by Ally Adams
“Thank you, Dad. Love you.”
“Love you too,” he said, and hung up.
Tomás, Tomás, Tomás, just be with your girlfriend and stop trying to see me. Where is she while he’s on his bike running over to my place?
I closed my eyes and thought about Saturday night when Tomás and I played after hours at his place; me with my kitty ears on and Tomás with his magic tongue. It was so good and how did it get to be this bad only a few days later? How was he going to keep his worlds apart?
Then my phone rang again and my heart rate raced, only this time it was safe, it was Dane.
“Hi Dane,” I greeted him.
“Alice, miss me?” he asked. “When’s our next conference together?”
I laughed. “Hey thanks again for the beautiful flowers, they really are breathtaking and you shouldn’t have.”
“The pleasure was mine,” he said.
“So, did I miss anything when I left early Saturday night?” I asked, regretting now that I had left the superhero themed ball early to go suck on Tomás... even though he had lit up his whole house for me. Seriously, shut up!
“Hell yeah, it was wild,” Dane said.
“Really?”
“Really. You remember Kelly?” he asked me.
“Of course, she was a bit keen on you,” I teased him.
“I don’t know about that,” he said modestly, “but you know how she came dressed as Poison Ivy, who technically isn’t a superhero but a villain but that’s not important to the story... still with me?”
I laughed. Dane was just what I needed. Sexy, sweet and really single.
“I’m with you. So what happened to Kelly?”
“Well she sort of became her costume... poison ivy. I don’t know whether she had a peanut or shellfish allergy or something but not long after you left she broke out in these hives and we had to call an ambulance.”
“Good grief, is she okay?” I asked.
“She is now. They gave her a few shots of whatever they give you for that sort of thing and released her from hospital the next morning,” Dane said.
“Did you send her flowers?” I teased.
“No, Alice,” he said and nothing else. It wasn’t said harshly or negatively just solidly if that makes sense. “But that’s not all,” he continued.
“There’s more?”
“Yep, you remember that lady who did the presentation on events for kids?” Dane asked.
“I do, I sat next to her for a while. She’s very nice.”
“Well she was dressed in a Thor costume, a female version and I don’t know how or why but she got into a fight with Supergirl and hit her with her fake hammer. Luckily it was only Styrofoam but then Supergirl threw her drink over Thor girl and it was on. It was insane. Wonder Woman broke it up.”
I was laughing as I pictured it in my head. “Well, I expected that,” I said. “Who else would have saved the day?”
Dane laughed. “How has your second week on the job been so far?” he asked.
He was so lovely and sincere and such a good listener. We talked for about thirty minutes and then I was so tired, I had to wrap it up. I haven’t slept much over the last three nights with the conference, a night at Tomás’s and then last night when I was crying over Tomás.
I thanked Dane for calling, hung up promising to friend him on Facebook and then I must have fallen asleep on top of the bed.
About an hour later the phone rang beside me, startling me awake. I grabbed it and answered—force of habit not wanting to wake Dad or Ryan, but now I was in my own room in my own place and didn’t have to worry about that.
I heard the person on the other end of the line draw a sharp breath. I quickly looked to the phone.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, I had answered a Tomás call. Should I hang up?
“Al…iss.” I heard him say. His voice was raw and husky.
I took a deep breath. “Tomás. What do you want?”
He made a guttural sort of sound. “I am desperate to see you.”
I didn’t have anything to say... I couldn’t think of anything. I wanted to see him more than I’d wanted anything in all my twenty-one years of life that I could recall, but I needed more pain like I needed a hole in the head... the hole I’d have after the lobotomy for agreeing to see him. Wow, another totally weird though, sometimes I really worried myself.
“I came around to see you today at work and at home and you were gone,” he said.
“I went to a clinic with Ed, and I’ve moved... in with Cassie.”
There was a silence on the line.
“Who is she Tomás?” I asked. I bit my lip, waiting for the reply.
“She’s my girlfriend but I need to explain it to you...” He rushed the words. “She was, is, but...” He was talking quickly, his words tripping over his accent. “But it’s not what you think...”
“I think she’s your girlfriend,” I said, and I hung up on Tomás. There was nothing more to be said.
Moments later he sent a text.
TOMÁS: Fck Alice, hear me through, 4 us, pls.
ME: Tomás U have a girlfriend, U can’t have 2.
Technically, he could have as many as he liked I guessed, but he wasn’t counting me amongst the number. What a dick, who did he think I was? Some virgin who can’t get a date? Yeah the virgin part was correct but that’s where the similarities ended, buddy.
I was on fire now, I took a deep breath and put my phone on silent. I was sure I would sleep tonight, I was too exhausted not to and now I was cranky as well. It was kind of comforting to know that Tomás didn’t know where I lived and I didn’t have to keep my ear tuned for the purr of a motorbike engine. I just needed to sleep and not think about him for a little while.
Chapter 26
Saints’ captain, Lucas Ainswright, was in the building. The girl wires were on alert; the news travelled from Suzie at reception—she should have been a code breaker for the government, she was right onto it dispersing the signal via the female office grapevine. By the time we got the message ‘captain onboard’, we had already seen him pull up in his Lamborghini—it was fortuitous having a view of the office parking lot from our window. He was here to see Shayne of course. They had a weekly catch up, but that didn’t stop every girl in the office checking him out. Luckily Mia was a secure type of girl and Lucas only had eyes for her—and I wouldn’t be telling her about the Lucas grapevine alert system.
This morning, in our team on our side of the office it was tense—it was monthly magazine deadline day for Sasha. She was in a state trying to get copy off to the printer on time. Jim said it was like PMS time which was pretty brave of him especially since he had sold another two advertisements at the last moment, which meant Sasha had to go up an extra four pages in size and now had an extra two editorial pages to fill. Jim elected to keep right away from our partition area. Kay and I helped out with proofing and filler stories—I had already supplied my story and pics about Ed’s clinic, but I drummed up another quarter page story about coming match day entertainment plus the pending girls’ lunch, and I selected some game day shots for Sasha to do a montage page.
I then got back to work on the Saints’ Sisters lunch which was next week—yep, once every three months the Saints’ female sponsors, fans and friends had a lunch event. It was girls only and tickets were seventy dollars each and included a two-course lunch, champagne on arrival, a lucky draw and two special guest speakers which was usually two of the Saints’ players—there was safety in numbers. Our female MC, who was one of the local radio personalities, interviewed them and called for questions from the audience; I can just imagine. The cheerleaders usually kicked it off with a performance, one of the city stores put on a fashion parade and usually got quite a few sales out of it, and it was a great day... supposedly, I hadn’t been involved in one before but now I was organizing it! I found all of my predecessor’s notes and luckily the venue had already been booked for the four events of the year; one of the five-star
hotels that was a Saints’ sponsor.
I updated the rundown for the day, spoke with the MC, checked on ticket sales, confirmed the social photographer was booked, checked with the choreographer and head cheerleader that they were good to do the opener, sorted out a luxury raffle prize of a pamper session for the winner and three friends, bought the raffle tickets, and all I had to do was to give a final rundown and a few briefing notes to our MC and guest speakers, and meet with the hotel public relations person. Bookings opened last month and the venue took them directly—too easy. I found the hotel contact and emailed her to catch up tomorrow morning if possible to introduce myself and make sure I was doing everything I was supposed to do.
Then, I just had to hope and pray that we sold out and it went smoothly on the day. Having said that, I was saving my prayers for really important stuff, not Saints’ Sisters lunch days—more like world peace and Tomás telling me there had been a translation mix up and this woman was his first cousin and had a clinging disorder. Yeah, back to work.
With only four Saints’ Sisters lunches a year, eight players all up were allocated to the event and Jim said they had to be stars of the team, not rookies, or the girls wouldn’t come and wouldn’t pay and we wanted the dollars—it was a nice little earner for the club and good PR for the female membership drive. I found the list of player commitments in the folder. Lucas and Nik had appeared at the first one. That would have been fun—I could just imagine those two on stage together. I looked at the names confirmed against the next event and holy unlucky draw, yep, you guessed it—Tomás and The Russian. Great, just great.
This was so fucked. It was so fucked that there were no words to describe how fucked it was. Could I change it? I looked through the folder but it was way too late for that. The event was well-promoted and the ladies might not appreciate a late scratching. I checked out the invitation—it was cute, all in pink and featured Tomás’s and The Russian’s names. Damn.
I had a thought... I wonder if this is why my predecessor left? Did she get too close to one of the players and then it was too hard for her to continue to do this job and see him? Hmm, Sasha would give me the lowdown, but not today on her deadline day—I glanced at her; I’m not sure she was breathing.
I drew a deep breath for the two of us and sat up straighter. Well I wasn’t going to leave the Saints because of Tommy boy. No way. I loved this job and he was a flash in the pan. He’d probably be signed to some other team—the Two-timing Twits—and be long gone while I was still building my career here. So we were going to keep this really professional and we were going to work together and be nice to each other. Right then, that was sorted. I just had to get Tomás on the same page.
And then I heard the low rumble of a motorbike and saw the black Ducati and its leather clad rider pull into the Saints’ parking lot. Could today get any better? I went through a thousand escape scenarios in my head. Nope, nothing, but I couldn’t have Tomás dropping into my work trying to fix this. Unless he wasn’t here to see me, but odds were he was. Crap. I grabbed my file on the Saints’ Sisters lunch and luckily Sasha was so stressed that she didn’t notice me leave the office or Tomás arrive. I looked in at the Saints’ Security office next to mine and saw The Russian sitting back with his feet on the desk, watching last week’s game replay. Ed was nowhere to be seen. I rapped lightly on the door.
The Russian looked up. “Alice, come in. Flat out here but you never need an appointment,” he said in his unhurried way. He paused the game and took his feet off the desk. “I’d offer you a tea or coffee but you know where the kitchen is.”
“Yeah, that would just be silly, thanks Russian,” I agreed with him. “Besides I know you’re very busy. I don’t want you going to any trouble. Got a minute to talk about next week’s Saints’ Sisters lunch?”
“Sure, we’ve got to look after the girls,” he said with an interested grin on his face.
I wondered if that grin was wider since he had broken up with Leesa and was looking forward to being the center of attention at a lunch with well over three hundred women in attendance.
I closed the door and entered. Mission accomplished; when Tomás passed my desk, I would be AWOL again. I’m so clever sometimes I impress myself. I gave The Russian a five minute overview of what time he’d be expected, what he would have to wear, and the sort of things he would be required to do. I checked he was cool to take questions and told him to talk with Lucas and Nik if he was worried because they did it last time.
“Do you feed us?” he asked.
“Hell yeah,” I said.
“Not girly sized serves,” he said.
“I’ll make sure they’re alpha size,” I assured him.
He nodded. “I hope the girls notice Tomás next to me, you know... those Latin good looking types just tend to look insignificant next to a man of my size and stature. I’ve got three inches on him.” He tried not to smile delivering that line, but couldn’t help himself.
I grinned and shook my head. “Way too much info thanks, Russian.”
“Height, I’m talking height. He’s about six or six-two, I’m six-five and pure muscle.”
“Oh, height,” I said, playing along with wide-eyed wonder. “Oh, well, it’s just his bad luck he drew you as his co-star. What can you do? It’ll be character building for him.”
The Russian shook his head. “Not fair to the rest of humanity.”
We both laughed and as I closed my file, signaling this meeting was well and truly over, there was a knock on the security office door.
“Come in,” The Russian bellowed. He turned to me, and added, “rushed off my feet.”
The door opened and Tomás stood there. His eyes went straight to mine and if The Russian could read reactions, he would have blushed, if guys do blush. In one momentary stare a collision of anger, lust, passion and fear traded between us. It was so real to me I could taste it.
“Pez, we were just talking about you.” The Russian indicated for him to come in. The small office was now crowded and Tomás stood blocking the doorway.
“Russian, Al...iss,” he greeted us both, glancing momentarily at The Russian before returning his gaze to me. “So, why were you talking about me?”
“The Saints’ Sisters lunch next week... it’s you and me offered up as the entertainment,” The Russian said. “I just hope you get a few questions.”
Tomás grinned and gave The Russian an expression that said you’re totally screwed and I think The Russian was, especially if Tomás was wearing that leather jacket.
“Anyway, got to go.” I rose and tried to move around Tomás who stood blocking the entrance. “Thanks Russian, you’re sorted then, and I’ll email you the details Tomás to your club email.” I said my piece to Tomás making only minimal eye contact. See, this was going to be possible, we’d be fine working together and it would get easier.
Then all that went out the window as Tomás grabbed my arm and sent an electric charge through us both.
“Al...iss, I just need to see you for a minute,” he said.
“I’ll be at my desk,” I said, pulling my arm away from his.
His eyes narrowed and he folded his strong arms across his lean chest, pulling his grey T-shirt tighter and showing his definition. If only he looked awful—it was so unfair.
“Just five minutes, alone,” he said.
“I can’t right now, I’m at work Tomás, unless this is a work matter.”
“Fuck, Al...iss,” he hissed under his breath. I could feel The Russian watching us with much interest. Tomás turned to The Russian.
“I know it’s your office, Russian, but could you fuck off somewhere for five minutes?” he asked.
“No, he’s busy, I’ve got a stack to do too,” I waved the folder at him, “and it’s magazine deadline day and...” my voice trailed off.
The Russian stood and held up his hands. “All good, I’ve got to go see Johan anyway, and make a coffee since Alice wouldn’t make me one.”
“Russian, I don’t want to lose this job,” I said in a low voice as he passed me. He nodded at me with a look that promised discretion and slapped Tomás on the back as he departed. He moseyed on out in typical Russian fashion. The moment he was through the door, Tomás shut it, locked it and spun around to face me.
I was trapped and with him and I wanted him so desperately. He reached to hold me and I stepped back, bumping up against the desk. Damn these poky offices.
Tomás exhaled with frustration.
“You’re being unreasonable, Al...iss, you could just hear me out,” he said, his eyes blazing.
I think my jaw dropped because I felt my mouth open.
I said in a low, dangerous voice, “You spent Saturday night with your tongue all over me and I’m unreasonable for ignoring you when I see you with your girlfriend on Sunday?” I hissed the words at him and finished in a sort of hysterical high.
He grabbed at me again and pulled me to him. He put his hand behind my head and pressed his lips on mine and forced his tongue in my mouth. A guttural sound rose from his throat as if he needed this as much as I did. I hit his chest with both of my fists and he pulled tighter, pressing me against him, giving me no room to hit him or push him off.
He continued to press himself hard against me and I could feel the rising in his jeans. He moved his mouth to my ear and whispered. “Listen to me, just listen.”
He waited until I stopped fighting against him but didn’t release me. His cheek was pressed next to mine and he clutched me, continuing to whisper in my ear. “Yes, she’s my girlfriend but not for much longer... I’m working on...”
I gave him a good shove and pushed away from him. He regained his footing and dropped his hands to his hips. “You’re not working hard enough Tomás. You knew she was coming, so why start with me unless I was nothing more to you than a few nights’ fun?”
He ran a hand through his hair, closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, reining in his temper. His eyes looked even darker when he opened them and re-fixed them on me.
