Allie cleared her throat sharply, and Dominic sighed, reaching forward to shake my hand. His skin was rough and warm to the touch, and I fought a shiver when his palm scraped against mine.
“Do you need to finish up with him?” I asked Allie. “I can come back at a better time.”
She shook her head. “No, this is perfect. Dominic is actually going to be spending some time at Team Sutton, and I’d love it if you could find one or two of our grant recipients that would benefit from his presence.”
My eyebrows shot up. Benefit from Oscar the Grouch’s presence? When Dominic’s glower intensified, I realized just how transparent my reaction had been and tried to smooth my face. Another thing I needed to work on now that I was in charge of the foundation. “Umm, sure thing. We can find … something.”
Allie’s beautiful face split into an amused grin because she knew me all too well and just how horrible I was at hiding my feelings. “Perfect. I was thinking maybe a couple of hours a week for the next month?” She turned her gaze to Dominic, and oh my, I saw the way she was not even remotely asking for permission from him. “Sound good?”
“Like I have a choice,” he muttered.
I blew out a slow breath, eyes wide.
“We all have choices in life, Dominic,” Allie said, unfazed by the attitude. “Spending time with the kids who benefit from Team Sutton might not be something you get to choose, but I promise you, I expect glowing reviews from Faith once your time is done.”
If I thought my eyes were wide before, they must’ve been taking up half my friggin’ face when she finished that little speech. Now I was his babysitter?
Allie’s assistant knocked on the door. “Allie, do you have five minutes to check out this piece before we send it down to PR?”
“I’ll be right there, Connie.” She looked back and forth between Dominic and me, then nodded. “These two need to talk anyway.”
After a gentle touch to my shoulder, she left the office, and the resulting silence was sonic-blast-level awkward. I stood there studying him. My mind rolled through the snippets of conversations I’d heard recently. He was no rookie and had transferred from Vegas, where he’d garnered a reputation as an explosive player, on and off the field.
He started to unfold his great big body off the couch, and I held up my hand. His eyebrows, just as dark as the stubble on his chin, rose in disbelief. “You’re going to stop me from leaving?”
At his rudeness, my jaw fell open. “I… well, we need to set something up for you at Team Sutton. At least give me your email address so I can get in touch with you.”
“Don’t email.” He held my eyes, a blatant challenge that had alllll the stubborn feelings coursing through my five-foot-seven body.
I let out a slow breath. “I think maybe we got off on the wrong foot, Dominic.” I gestured to the couch. “May I sit?”
“Do you often ask permission to sit on Mommy’s fancy couch?”
“I’m sorry,” I said crisply, “Did I piss in your Cheerios this morning and not know about it? You don’t even know me, hotshot.”
He leaned forward, bracing his muscular forearms on his knees, pinning me in place with those dark eyes. “I’ve known people like you my whole life, little miss sunshine,” he said, and I fought the urge to tug on the hem of my bright yellow shirt that was emblazoned with exactly that. “Let me guess, after your parents paid every single red penny for your fancy degree, they ushered you straight into your fancy job with a corner view? I might be forced to spend time with you because my boss just told me I had to.” He leaned forward more, and again, I battled the impulse to move back from the sheer force of him. But I’d be damned if I gave this jack-hole a single inch in concession. I hated players in Camp Three. “But no one told me I had to make friends.”
A defense of my parents—the way they’d raised me, the privileges that I’d been afforded because of their jobs were never, ever lost on me—sprang to the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed it down.
I tilted my head to the side. “And what did you do to deserve the honor of spending time with me at my fancy job that I didn’t earn?”
My sarcasm wasn’t lost on him, and he rolled his eyes. “The rookie and I decided to test some tequila last night. Never made it off midfield before he passed out, and I didn’t feel much like moving either. I guess that type of activity is frowned upon here with the perfect people.”
“Oh my gosh, what a poor football player you are,” I whispered with a shake of my head. “Paid millions of dollars and you can’t get drunk on private property? For shame.”
When he leaned in, closer this time, his eyes flashed dangerously, and I wondered vaguely if I’d pushed him too far. “You don’t know shit about me, sunshine.”
I leaned in right back. “Right back at you, hotshot. And you better hope that I’m in a good mood when you show up at my office Tuesday at ten a.m.” My voice sharpened, the same dangerous edge that he held in his eyes, and he actually sat back when he heard it. “Because if you cop a single shred of this attitude when you’re around the kids, I don’t care who you are or how much money they paid you, I’ll have no trouble telling Allie everything. You hate my upbringing, hotshot? I couldn’t care less. But I will be damned if you take any of that out on our kids.” I thrust a finger at him, stopping just shy of his broad chest. “Do we understand each other?”
He stood off the couch, face smooth, eyes hard. “Perfectly.”
I pulled out my phone. “What’s your number?”
He clucked his tongue. “Aww, can’t manage to get a date on your own, sunshine?”
I gave him a long look, and his lips almost curved into a smile.
Then his eyes tracked over my body again. “No, I bet you don’t have any problem with that. Nice boys, too, I’m sure. They wear khakis and button-downs. They play golf, like expensive whiskey, and got straight A’s at their fancy schools.”
“Better than a drunk football player who couldn’t pluck basic manners from their asshole if their life depended on it.” My smile was soft, beatific, and it made his face turn even stormier. “I don’t date football players, and guys like you are exactly why it’s so easy to remember why.”
Dominic simply stared me down, every word somehow making him look grumpier. It was awful just how attractive he was. Why couldn’t he have a weak chin or pube hair or worm lips?
No, men like him somehow always managed to be the most attractive specimens I’d laid eyes on. That’s what made Camp Three players so dangerous. Because with faces like his, they could make you go stupid in two seconds flat if you weren’t careful.
I tucked my phone away and crossed my arms over my chest, much like he had when I first arrived. “Tell you what, I’ll get your number from HR if you don’t do email. I’ll send you a text tomorrow with the address for my office.”
He gave me a sharp salute. “I’ll do my very best to show up sober.”
With a long-legged stride, he left the office, the width of his shoulders filling the doorframe ominously because he was the kind of big you just couldn’t not notice.
A minute later, Allie walked in, stopping short when she caught me glaring at the door. “Dominic left already?”
I pointed at the hallway. “You cannot be serious, Mom.”
Her face softened because I only called her Mom on rare occasions. Not because I didn’t love her or because she wasn’t my mother, but I’d called her Allie for years, so when she and my dad got married, it stuck.
“He’s a trainwreck,” I told her.
Carefully, she nodded. “It would seem that way. But I think he’s got a lot of potential.”
“To be a cautionary tale?” I asked.
She laughed. “Faith, you have the biggest heart of anyone I know. If anyone can handle him, it’s you.”
I covered my face with both hands. “I called him a drunk asshole who couldn’t find his manners from his asshole if his life depended on it.”
Allie sat next to m
e on the couch, laughter clear in her voice. “That’s an impulse we should probably work on, but trust me, if anyone understands how provoking a cocky, tattooed football player can be, it’s me,” she said gently. That had me lowering my hands because no way was she equating that interaction to how she met my dad. She gave me a steady look, something she was so, so good at. “What?” she asked.
“You trust him around the kids?”
Immediately, she nodded. “I do. Yes, he’s got a temper on the field, but you know we don’t only look at their game-day stats. Dominic has fire in him, and when channeled positively, people like that can change the world.” She cupped my chin. “You have fire in you too, my dear. It’s why you’ll do great leading Team Sutton.”
Oh sure. With my face that couldn’t hide anything and my inability to show up to meetings on time, I was going to be the best boss ever. I sighed. “Thank you.”
How could I explain that to Allie, who’d led the Wolves with grace and vulnerability and a core of steel for twenty years?
I couldn’t. That was the answer.
“How are you so good at this?” I asked her. “It comes so easily to you.”
Allie leaned back on the couch. “It didn’t always. Being a good leader is about so much more than wielding your power and clubbing people over the head with it, Faith.” Allie glanced out the window of her office and smiled at the Seattle skyline. “Someone like Dominic can push back against that kind of display without thinking. It’s a natural reaction due to his personality and the culture of the team he played with for the past three years. You can handle him,” she told me. “But the key is figuring out what motivates him. Not what elicits the greatest reaction. Those two seldom overlap.”
Glumly, I stared at where he exited the office like I expected him to pop his stupidly handsome face back in and snarl at me some more. “He reminds me of this grouchy bear at the zoo. I tried to give him a treat the other day when I was helping Tori, and he about took my hand off.”
“See? You’re perfect for this.”
Great. Just what I wanted to hear.
Faith Pierson, the perfect asshole-football-player babysitter.
Dominic
By the time I pulled my truck into my parents’ driveway, I was just as pissed off as I’d been hours earlier when I left the stadium. Nothing worked to settle the raised hackles I carried out of that fucking office, the image of Faith Pierson’s shocked face as I said admittedly dick-ish things to her.
Moments like that, it was like someone else took over my body and took a sledgehammer to the filter between my brain and my mouth.
I wasn’t sure what I expected out of the owner’s daughter, but it wasn’t her. Allie was a stunner. There was no other way to say it. Even into her mid-forties, she could hold her own against some of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. And when Faith Pierson walked into the office, wearing that Little Miss Sunshine shirt, I just … got even angrier.
Because under normal circumstances, she was exactly the kind of woman I’d go for. I had a type, and Faith Pierson was fucking it. She’d hate it if she knew. Because in her mind, I was a problem to be solved. And in my mind, that was a role I’d never be able to break free of if I didn’t figure out a way to stop pulling such stupid shit.
Seeing her, realizing all of that, was what destroyed that leash I held on my tongue.
I didn’t want her to be young and beautiful. Fresh-faced with a wide smile and big eyes. This was no polished glamazon. She had Chucks on her feet and a Wolves badge around her neck like she was born wearing one. Probably because she had been.
Jamming the truck into park, I laid my head back on the rest and took a few deep breaths. The home in front of me was the same place they’d lived my entire life. Last year, they’d painted the exterior a bright white, but the front door had stayed a vibrant red. No matter how much money I’d sent them to buy a new place.
My dad’s idea of a splurge was that he’d hired out the exterior paint job. My mom’s had been a new couch and recliner for their family room. No matter that I’d sent them a check with a shit ton of zeros on it when I got my signing bonus, they constantly reminded me that how much I got paid was not nearly as important to them as if I was a hard worker. Not just that, but a good person, too.
When I walked through that red door, on this day especially, I wasn’t sure I could tell them that I’d been either of those things. Coming home to play for Washington, my home state, was a dream. As I punched the steering wheel, it was easy to turn that slow simmer of anger at myself.
For everything I’d done, because it was the kind of bullshit that could ruin my chance before it had even started.
With a loaded exhale, I stood from the truck, waving at Miss Rose across the street as she wheeled her garbage container to the curb.
“Saw you on the news yesterday,” she called. “You look real handsome, Dominic.”
I smiled. “Thank you, Miss Rose.”
She peered over the edge of her glasses. “Except for all those tattoos. Marking up the Lord’s temple like that.”
The smile broadened because she commented on them every time I saw her. “I’m adding your beautiful face next time.” I tapped my chest. “Right here over my heart.”
Her wrinkled face, the color of burnished mahogany, softened into a smile like I knew it would. “Oh, get on with you. Tell your parents I said hi. Been praying for ‘em today. Missing that little girl like you must be.”
Now my smile felt brittle, but I kept it firmly in place. “Thank you, Miss Rose. I’ll do that.”
Miss Rose had known my parents long enough that saying those things to me was the only time she could say them. My parents, given the gift of Ivy about ten years after they’d had me, didn’t handle it well when they lost her. Who would?
They’d done their best with me, but they’d both worked so much just to be able to live that I’d practically raised myself. With Ivy, they’d been different. My mom didn’t want to lose time with another child, so she cut back to part-time. My dad was always home for dinner. The years before she got sick were the best we’d ever had as a family.
And now, they just … tried to forget them because it was too hard to remember.
Miss Rose gave me a last wave, then shuffled back up her driveway. Once she was back in her house, I took a second to steady myself before I jogged up the front steps and opened the door. “I’m home,” I called out.
So much of this day was predictable to me. My anger no longer took me by surprise. I’d learned a few years back to embrace it. The fact that I’d walk into their house and smell Ivy’s favorite meal—chicken cordon bleu—was also expected. I hated eating it, but my little sister had loved it, the way the chicken was stuffed with ham and cheese. And I also knew that this was one of the only ways my parents showed their grief. We’d eat the chicken, eat the tater tots on the side, and ignore the elephant in the room. Five years later, and there was still a hole punched through our family that we’d never quite been able to heal.
My dad was in his recliner, glasses perched on the end of his nose, work boots on his feet, and a line from his hard hat forming a crease in his dark hair. “How was your day, Dom?”
I tipped the edge of the paper back to see what he was reading. Sports, of course. He flicked his eyes up to mine with a smile.
“Just fine,” I told him. “Met the owner today. She already hates me.”
He sighed, flipping the page on the newspaper. “Not funny, kid.”
“Not joking, Dad.”
When I entered the small kitchen, my mom was still wearing her scrubs from work. She was pulling a pan of the chicken from the oven, and when she smiled over her shoulder, I hated how tired she looked. “Hey, honey. I made up your bed in case you want to stay here tonight.”
The life of a professional football player, ladies and gentlemen. My mom made the sheets on my full-size bed down the hall, in a room across from theirs in the small ranch where I’d grown up.
Where my dad taught me how to build a house—a skill I used to work through college as the only way I could afford it. Where my mom showed me how to fold a fitted sheet because you better not end up as one of those asshole husbands who thinks his wife is gonna do that stuff for him.
I laid my hands on her shoulders and kissed the top of her red hair. “Thanks, Ma.”
As she laid the pan of chicken on the stovetop, I noticed she couldn’t meet my eyes. We did this dance every year. I always wanted to talk about Ivy, but they never did.
And because I knew the role I was supposed to play in this macabre little memorial dinner, I kept my mouth shut.
“She doesn’t really hate you, does she?” Mom asked.
“I don’t know.” I snagged a tater tot and popped it in my mouth. “There was one reporter at the press conference that really pissed me the fuck off.”
She eyed me. “Mercy, Dominic, watch your mouth.”
The way she said it, the look on her face, I couldn’t help myself. “You sound like Ivy,” I said around a small smile.
And just like that, my mom’s features flattened out, and her cheeks lost all their color. “Dinner will be ready in five.”
She busied herself filling the same water glasses we’d used for the past twenty years, and that reaction—even if I understood where it came from—made me want to chuck one of those light blue glasses against the wall, just to see if I could break the tension.
I was ready for the day to be over.
With the smell of our dinner surrounding me, the kitchen started to feel like it was closing in on me. There was this strange chasm between the two worlds I lived in. Downtown Seattle, I owned an apartment with glass and tile and chrome, fancy views and a fancy address, but half the time, I crashed here because it was home.
Somehow, I didn’t seem to fit in either place. It had been my problem in Vegas too. The lifestyle of that city wasn’t good for me, and my agent fighting for this trade was probably the only thing that would keep me playing because half the teams he talked to weren’t interested in having me. Not with my temper.
The Lie : a bad boy sports romance Page 3
