“Hey,” he said from over her shoulder, and Gwen yelped and whirled around. Ty laughed, holding up his hands innocently. “Sorry,” he said, still smiling. “I thought you heard me.”
Gwen smoothed her hair and tried to find her composure. “I was distracted,” she said, shaking her head. “Just...thinking.”
In his underwear ads, with his digitally enhanced blue eyes peering out, Ty was impossibly sexy. But right now, with sweat at his temples and dirt on his uniform, he was downright devastating. Any success she may have had at putting him out of her mind was immediately erased. Common sense flew out the window, good judgment followed it, and her hormones started to celebrate.
Ty glanced up and down the hall, confirming they were still alone. “About anything in particular?”
“The talking points,” Gwen said, as Strip emerged from the clubhouse twenty yards away and started in their direction.
Disappointment flickered in his eyes, but Ty kept his smile polite. “Great. I know Strip appreciates them. So does management. You’ve really helped them cut down on fines for swearing on the air.”
Strip paused to talk to one of the trainers, and Gwen took a deep breath. “I can’t come to your place,” she said, voice low. Every part of her body rebelled against the words, even as she knew they were the right ones.
Ty swallowed and glanced away for a second, then looked back. “Of course,” he said. “I understand.”
“There’re too many people watching your building,” she continued, speaking quickly as Strip finished his conversation and headed toward them again.
Ty lifted an eyebrow, something sparking in his eyes. Maybe the blue wasn’t digitally enhanced after all.
“But you can come to my place,” Gwen said. “I’ll text you my address.”
“Cool.” Ty turned as Strip reached them. Then more loudly, for the manager’s benefit, he added, “I’ll let you talk to him first. I can come back.”
He shot her a tiny smile as he left, and her stomach promptly twisted itself into a dozen knots. She’d hoped that agreeing to his plan would relieve some of the tension she’d been feeling, but the result was the exact opposite. She was more wound up than ever.
Gwen returned to the hotel in a daze, packed her things, and caught a cab to the airport, barely aware of her actions. Or perhaps all too aware of them. She texted Ty her address before boarding the plane, then spent the entire flight with her heart hammering in her chest, wondering if he’d replied. When they touched down, she frantically turned on her phone and found his one word response: Noon.
If she hadn’t already been seated in the upright position, with her seatbelt secured, she would have fallen over.
THE NEXT DAY, the day, Gwen was pacing again, albeit with freshly washed hair, shaved legs, and moisturized skin. It was eleven o’clock, and the next hour promised to be the longest of her life.
She paced up and down the hallway of her small house, scrutinizing it carefully, the way a guest—her first-ever guest—might. Inviting Ty to her home had seemed like the smart choice. She knew clusters of fans still waited for him outside his apartment, hoping to entice him to invite them upstairs, and she couldn’t afford to be photographed getting into the elevator with him. No one knew—or cared—where she lived, so her place seemed like a safe bet. Until she considered her small living room and her tinier kitchen, two bedrooms, one and a half baths, and realized it had probably been more than a decade since he’d been inside a home that didn’t come with a seven-figure price tag.
She’d done her best to make it look nice. The money she’d inherited from Marge combined with the income from the sale of the heritage home had gone a long way. She had hardwood floors and stainless steel appliances, new furniture and a large television. She’d painted a few of the walls and hung some art, bought new sheets for her bed. And the whole thing could probably fit in Ty’s living room.
Now, as she often did, she stopped in the kitchen and glared at the fridge. A self-appointed neighborhood beautification committee had started several initiatives to improve the area’s curb appeal, and had begun passing out flyers to ask people to maintain their yards, fix peeling paint, and plant flowers.
Gwen scowled at the flyer she’d stuck to the refrigerator door. A month ago she bought two rosebushes and a bunch of seedlings and bulbs, intending to plant them, but they were still sitting on her front porch, wilting in the heat. She had a lot of things; what she did not have was time, a green thumb, or a particular desire to garden.
Her phone beeped and she snatched it off the table to read the message from Ty. Sorry, he said. Team business. I’ll be late. Around four, if that’s okay?
Gwen’s shoulders slumped. She was nervous, but she was also excited. Try as she might to let her brain take the lead and list all the reasons it was a bad idea to do this, her thoughts kept steering her down the hall to her bedroom and all the good reasons to do it.
That Ty hadn’t done it since October, either, made her feel a little better about everything.
She typed out three replies—Sure!—Cool!—Whatevs!—before settling on a less-manic, No problem.
Four o’clock was a long way off, and she couldn’t pace that long, so she decided to use her nervous energy to get her garden installed once and for all. She changed out of the sundress and swapped it for a pair of old shorts and a Thrashers tank, tugging her hair into its usual ponytail. It wasn’t quite her plan for the day, but she’d make it work. In fact, it would be great. She’d get the beautification committee off her back, have a semi-lovely garden to show the world, then take a shower and fix her hair before Ty arrived.
Three hours later, things were not great. The garden was a disaster. She had two rose plants and two holes to dig, and she’d barely managed one. Her hands were sore, she was covered in dirt from head to toe, and she’d collected so many tiny scratches it looked like she’d lost a fight with a kitten. Sweat plastered her hair to her temples and, as she stood back to survey her work, the “beautiful garden” she’d envisioned looked even worse than she did. It looked like she’d had a beautiful garden, then destroyed it.
She used the two square inches of clean skin on her forearm to wipe her face, and the tip of her pinky finger to turn on her phone to check the time. Almost three. Enough time to shower and make herself presentable. Maybe Ty wouldn’t even notice the garden.
“Hey,” he said from behind her.
Gwen squawked and whirled around. This had to stop happening.
Tyler Ashe stood on her lawn in a designer suit, looking even better than he did, well, all the time. He wore a white shirt, the top buttons undone, jacket slung over his arm, a bottle of wine in his hand. His other hand held a dozen red roses. He looked like he’d stepped out of a movie poster, and she looked...
“Oh no,” Gwen mumbled, closing her eyes.
She heard him laugh as his footsteps came closer on the grass. “I know I’m ahead of schedule,” he said, “but we managed to escape early.”
“I—”
“Literally,” he added. “Strip had the idea that we should do some team bonding exercises, and forced us all into an escape room. We were in there for hours before Blanche finally figured out this puzzle clue, then we noticed that Ibanez had the key stuck to the bottom of his shoe.”
Gwen’s eyes fluttered open. “Escape room?”
“Yeah. It wouldn’t have been so bad if there weren’t some place else I really wanted to be instead.”
He was so gorgeous, so kind, so here that for a second she managed to forget her dirt-slicked appearance and smile back. “I’m glad you got out.”
For a second they just smiled stupidly, the tension between them shimmering like a heat wave in the mid-afternoon air. Then Ty glanced at the mangled garden. “What happened here? Did a raccoon—”
“Um,” Gwen interrupted. “No. Let’s just go inside.”
He managed not to laugh. “Whatever you say.”
She climbed the steps and Ty fo
llowed, reaching past to pull open the door, his sleeve brushing her bare arm. Gwen’s skin exploded with goose bumps and her stomach clenched. As much as she couldn’t bear the anxiety of putting off what she hoped was about to happen, she was too grimy to do much more than shower.
“I’m looking less than human at the moment,” she said as they stepped inside. “So I’m going to take a shower and come back without dirt everywhere. Make yourself at home.” She felt silly as soon as she said the words, like Ty would find any similarities between his multi-million dollar home and her own. But Ty just took off his shoes and looked around the living room. Gwen tried to see it as he saw it. Soft gray sofa with matching chair and ottoman, colorful pillows to brighten the space. The large television in the corner, a couple of lamps and end tables.
“The kitchen is just down there,” Gwen said, pointing toward the back of the house. “Help yourself to anything in the fridge, if you’re hungry.”
Ty set down the bottle of wine. “I’ll wait for you.”
Beneath the dirt, Gwen flushed. “I won’t be long.”
She darted down the hall into her bedroom, then stripped out of her filthy clothes and jumped in the shower, slipping on the porcelain. The water sprayed out too cold, making her teeth chatter, but slowly warmed. Soon the dirt-stained water ran clear, and she buried her face in the spray, willing herself to relax. She’d done this before. She could do it again. Hell, she wanted to do it again. And whatever...magic...Ty had in his lips and fingers, she wanted to feel it. Again. And again and again and again.
When there wasn’t a speck of dirt left on her skin and no more excuses to linger, Gwen climbed out of the shower and dried her hair with a towel. She pulled on the sundress from earlier and contemplated her reflection in the mirror. Face freshly scrubbed and hair damp wasn’t exactly the seductive look she’d been going for, but it would have to do.
Still, she fiddled, straightening the clean sheets on the bed and fluffing the pillows. Unlit candles sat on both bedside tables, and a new box of condoms waited in a drawer. When she moved in she hadn’t bothered to re-hang her old Thrashers posters and pennants, so the walls were thankfully bare save an abstract piece she’d bought on impulse at a market during the holidays, when she had little else to do and no one to do it with.
Gwen shook off the memory. Tyler Ashe was in her living room. That was where she needed to be, not dwelling on the past.
Ty was on the couch, his feet on the ottoman, a paperback in one hand. He glanced up when she entered, then smiled and closed the book. Catching her confused look, he said, “More team building. Reed started a reading group called Reed’s Readers to help bond with his daughter—and make himself newsworthy—and now we all have to read his latest book recommendation and comment on it.”
“Is it any good?”
He smiled. “It’s all right. I can’t remember the last time I read a book, but this one’s not too bad.”
“Does it involve vampires?”
“No, he finished the series. This one’s brand new.”
Gwen lowered herself onto the couch. Without the earthy aroma of dirt and leaves clinging to her skin, she could smell Ty, his soap or shampoo or expensive cologne, faint but clean and pleasant.
“So,” he said. “I was looking through your recordings.”
“My what?”
He nodded at the television. “I wanted to see if you had anything but Thrashers games on there.”
“I—”
“It’s all Baking Bonanza episodes.”
Gwen blushed. “It helps me relax.”
“Want to watch?”
“Do you want to watch?”
“Desperately.” At her doubtful look, he added, “I’m serious. After our tweet about the berries, Todd’s been blasting the team on social media. I can’t wait to see the guy go home.”
“That was your tweet.”
“Your word against mine. Let’s watch.”
And then somehow, she was sitting on her couch with Tyler Ashe, watching home bakers prepare masterful chocolate concoctions. At the first commercial he got up, went to the kitchen, and returned with two wine glasses, waiting for her nod before filling them. At the second commercial he recrossed his feet so his foot brushed the side of hers on the ottoman, the hint of contact setting her body on a low simmer.
At the third commercial Todd used all the fresh mint and Ty sat bolt upright in his seat, gesturing with an empty wine glass. “That asshole! He knows Glenda is making a chocolate mojito pie!”
Gwen did her very best not to laugh, but couldn’t stop one from slipping out. At his righteous glare, she only laughed harder.
“I’m sorry,” she said, waving a hand like a white flag. “It’s just—it’s just—” She gestured at him, the picture of male perfection, meant to be doing something suave like buying rare watches or driving foreign cars too fast, and instead he was...right there. In her living room.
“It’s just what?” he huffed, settling back on the couch and looking a bit chagrined. He refilled their glasses and wasn’t having much success keeping an embarrassed smile off his face. “I’m an athlete, Gwen,” he said with great seriousness. “And Todd’s lack of sportsmanship offends me.”
“Duly noted.”
“I mean, do I steal the other teams’ bats?”
“No, Ty. You don’t.”
“Then you see the problem.”
“Clear as day.”
Finally he just gave in and smiled, the look making her heart twist.
“When I was a kid,” he said after a second, “there was this guy in my class. We were eight. My parents had been dead a year. And for whatever reason, that kid hated me. He used say, ‘Time to go home, everybody. Except Ty, because he doesn’t have one.’”
Gwen’s mouth fell open.
“He did it for the whole school year. Then I had a growth spurt over the summer, and when he started again the next year, I beat him up and he stopped. Of course, the official version of that story is we had a meaningful discussion with the principal and learned the importance of respect and compassion.”
“Right.”
Ty took a healthy glug of his wine. “Anyway, his name was Todd and now I hate everyone named Todd.”
“That’s totally fair.”
“What about you?”
“I’ve never beat up anybody in my life.”
He smiled, then hesitated and said, “Your parents weren’t around at that age. Did kids bother you about it?”
Gwen shrugged. “A few times. And I’d never win in a fight, but Marge was intimidating. She once got arrested at a Thrashers game and her picture was on the front page of the paper. After that, everyone was very respectful.”
“She sounds great.”
“She was. When I first got here, I cried every night. Then she started to come into my room and read Thrashers stats to put me to sleep. I still recite them to relax sometimes. 158, 620, 122, 184, 41, 123.”
Ty’s jaw dropped. “Those are my numbers from three years ago.”
“I knew you memorized your stats.”
“Well, yeah, when they’re that impressive.”
She laughed. “Don’t get big-headed. I know everybody’s. I can’t help it.”
“Gwen, I’m a superstar athlete with five major endorsement deals—why would I be big-headed?”
She laughed again, and now so did he, the laughter fading when the commercial ended and the show returned. Ty reached for the remote and paused it. “Speaking of feelings...” he said, turning more fully to face her. “Are you still nervous?”
Gwen swallowed. “Me? Nervous?”
He smiled, not fooled. “We can just binge watch the show if you want. Hang out. I’ll go home when Todd dies.”
She managed to shake her head. “That’s not how this show works, and I don’t want you to go home.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Anything you do want me to do?”
Gwe
n finished her wine. Liquid courage. “Whatever you did on the golf course. And in the arcade. And whenever we’re within ten feet of each other.”
“That’s me? I thought it was you and your feminine wiles.”
“I don’t have any feminine wiles, Ty.”
He put down his glass and somehow slid closer, until there were just inches between them. Until she was sure he could hear her heart pounding against her rib cage, like it was trying to beat through her chest and toss itself into his hands.
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I think you do, Gwen.”
“I don’t even know what wiles are, actually—”
“Shh,” he said. “It’s working.”
Then he kissed her.
As with both times before, she forgot everything but the kiss. The world around them blurred and faded until it was just her and Ty, lips and tongues and heated breath. The world took her nerves with it when it left and all that remained was the fire in her belly, the one stoked by each glance of his tongue, his fingers cupping her jaw, his lips murmuring nonsense against the soft skin of her throat and making her shudder with each word.
His hair was impossibly soft, his lips more so, a sharp contrast to the strength and tension he radiated. It was impossible to decide where to touch, his hair, his biceps, her fingers slipping between his shoulder blades and holding on. They fell backward on the couch, her legs sliding open and Ty filling the space between them. The hem of her dress rode high enough that she could feel the fabric of his pants on her inner thighs.
He felt incredible. He tasted amazing. He smelled fantastic. Everything about him was so much more than any fantasy her mind could have conjured, and in recent weeks she’d done plenty of ill-advised dreaming. There was no way to describe how much he was, how big, how hot, how hard. How much better.
His hand inched its way down her body, stroking over her breast lightly so she arched into the touch, wanting more. She was not meant for eight months of celibacy, no matter what she told herself. And neither, if the erection pressing against her belly was any indication, was Ty.
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