,” I said.
“See you at home?”
“On my way.”
“Okay, I’ll see you there,” he said with a smile. He hopped in his Mercedes and waited for me to pull away first in my Kia. Even our choices in cars showed how differently we treated our money.
On the way back to his place, I saw the reasoning behind letting him know where I was. If I hadn’t told him as much as I had, he wouldn’t have been able to find me. In the future, I decided, I needed to tell him my schedule in more detail. It just seemed safer to let him know where I was and what I was doing.
I hated it, but it was a necessary evil.
Still, Jake had proven himself to be my hero, and it felt good to be going home with him. Those same big, strong arms that had worked on my car to replace my tire would have been perfect to wrap around me and hold me safely against his muscular body overnight.
He’d tried to hold me a few times already, but I had fought off the physical attachment. I didn’t know how much longer I could continue doing that. Eventually, it seemed like our appearance as a happy, loving couple would depend on our actually being a happy, loving couple. Things certainly seemed to be heading that way already.
Chapter Ten
Jake
As much as we tried to keep things professional and on a strictly business level, it felt like our lives were moving us closer and closer together. Maybe it was the fact that we already had a history that made us more open to it, but there was no denying that we kept moving in that direction.
Real relationships were so flawed, and they never seemed to work. One person always seemed to be more invested in it, or they wanted to move faster than the other person, and it just fell apart. Communication was harder with emotions involved. Brooke certainly would have agreed with me on that one. It was harder to voice concerns or desires with someone once love was involved.
As a real relationship, our looming marriage was doomed already. As a business transaction, we stood a chance at having a rather successful marriage. We were both very successful people already, and putting that together seemed like the perfect recipe for a successful life together.
But there was so much more to us than just our success. And it was all determined to come out in the open.
The first game of the season was a home game. Brooke had asked to come watch, so of course, I got her in. She sat with the owners in the suite they had at the stadium. They had the best seats in the house, and could watch through the windows or on the TV screens in the
walls.
She got a close-up of my injury in the fourth quarter. Harley sent the ball soaring beautifully to me. I jumped up to grab it and before I landed, I had a defensive lineman’s shoulders in my ribs. It wasn’t the first time I’d ever been tackled, but I couldn’t remember ever being hit that hard in an actual game before.
I hit the ground and a sharp pain shot up my leg. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth against the bright white bolt that shot through my body. I was afraid to move. I let go of the ball and grabbed my leg to make sure it was at least bent in the right direction. I had seen some pretty nasty leg injuries over the years, and I didn’t want to be one of those guys getting carried off with a leg bent completely backwards.
Under my hands, my legs felt fine, but my right leg was killing me. I opened my eyes when Coach and a couple of other guys came out to grab me.
