Chasing Jillian: A Love and Football Novel

by Julie Brannagh

  “I believe this is my dance,” he said.

  Obviously, they weren’t going to tango. Before tonight, he hadn’t danced for a long time, but he wanted to dance with Jillian. He reached out and pulled her into his arms.

  He saw the color rise in her cheeks again.

  He noticed she didn’t move away. She didn’t resist him at all. Her hands rested on his forearms. He was close enough to see the pulse madly beating at the base of her throat as she looked up at him. The top of her head was barely to his shoulder.

  “When was the last time you danced with someone?” he asked.

  “Before tonight? Years.” She smiled a little. It must have been a good memory.

  “Put your hand on my shoulder. Let’s see if we remember how.” He thought he’d try some kind of old-fashioned waltzing thing, but all he could remember was junior-high-quality slow dancing. She seemed to remember it too.

  He felt her hands move over his biceps and gentle on his shoulders. There was less of Jillian than there had been the first time he hugged her. Her clothes were looser too. His arms tightened around her. She let him touch her, but she wasn’t plastering herself against him as another woman would have done. He was torn between thinking it might be a good thing that she held herself away from him and wanting to hold her closer.

  ONE DANCE WITH him, and then Jillian would pull herself out of his arms and get back into the car. She could dance with him and not get emotional about it. He was just another guy. She was not going to let herself get stupid over someone who was clearly only interested in her as a friend.

  His hold on her was gentle. He smelled good. She saw the flash of his smile when she peeked up at him. She’d felt shy with Carlos because she didn’t know him, but she didn’t have that problem with Seth. She wanted to move closer but knew she shouldn’t.

  She tried to remind herself that Seth probably had more than a few friends with benefits, even if he was between girlfriends at the time. He was a guy. He probably wasn’t celibate, and he and she weren’t romantic with each other. There was also the tiny fact that anything that happened between them was not going to end well.

  She was in more trouble than she knew how to get out of.

  AT FIRST, JILLIAN rested her head against his cheek. A minute or so later, she laid her head on his chest. They swayed together, feet barely moving, and he realized his heart was pounding. He’d never experienced anything as romantic as dancing late at night in a deserted city park to a song playing on his car’s sound system. The darkness wrapped them in the softest cocoon. He glanced down at her as he felt her slowly relaxing against him.

  It’s not the pale moon that excites me

  That thrills and delights me

  Oh, no

  It’s just the nearness of you

  He took a deep breath of the vanilla scent he’d recognize anywhere as hers. His fingers stroked the small of her back, and he heard her sigh. Slow dancing was even better than he remembered. Then again, he wasn’t in junior high anymore, and he was holding a woman in his arms, not a teenage girl. There was a lot to be said for delayed gratification. Dancing with Jillian was all about the smallest movements and letting things build. He laid his cheek against hers.

  “I shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispered.

  “Why not?” he whispered back.

  “It’s not a good idea.”

  “We’re just dancing, Jill.”

  And if things got any hotter between them, they’d be naked. She didn’t try to step away from him. If she’d resisted him at all, if she’d shown reluctance or fear or hesitation, he would have let her go and walked away. Her fingers tangled in his hair.

  They were just friends. He didn’t think he had those kinds of feelings for this woman—the sexual, amorous, bow-chicka-bow-wow feelings—despite the fact his pulse was racing, his fingers itched to touch her, and he knew he should let go of her. It didn’t matter that he was still having hotter-than-the-invention-of-fire dreams about Jillian most nights. He wasn’t going to consider what kind of tricks his subconscious played on him. Instead, he pulled her a fraction of an inch closer. He slid one hand up her back, feeling her long, silky-soft blonde hair cascading over his fingers, and she trembled. He cupped her cheek in his hand. He couldn’t take his eyes off her mouth. Just a couple of inches more, and he’d kiss her. He moved slowly but purposefully.

  He watched her eyelids flutter closed, felt her quick intake of breath. He wondered how she tasted. He’d know in a few seconds.

  “I want to kiss you,” he said in a breath against her mouth.

  The silence was broken by the screaming guitars of Guns N’ Roses.

  That would teach him to use the shuffle function.

  Chapter Ten

  A FEW DAYS later, Jillian put her disposable coffee cup down on her desk as she dropped her car keys into her purse and shoved the whole thing into her desk drawer. She’d gotten a three-shot skinny latte at the Starbucks drive-through. If there was ever a day she needed a caffeine IV, it was this one.

  She hadn’t seen Seth for several days. He’d evidently forgotten about her. She hadn’t slept well last night. She kept reliving how it felt to be held in Seth’s arms. She’d been so sure he was going to kiss her as they danced beneath the gazebo in the park. He’d said he wanted to, and then he jumped away from her like she was made out of molten lava. There wasn’t a lot of conversation on the way home that night either.

  If she had any guts at all, she would have told him how she felt the last time she saw him—that she was hurt and confused, and she didn’t understand what she’d done wrong to make him react the way he had. Maybe she should have kissed him. Instead, she sat in the passenger seat of his car and stared out the window as he drove.

  No matter how hard she’d fallen or how she yearned for him, she was back in the friend zone. Again.

  SETH HADN’T SLEPT well for the past several nights either. He’d barely managed to haul his ass out of bed this morning. If he didn’t move it, he’d be late for practice, which would be expensive. He didn’t need the coach on his back. He pulled on some warm-ups and his cross-trainers, pointed his Escalade toward the Sharks’ practice facility, and tried to forget the look on Jillian’s face when he didn’t kiss her the night they went dancing. He’d watched the emotions flit over her face: Confusion. Sadness. Hurt. She’d backed away from him and wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  There were so many things he should have said to her at that moment while his fucking iPhone blared Guns N’ Roses, and he shuffled his feet like a seventh grader whose voice was just starting to change. He should have told her that he knew they’d talked about being friends, and “friends” meant no physical stuff, but right now, he wasn’t into being friends. He wanted more. He wanted to kiss her until they were both breathless. He wanted to get close enough that he wasn’t quite sure where he ended and she began. Mostly, he now knew that whole thing about their being “just friends” was crap. He wanted her. Bad.

  More than his current physical discomfort, he’d be a real ass if he treated Jillian like a one-night stand. He’d want to kill another guy who did the same thing to her. She wasn’t in the market for just one night; he wasn’t in the market for happily ever after, at least not right now. He wasn’t ready to settle down yet.

  He could picture Jillian in a cozy house, reading a story to a couple of blonde cherubs before bedtime while her adoring husband (who remained faceless; he couldn’t think of any other guy who actually deserved Jillian) told himself one more time how damn lucky he was. The guy didn’t even exist, and Seth hated him already.

  She’d told him that John had said he’d fire her if she got romantically involved with anyone from the team. He knew John was probably blowing smoke, but to someone like Jillian, it was sufficiently scary to the point that she wouldn’t take that risk.

  “It’s getting late,” he’d said like a dumb-ass the last time he’d seen her. “We’d better leave.”

  She gave him a
quick nod, an “uh-huh,” and got into the car.

  She’d hardly said a thing on the way home either.

  He wished there was a way he could show her that he really wasn’t that much of an idiot and get back to where they’d been before. He took the freeway exit to the facility and stepped on his brakes a bit. The cops loved to sit in the brush by the little bend in the road and hand out speeding tickets like breath mints as a result. He drove past a squad car and gave the officer a wave.

  It took him a while, but he’d managed to get Jillian to tell him a few things about herself and her life. He was pretty surprised to learn she’d been on her high school’s swim team, for instance. She also said she hadn’t been swimming in years. An idea dawned as he pulled into the parking space with his jersey number on it and got out of the car. Team sponsors and advertisers gave out free stuff to the team all the time; why shouldn’t he share the wealth with her?

  He strolled into the Sharks’ locker room a few minutes later. Most of his teammates were there to lift before practice started. He headed toward Drew McCoy’s locker.

  Drew gave him a fist bump. “Nice to see you could make it.”

  “You too,” Seth said. “How’s Kendall?” Drew’s wife was still working for the Sharks’ arch rivals, the San Francisco Miners, but she’d struck a deal with the team’s ownership to work remotely four days a week.

  “She’s kicking ass and taking names.” Drew smiled. “Our Tessa is at her nana’s. We’ll pick her up tomorrow.”

  “You’re a lucky man.”

  “The luckiest,” Drew said. “What’s up with you today?”

  “Didn’t that gym across from Bellevue Square give you some free membership passes or some damn thing when you did those ads for them?”

  “Yeah. I’m guessing you want at least one.”

  “Both, if you’re not already using them. What would you like in exchange?”

  “By the time I get out of here, it’s not like I want to go to the gym again. Kendall has a trainer. We won’t use them,” Drew said.

  “How about a gift certificate to John Howie Steak or a weekend at that hotel by Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery in exchange? Your wife would love the spa.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll bring the passes when I come in tomorrow. The gym shouldn’t squawk either. More people join if they think we hang out there.” Drew’s mouth twitched. “Two passes, huh? I know you’re not bringing Morrison. Who’s your plus-one?”

  “She’s just a friend,” he said.

  “Oh, sure. Just a friend.” Drew laughed out loud. “That’s how Kendall and I started too.”

  Seth lifted, went to practice, met with his position coach, and grabbed a sheaf of fan mail out of the cubbyhole in the locker room with his last name and jersey number on it. He needed to make a phone call before he left the facility for the day. He sprinted out to his ride and got into the driver’s seat.

  “Performance Gym.”

  “Hello. This is Seth Taylor of the Sharks. I’d like to talk with your general manager, please.”

  The gym already sponsored the Sharks, so it was a quick-and-positive conversation for Seth. The general managers offered two gym memberships to Seth in exchange for his appearance at a one-hour meet-and-greet party with the gym’s members, which would be scheduled at Seth’s convenience after the season was over. He wouldn’t need to make off with the McCoy family’s passes, which was good news. Seth also managed to obtain private use of the gym’s pool for two hours this evening.

  He couldn’t stop grinning. Hopefully, Jillian would forgive his being so clueless the other night if she got to revisit another activity she’d enjoyed once upon a time. Plus, Jillian could swim to her heart’s content. He wasn’t opposed to splashing around in a pool that was above freezing for a couple of hours. He thanked the gym’s GM, ended the call, and pointed his ride toward a local department store. Jillian was going to need something to swim in.

  Seth wasn’t an expert at swimsuit shopping, but he remembered there was a store at the mall that sold nothing but swimsuits—it would be hard to go wrong. He managed to find a one-piece the saleswoman insisted would fit Jillian perfectly after he gave a demonstration of her shape and size in the air with his hands.

  “She’s curvy,” the saleswoman said.

  “Yes. And she’s about this tall.” He held his hand up to just below one of his shoulders.

  The salesperson reached out to grab a bluish-purple one-piece suit off the rack. She started talking about built-in bra cups and its being “tugless.” He didn’t care about that. Mostly, he hoped Jillian would like it. He also wanted to see her in it. If that made him a dog, so be it.

  Seth also bought a pair of board shorts for himself. He could hardly wait to see the look on Jillian’s face when she found out what they were doing tonight.

  JILLIAN HIT THE button on her desk phone that sent all calls to voice mail overnight and dropped her face into her hands. She didn’t mind being busy at the office; she loved her job, and the days flew by as a result. Today, though, was something else entirely. John’s business trip had been extended. Early this morning another franchise’s owner had decided to fire his son, who was the team’s general manager and CEO. The other team owners were notified of an emergency meeting in New York City next Monday morning to deal with the situation. John was cc’ing her on texts and e-mails as quickly as he could type them out. He needed Jillian to alert his pilot to the change in John’s schedule. (The pilot was with him. One would think he could call the guy on his cell, ask if he was busy on Monday, and go from there, but he wanted Jillian to do it.) John needed hotel reservations and restaurant reservations, and he wanted a world-famous department store to let his current girlfriend in an hour before opening so she could go shopping with his credit card.

  When Jillian wasn’t dealing with John’s to-do list, she was planning the Sharks’ season ticket holders’ 5K race. The Sharks’ PR department had offered to help, but there were a few things she couldn’t delegate. One of them was getting out of the chair at lunchtime and walking another mile. She’d walk another mile before she went to bed tonight too.

  If she’d had this kind of day four months ago, she would have ordered a pizza, curled up on the couch in her pajamas with CB, and rewatched Sleepless in Seattle for the ten thousandth time. Maybe that was a slight exaggeration, but she owned the DVD, and she watched even a few minutes of it whenever she had a bad day. It always made her smile.

  Sleepless in Seattle was getting a workout this week too. Between the fact that Seth seemed to have forgotten she existed and her insane workload, she wondered if maybe she should order up a few more rom-coms from Amazon.com.

  Jillian’s cell phone rang. She pulled open her desk drawer, grabbed it out of her purse, and hit “Talk” when she saw John’s personal cell phone number pop up on the screen.

  “Hi, John, how are you doing?”

  “You turned the phones over,” he said.

  “It’s six fifteen here,” she said. She was typically off for the evening at five PM.

  He let out a sigh. “You’re right. My mistake. Listen. Will you do one more thing for me? Just put it on the list. It doesn’t need to happen right now, but I wanted to make sure you knew so you could start the planning.”

  “Sure, John. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m playing poker with a few of the boys. I need a hotel suite in Seattle, food, booze, the works. And a professional poker dealer. If you can’t find one here, I’ll pay for him to fly in from Vegas for a couple of days.”

  “Do you want to go to Vegas? I can make the arrangements.”

  “No, no. Too hot right now.” He laughed at his own joke. “This is going to be a really high-stakes game, so I want to make sure everything is perfect.”

  She could only imagine what he meant by “high stakes.” Money was no object for John. He’d expect something extraordinary for his guests too. She’d better put on her thinking cap.

  �
�I’ll do my best, John.”

  “I know you will, Jillian. Have a nice evening. I’ll talk with you tomorrow.”

  He ended the call, and she wrote “poker game” on a sticky note and stuck it to her computer monitor. A few seconds later, she heard the front door of the lobby open and felt a gust of cool air.

  “We’re closed for the evening,” she called out.

  “Good,” Seth said. He strolled up to her desk. “You’re done for the day, right?”

  She wanted to jump out of her chair and throw her arms around his neck, but she managed to stay seated. She reached in her desk, grabbed her purse, and dropped it onto the desktop. She pretended like she wasn’t thrilled to see him.

  “I am,” she said.

  “I have a surprise for you.”

  She looked up into his face. “I don’t know how I feel about surprises right now.”

  “You’ll love this one.” He held out his hand. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  “I’ve had the worst day ever—”

  “I’ll help you forget all about it,” he said. He was at his most charming—twinkling eyes, dazzling smile—and she was the center of his attention. “Come with me.”

  Oh, she’d like to, and she felt the heat of a blush climbing up her neck as a result. She put her hand inside of his and grabbed her purse—and they left the building.

  SETH PULLED INTO the parking garage below the gym twenty minutes later. Jillian had spent most of the ride trying to guess where they were going.

  “What kind of surprise would it be if I told you?” he said.

  His feelings for her, and he finally had to admit that he had some, were confused at best. He’d started off wanting to talk with her because she was sassy and funny. Every time he saw her now, though, it was all he could do to keep his hands off her. He wanted to spend every spare minute with her. He felt protective of her. And he did not want any other guy from the team talking to her at all. About anything. He’d seen that asshole Kade flirting with her because Kade knew it got under Seth’s skin, for starters.