by K. P. Haigh
"Ugh, that sucks, Monty. That really sucks. Rochelle Holt sounds evil."
"Stupid cheerleaders messing with my life."
The line is silent for a second. "Rochelle isn't a cheerleader though," Andie points out.
Could have fooled me. "She's like the grown-up version of Sabrina Lang from high school. I feel like she's messing with me just because she can."
"Well, don't let her." The way Andie says it, the amount of strength in her voice, I know she wishes she could stick up for me. She regrets not being there years ago at the field house when Sabrina took me down a notch, and she would be here now if she could. But, this isn't her fight. It never was.
"Even if I had your nerves of steel, this woman is like football royalty." I looked her up after the banquet: her dad owned a team out on the East Coast, and she's the wife of the most revered member of the team, at least in the public eye. Everyone loves Cameron Holt. Everyone.
"Who cares if she's royalty? She doesn't get to bash my best friend."
"I can't do that to Baron," I whisper. As much as I don't understand it, his life is tangled up in this, and getting into it with Rochelle has repercussions for him out on the field.
Andie takes a deep breath, and I know she gets it.
"Fine. Doesn't mean I won't sucker punch this chick if I ever meet her."
"I would expect nothing less."
I hear Andie's yawn fill the silence. I need to let her go and handle my crazy on my own. "We should hang up. It's super late there."
Andie agrees, so we wish each other love and hang up.
I know I need to get some sleep. I always feel better in the morning.
I just seriously hope tomorrow doesn't prove to be an exception to that rule.
I wake up to a soft pounding on my door, and it takes me a second to remember where I am. My bed is familiar, but everything else feels decidedly foreign. I've spent all my time in Seattle spread out in Baron's king-sized heaven, so my bed feels like the only piece of me in this apartment.
I climb out of bed, wondering if package deliveries come straight to your door here. When I unlatch the lock and pry the door open, I see Baron standing in front of me, a bright bouquet fresh from the market in hand.
I pull the door wide open and motion him on in. As soon as he walks through the doorway, it's quite clear that he looks out of place in my little studio apartment. He's a giant walking around in a dollhouse.
I grab the flowers, desperate to find something for my hands to do. I pull open my half-unpacked kitchen, trying to remember if I have a vase or if I only think I have a vase. There are about a dozen boxes it could still be in.
Baron walks over and leans against the kitchen counter. I can't look at him; I'm still not ready to process what's going on with us.
Obviously, he doesn't have the same problem. "I'm sorry, Monty. I was an ass. It's been a really rough week. Yesterday's practice annihilated me, mentally and physically, and I took it out on you."
I finally look up and see the way his eyes are heavy at the edges, like his penance is pulling them down with its weight. I selfishly hadn't even considered that he might have had a tough day. I was so wrapped up in my own day, it wasn't even a thought. I feel like a jerk.
"I had a rough day too." I don't have it in me to say sorry yet. He didn't chase after me, and that still rubs me the wrong way.
He perks up at my skimmed-over explanation, and his eyes narrow as if he's trying to find something in murky water. "What happened?"
I don't know how much to tell him, and I hesitate to open up about Rochelle. Men don't get female drama. Men bash their helmet-clad heads together on a field and scream at each other, and then walk back into the locker room and pat each other on the back with a good game. Whatever happens on the field gets cleared up before they even make it back out to their cars.
With women? It's long-term subterfuge. There is no line drawn for field versus home. Nothing is off limits as long as you don't get caught.
No, this isn't worth mentioning. Andie can understand the jumbled mess of an explanation and be on my side, no questions asked, but Baron? I have no idea.
So how do I explained to him what happened? What undercurrent lit the match on our fight yesterday?
"Life hasn't been easy out here. I don't know many people, and my job is less than stellar. I haven't even taken my camera out of the box." The last sentence comes out as barely a whisper.
"We can go out and find something…photo-worthy?" he offers as he walks over to me.
I wish it was that simple, but it's like a part of me is missing. I don't know if I'll find it by putting a camera back in my hands. I shake my head, unable to put my thoughts into words that would make sense to him.
He rubs his hands up and down my arms. The hair rises like an automatic reflex, my body reacting to his touch even if my brain is holding out.
I can't stand next to this man and stay angry at him. It feels like there are still frayed edges on this rope, but I'm willing to tie a knot in it and hope it’s strong enough to hold.
I mentally sidestep my broken pieces and turn back to the part I can fix. "We both had bad days. It's gonna happen."
Baron stares at me like he's trying to decipher a foreign language he's never encountered before. A moment later, he presses into me and leans his lips against my forehead, and I feel the knot tighten. I want to put all my weight against the thick twine and test its strength. I press my hands to Baron's chest, running my fingernails lightly across the cotton that's stretched across the wide breadth of his chest.
The anger flickers for a moment, but it's licked by an entirely different flame. They burn brightly together, and I can't tell where one begins and the other one starts. I press harder against him.
Baron weaves his hands between the waterfall of my hair draping across the back of my neck and the sweet sliver of skin behind my ear.
"It's nine in the morning, and all I want to do is take you back to bed right now." He lifts my hair and replaces his hand with his lips, sending shivers through the cords of nerves running up and down my back.
I don't want to think about this stupid argument for another second. I stop trying to find the line between anger and lust and let the feeling of need that's already starting to ripple through my body run free.
"Who says we need a bed?" I ask with a hint of mischief in my tone. I jump up and wrap my legs around Baron, and he catches me instantly—perks of dating a professional football player.
He looks up at me, and I know I could spend years mapping the way his blue eyes crackle like they’re ice that’s been tossed into tap water.
He nips my bottom lip with his teeth, and I kiss him back with a need that's picking up like the beginning of an epic windstorm. Instead of running for the basement, I'm opening up the windows and letting it in. Tear my world apart; the thrill of the chaos is worth the aftermath.
Baron turns toward the counter and sets me down, catching the waist of my pajama shorts and pulling them down as I lift my hips up to help him. His hands reach back up to explore the exposed skin, and his fingers find the lace edge of my thong.
"Baron…" It escapes as a whisper. I can't handle the tantalizing sensation of his fingers outlining the edge of the fabric; it's too close to my edge. I want to jump off and savor the weightless feeling, but when I look at Baron and see the way his eyebrows are pulled up, I know he's not going to give me what I want. Not yet.
He kisses the inside of my knee, where I have a scar from cutting my leg open on a jagged branch while climbing up a tree to get a better view of a sunset. He smiled when I told him that story, and he's smiling again now. He likes that part of me, the one that can't see the details of the ascent when I'm climbing toward the summit.
I'm headed toward an entirely different summit right now, and I'm just as eager to get there.
His mouth trails up my inner thigh, releasing tiny bursts of pleasure behind him. He kisses skin that's hidden behind lace, and I le
an back, my breath like thick stripes of candy being bent back and forth.
When he finally peels the fabric down, I stop breathing altogether. His tongue sends shockwaves through me with every sweet, twisting taste.
I grip my hands against the hard counter, and I feel the stone vibrate underneath me. My eyes shoot open. I wonder if Baron suddenly brought a vibrator into this equation. I wouldn't object, but where the hell was he hiding it?
He looks up and shakes his head. "Phone. This is more important business." He leans back down with a smile.
I close my eyes and let him get back to it—I'm not going to argue with that. His fingers find their way inside me, and I lose all sense of time and space. Every thought merges together into one unintelligible flash. Black holes do exist on Earth, and they're called orgasms.
I open my eyes and hear the ring of my phone coming from my couch cushions. My brain is foggy, but I swear I can see a thought forming beneath the white haze.
Someone's calling both of us. Who would try both of us?
Georgie. The thought breaks through. We have brunch plans with Georgie and Zane.
I push myself back up and give Baron a kiss. He looks like he just won the championship. His smile is lopsided and goofy, and I want to tell him that everyone wins in this game.
I'm pretty sure using your tongue has nothing to do with football, but Baron is a pro.
I hop off the counter just as my phone goes silent, and I race over to the couch to quickly press redial. Georgie picks up on the first ring, and we agree to meet up at Lola's in fifteen.
I'm always agreeing to timetables with her that are way shorter than I actually need, but after that morning wake up call…I could show up in pajamas with bedhead and I wouldn't give a damn.
I try to brush aside the lingering feeling of unease as I slip into a sundress that's at the top of a pile of clothes I haven't bothered to hang up yet.
I try not to look at the box marked Gear in the corner. I'll find that piece of myself again.
I have to.
We slip into a booth at Lola's a few minutes late, and Georgie and Zane already have a French press of coffee waiting for us.
Best. Friends. Ever.
"Late start this morning?" Georgie says with a wink.
I focus on pouring my coffee like it's highly flammable rocket science. "Yup, super tired."
"It's cool," Zane says with a laugh. "I don't think Georgie and I showed up anywhere on time when we finally started dating in college."
"How did you two meet?" I ask, grateful to steer the conversation out of the territory of this morning's delay.
Zane and Georgie are already practically sitting on top of each other. There's at least two feet of room on either side of them, which is not easy when one of them is a professional football player-sized.
Georgie leans her head against Zane's arm, and he leans down to kiss the top of her head. I can't help but melt. It's like the relationship goals hashtag is sitting right in front of me.
"Georgie was in one of my freshman math classes, and I pretended to need help studying," Zane starts to explain. "She couldn't resist my charms and good looks for long."
Baron laughs. "More like you practically flunked that class because you paid more attention to her than you did to the actual professor."
Zane shrugs, but his smile says it all. "It was worth it."
I don't doubt it for a second. I want to be like them when I grow up. I don't think there's a single force on the planet that could separate the two of them.
The server comes over to take our order. Georgie asks for some made-from-scratch doughnuts for the table to start, and I'm immediately grateful Baron and I made it to brunch.
Sex is good. Doughnuts are even better.
We get lost in conversation, and I find myself soaking it in like life-sustaining oxygen. Moving to Seattle hasn't been all sunshine and butterflies. It's felt like I walked into the cafeteria at a brand new school and have no idea where to sit, but this right here? Sitting at the table with Baron, Zane, and Georgie…this feels like home.
"We'll have to have a sleepover for one of the away games," Georgie suggests while Zane and Baron are busy talking strategy. "Maybe we could binge on girly movies? You know, balance out all the testosterone."
I know she secretly loves all the testosterone. Georgie breathes football, and not just because she's married to it.
"I'm in for girly movies for sure." I won't turn down that offer. She may not need the break, but I will. I still don't know how I'm going to sit through games every week without going completely insane. A little rom-com motivation can't hurt.
"Thank God." Zane turns his attention back to us. "I don't think I can sit through another one of those ten different characters with overlapping plots and bad dialogue movies."
We all have our things. I know the look on Zane's face, as if watching those movies is like hanging out with someone after they've had a fiesta's worth of Mexican food. There isn't enough air freshener in the world to help that stench.
"They're not that bad," Georgie argues. "If you had your way, we'd only watch action movies. Don't get me wrong, the Chris’s of action are doing well for themselves these days, but I need a little laugh and chill time too."
"The superhero movie circuit has been killing it lately," I comment. I've never gotten into comic books, but all these major reboots along with pulling obscure heroes out of the back catalog and making them funny makes me want to shift my literary roots in a more graphic direction.
"Exactly." Zane extends his hand across the table to me for a fist bump.
"Ugh. I get to watch hot guys play football—that's enough action in my life." Georgie wrinkles her nose at Zane and me.
Baron just shakes his head with a smile. Something tells me he's heard this conversation before.
"That is so not the same," I argue playfully. I would take watching a two-hour movie about adventure and saving the world over a football game any day of the week.
"Football is so much better," Georgie argues back. "You get beer, camaraderie, and men in tights."
I just shake my head. "I can get on board with the beer and men in tights, but I think I missed the camaraderie train."
Baron wraps his arm around me just as the server walks over with our fresh doughnuts. He leans in and brushes his lips against my ear. "It's okay, my train's more fun to ride anyway."
It's a good thing Zane and Georgie are preoccupied with doughnuts, because I'm pretty sure I'm a deeper shade of red than the cherry filling.
Maybe I was wrong before. Doughnuts are good, but sex is better.
Way better.
There's nothing to phone home about over the next couple weeks. I can still count the number of people I know in Seattle on one hand, and I spend my days working for the human form of Grumpy Cat. His coffee is always too hot or too cold. I never respond to emails fast enough, and when I do, he says my responses appear rushed. I’m a glorified scratching post for a man who knows photography better than anyone I’ve ever met but can’t be bothered to teach me a damn thing. I can’t figure out if it’s more upsetting that he’s a jerk or that I put up with it.
At least it’s Friday. I'm sitting on Baron's bed in the middle of a gorgeous condo overlooking the sunlit water of the Puget Sound, so I really can't complain.
Baron is walking back and forth between his suitcase and his walk-in closet. His first preseason game is tomorrow, and all the players have to stay in a hotel the night before a game, regardless if it's at home or not.
I'm scrolling through my laptop, looking through my boss's photos from this week, when a text comes through iMessage and dings in the upper corner.
I see Andie's name and a link, so I open up the messaging app to read it. Huh. She's asking if I saw this. I click and see the local news header load first.
I have a feeling I'm not going to like this. I see three dots blinking next to Andie's name.
This woman is insane.
/> She doesn't even have to clarify. Now I really know I'm not going to like this.
It's a profile on Rochelle, something about her latest work with some charity. I wonder what this has to do with me. I almost scroll right past it, but my eye briefly catches a capital B, and I quickly jump back up.
It's a Q&A style interview, and the reporter asked her about how the football families support each other.
"Oh yeah. We're all really close, even the new ones. There's a new player and his girlfriend, Baron Richards and Montgomery. Everyone's started calling them Beary, like the fruit. It's our little team nickname for them. It just caught on."
Ugh. Beary—are you serious? That makes me want to vomit. What's even worse is I can't completely justify wanting to knee her in the ovaries. I know she's not being nice, I just can't figure out why she's pretending she is.
Either way, I can't stop reading.
"They're so sweet together. You just hope, you know, they can make it through. This is a crazy life, and Montgomery's not used to this kind of attention. It takes a lot of dedication to be a professional athlete's wife. We've got to be team players."
Well, that I can kick her for, maybe a quick one as I call out Hey, what's that, a dinosaur? and everyone turns the other way.
I know what she's saying is a jab, and she knows it's a jab, but the rest of the Internet is going Awww, she takes in the new couple and makes them feel at home.
I tab back over to the conversation to respond to Andie.
I don't know exactly how to justify how much I hate her,
but I figure if I give her time, she'll give me a good reason.
I see the three dots appear across the screen.
I know, right? She's crazy, but smart crazy.
Watch out for this one, M.
She's the kind that will sneak into your room at night,
stab you, and plant the knife in your BF's locker.
