Certainly, she’d imagined those words due to her own euphoria-distorted state of mind.
Or had she?
Chapter 21—Wine and Football
After winning their last game on Thanksgiving weekend, the Steelheads were on the verge of another crushing loss. Zach once again sat on the bench and ground his teeth in frustration, as the offense blew the game. Bruiser fumbled a handoff. The Bears ran it back for a touchdown, putting the game out of reach with only fifteen seconds on the clock. Even so, Harris gave it the college try, throwing a couple Hail Marys into coverage, but none of the passes connected. If Zach didn’t know better, he’d swear his great-aunt Gertrude had put a hex on his team. She’d been known to do that in the past, even from her grave in the Louisiana Bayou, though her football hexes were usually on the opposing team. Maybe he’d pissed her off somehow.
In a nasty slap of fate, his old team was leading their division and sure to clinch their first playoff spot in years—the same years he’d spent giving them all he had—while the Steelheads, once a sure thing for the playoffs, might need a miracle to make it as a wild card.
The clock ticked off the final seconds with agonizing slowness. Zach grabbed his helmet and trudged toward the tunnel to the locker room. Ahead of him, Harris sprinted into the tunnel, avoiding the press and the fans. In his situation, Zach would’ve done the same.
Once in the sanctuary of the locker room, Zach yanked off his sweat-soaked jersey and shoulder pads, then took a long drink of water. Harris sat on the bench next to their lockers and stared straight ahead, a man in a trance. Don’t even mess with me was written across every hard line of his face, but warnings like that never stopped Zach. He needed to speak to Harris to show the team that they’d put their differences to rest—even if they hadn’t.
“Your receivers were dropping perfect balls left and right. You did the best you could.”
“My best wasn’t good enough. I’m the quarterback. I’m responsible.” Harris swung his murderous gaze toward Zach. He would’ve pinned a lesser man to the lockers with that look, it didn’t faze Zach.
Well, not too much.
Zach pulled off his shoes. “Hey, if you want to be a martyr, not my problem.”
“I don’t want to be anything but a winner.”
“Yeah, well, at least you have two rings.”
“And I’m trying like hell to get you yours.”
Zach glanced up and an honest response rolled off his tongue. “I know.” He did know. He’d seen it with his own eyes.
“Yeah?” Harris met Zach’s gaze.
“Yeah.” Zach was shocked to realize he meant it. The Tyler Harris from last year had slowly returned to the fiery, reckless quarterback of prior years. It had happened so subtly, Zach didn’t see the changes until today. The guy hadn’t quit on the team once. No matter how tough it got or how far down they got in a game, he kept trying. The young team surrounding them saw it. They also saw Zach and Harris’s mutual dislike fading away to be replaced by grudging respect. Yet they weren’t winning like they should be. They might be one year off, and Zach hoped the team would keep him on another year.
The team had to go all the way to the Super Bowl. Not just because he wanted that ring but because it kept Kelsie in his life that much longer. He sank down on the bench and buried his head in his hands as the truth broke over him like a rogue wave and pulled him into a strong undertow. It tore the oxygen from his lungs and dragged him deeper. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to fight his way back to the surface because he didn’t want to.
His priorities had shifted like the sands on a beach, so subtly, yet so permanently.
He wanted Kelsie even more than he wanted a ring, but could he trust her with his heart? He had one other time with tragic results. Maybe it was time to truly bury the past and move on in the present. Maybe he should work harder at forgiving her.
~ ~ ~ ~
For the next few weeks, Kelsie rarely saw Zach. He spent every waking hour at the practice facility with a couple exceptions.
She did insist he spend an hour or two on Tuesday mornings continuing their lessons before he did his time with Tyler. He might not understand the importance of these non-football activities, but she did.
Not only did she stake her floundering business on the success of this gala, but more important, Zach’s future with the Steelheads and his consideration as an assistant college coach depended on his behavior.
And she saw him in bed. She saw a lot of him in bed, or at least felt him, every square inch of him, including her favorite nine to ten inches, not that she’d measured it. Oh, Lord, she didn’t need to.
Still, she missed him horribly, wishing he were around more. Heck, she’d even spend evenings at The Squatch if she could spend them with him. She lay in bed every night, listening for the sound of his truck. The second she heard it, her heart jumped like a cheerleader after a touchdown and her body revved up and got ready to go. And go they did. All night long. How the man existed on a few hours of sleep a night, she didn’t understand.
He’d hold her and make love, whisper to her in that gruff, straightforward way of his that had come to mean more to her than any poetry or flowery phrases ever could. Kelsie lived for those moments.
She crammed her days to overflowing with the house facelift, gala details, and her theater job, always carving out time for her new girlfriends, Lavender and Rachel, when they were available. Lavender was attending college to get a degree in gerontology and Rachel worked as a football scout for a couple small colleges. She’d been traveling quite a bit around the state until the high school football season ended a week ago.
At Kelsie’s request, Tyler had invited the local Tyee University’s head coach and athletic director to the gala, along with some very powerful Tyee athletic club supporters. She was determined Zach would have the job he wanted when he retired from football.
Just this morning, Kelsie had drilled him on fine dining and the art of conversation one more time. He’d slumped in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, and scowled. When she’d finally asked him to sit up straight, he’d done so with a long-suffering sigh and actually kept his elbows off the table. The man was picking up a few tips. Praise the stars above.
The gala was only a few weeks away. Workers bustled in and out of the house, putting up decorations and transforming it into a Christmas scene right out of Better Homes and Gardens. Zach didn’t say a word, but by his tense jaw, he wasn’t thrilled wasting money on the one-time cost of decorating for this gala.
The stakes were getting higher as the season rolled on. Since Thanksgiving, the team had split their last two games, making their record six and six, as they dangled on the edge of making a wild-card playoff spot.
Later that evening, after all the workers left for the day, Kelsie pulled into the practice facility. She’d cooked Zach his favorite—and the one thing she could cook well, her mouth-watering fried chicken—as a small reward for his progress this morning, even if he’d been somewhat grumpy.
She poked her head in the film room and waited for her eyes to adjust. A few guys were sprawled in the chairs, but she couldn’t make out Zach’s dark head and broad shoulders.
Brett Gunnels walked toward her, heading for the door. She smiled at him and he smiled back. His eyes opened wide, as if surprised she acknowledged him. Poor guy. As a backup, he was used to being ignored.
“Hey, Brett, have you seen Zach? I brought him dinner.”
Brett opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. He glanced around as if looking for a way out, like a man who knew a secret he wasn’t going to reveal. “Uh, no, I haven’t seen him for a while.”
The cold knife blade of dread cut through her, though she couldn’t explain why. “When did he leave?”
Brett shrugged and shifted his weight from one foot to another. He refused to make eye contact. This didn’t look good.
“Have you seen him lately?”
“Uh, not for a few hours. He
probably went with some of the guys to talk strategy.” The man was a crappy liar.
A couple defensive backs skirted past them, but Kelsie was faster. She cut off their exit path. “Have you guys seen Zach?”
Bryson, a lanky corner, grinned at her. “Zach’s never here on Tuesday nights. Says he prefers to spend his Tuesday nights at home. Can’t say I blame him.”
“Thanks. I must have just missed him.” Never here on Tuesday nights. Kelsie put on her best face and smiled at them, even as her world spun on its head and dumped her off the wild ride flat on her ass.
Zach wasn’t spending his Tuesday nights at home, and he wasn’t spending them here. She felt like she’d taken a physical blow by a heavyweight fighter right to her gut. She forced herself to stand up straight when all she wanted to do was double over in pain.
Despite how innocent his actions might be, he’d withheld the truth, which made him guilty in her book. She’d thought Mark had hurt her, but it was nothing compared to how this felt. Brett must have noticed the stricken look on her face. He patted her arm like a big brother would. “Hey, I’m sure he’s home by now.”
Right. She was sure he wasn’t. “Are you hungry?” She’d be damned if Zach was getting one bite of this chicken.
“I’m always hungry.” Brett chuckled. Kelsie briefly wondered why she couldn’t have fallen for a nice guy like him.
She thrust the dinner in his hands. “I’d hate for this to go to waste.” Because where she really wanted to put it was in Zach’s sneaky, lying face.
Without another word, she turned and ran from the room and then the building. She didn’t stop until she was safely ensconced in her car. She pressed her forehead against the steering wheel and gulped for oxygen, but her lungs froze and left her gasping for air.
Then the dam broke and the tears gushed like water from a broken water main. Yet the part of her that had survived years of disappointment peeked out and insisted there had to be a logical explanation. Zach wasn’t a cheater. Even if they didn’t have any kind of agreement or defined relationship, he wouldn’t sleep with another woman when he was sleeping with her. He was one of the few good guys.
Bryson’s words repeated in her head. Tuesday nights. Kelsie thought back. For the past several Tuesday nights, Zach hadn’t come home until after ten. He’d seemed even more quiet and thoughtful than usual, and also a little more content. With his intensity, rarely did he come across as content or anything resembling relaxed, yet Tuesday nights came close.
Another woman stood out as the logical choice to keep an average man away from football for a few hours, yet the only thing Zach made time for besides football had been sex. With her. Until now. A little pinprick of jealousy stabbed Kelsie’s heart at the thought of Zach with another woman.
But Zach wasn’t an average man. Zach was loyal and honest and straightforward. In bed, he treated her like a princess. Considering the tender, affectionate, and passionate way he held her, how could he be seeing someone else?
He couldn’t be. Just couldn’t be. So where did he spend his time on Tuesday nights? Kelsie swiped at her tears and started the car. She aimed to find out.
~ ~ ~ ~
Zach pushed open the door of the training facility’s viewing room. Brett Gunnels, a good guy—for an offensive player—looked up as Zach sank into the plush, oversized chair.
“How’s it going with Harris?”
“As good as expected.” Brett and Zach shared a mutual dislike for Harris, though the quiet Brett rarely said a word about the man. Like most perpetual backups, he went about his business, did what he could to contribute to team wins, and kept his mouth shut about stuff he didn’t like. Deemed too short, slow, and old for an NFL starter, he’d been pegged as a backup from the first day he walked onto an NFL practice field. Traded from team to team, he’d never played more than a few games in the NFL, but decent games at that. The guy had an arm and was insanely accurate. He never complained, but Zach felt he’d gotten a bum rap because of his size and had the misfortune of playing behind the best QBs in the league. He’d only start if Harris had an injury. At twenty-nine, he’d been with the Steelheads for two years and was now in the first year of a new two-year contract.
Zach knew him from a brief stint with Zach’s old losing—now winning—team.
Brett looked at him kinda funny. “Did Kelsie find you?”
“When?”
“She came by a few hours ago looking for you. She looked pretty damn good if I say so myself. You’re one lucky man.”
Zach grinned in spite of himself, even as guilt tugged at his heart.
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her you were probably headed home.” He stared at Zach pointedly. “Obviously, you weren’t. Man, if I had a woman as hot as her, I’d be home every chance I got.”
Odd. She usually texted him when she couldn’t find him. He checked his messages and found one from her. He texted back.
Something came up. Be home in a few hours.
He’d been avoiding spending much time at home ever since he’d blurted out those three words in the heat of lovemaking. At first, he denied to himself he’d said them, but he knew he had. Kelsie never brought it up, but he’d caught her watching him more than once as if trying to figure him out—figure them out.
It was more than a few hours later when he drove up the wet city streets of Queen Anne Hill. It was late, really late, and he was dog-assed tired. After Kelsie’s lessons and meeting with Harris, he’d worked out for a few hours and gone to the see the kids at the shelter. After that he’d watched game film until his head swam and everything ran together in a jumble. He and Brett were the last ones to leave the practice facility.
Kelsie met him at the door, hands on hips, fire blazing in her eyes, and not the type of heat he normally liked to see, but an angry flame that’d nail any man’s ass with one lick of its furious heat. Zach avoided angry females like he avoided Brussels sprouts and chopped liver. Only Kelsie wasn’t chopped liver. Hell, he was the chopped liver, and she was prime rib. One hundred percent prime.
She seemed pissed, like they had a real relationship and her boyfriend wasn’t where he’d said he’d be. Her mistrust irritated him, as did her assumption she had a right to keep tabs on him. In their current arrangement, neither of them should be passing judgment or controlling the other’s actions. Even if he did accept responsibility for not being straight with her. He couldn’t quite say why he didn’t tell her about his work with the kids, maybe because it was deeply personal to him, the last wall he erected to keep her at arm’s length. If he told her, he’d be giving her a piece of himself that he’d never given anyone. He wasn’t ready to do that yet.
He brushed past her, hoping she’d drop it after reading his stay-away body language.
She didn’t. She followed him into the kitchen. “Hungry?”
“Uh, yeah, a little.”
“I brought dinner by for you earlier. You weren’t there. In fact, you’re never there on Tuesday nights. According to your teammates, that’s the one night a week you spend with me.” She scrutinized his expression with the same intensity he dissected the opposing teams’ formations with.
Ah, okay, that’s what this was about. She thought he was seeing someone else. She should know him better than that. He was a one-woman man.
“Yeah, seems I missed you.”
For a moment, her expression froze. “You were there?”
“An hour or so after you left.”
“Where were you when I stopped by?”
“Why does it matter?” he pushed, needing to know the answer, needing to hear from her own sweet lips that it did matter. That he mattered. That they mattered. Even as he was torn for wanting to hear her say it.
She grappled with the answer and sucked her lower lip between her teeth, distracting him. Zach wanted to take care of the chore for her, toss her on the kitchen counter among the canisters of flour and sugar and next to the basket of fruit. He sucked
in a breath, his eyes glued to her lips, momentarily forgetting what they were arguing about.
“I assumed we’d be monogamous as long as I’m living here.”
“I am.”
“That’s not what the guys think. I could tell by the looks on their faces.”
“Is that all there is to it, Kelsie? Is that all you care about? Just appearances?” Zach advanced on her, pushing her, wanting—hoping—to mean more to her than a method to advance her business, a man to mold into her idea of a man, a challenging project.
“I was hired to help you.” She swallowed and backed against the counter.
“This would help me immensely, perhaps business with benefits.” He hemmed her in with his bigger body and pressed his hips against hers, his hands on either side of the counter.
“Yes, with benefits, and we’ve both benefited every night. And while those benefits are still in force, I expect you to be faithful.”
“I am faithful.” He rubbed his crotch against hers, and her eyes rolled back in her head. Her pink tongue darted out of her mouth and circled her lips. He leaned in closer and inhaled the honey-sweet, sexual scent of her. His sweet Kelsie. Convince Kelsie of what he already knew. That she was his—and his alone—for today and all their tomorrows. Wishful thinking from a desperate man who’d never given up the dream of Kelsie loving him and him alone.
“Do you believe me?” He teased her with his mouth on her neck right below her ear, finding that spot that sent her to heaven. He liked driving her crazy because driving Kelsie crazy drove him crazy every minute of every hour of every day. He wanted her to be as nuts as he was.
“Yes,” she spoke in a breathless gasp.
“Yes, what?” He slipped his hand under her shirt and slid it up to squeeze the mound of her breast.
“Yes, I believe you.” Her breathy voice made his dick jerk. Kelsie stared at him with glazed eyes. She slid her hands under his T-shirt and along the sides of his rib cage, her caresses light and sensual, like a silk scarf fluttering against his skin.
Offsides: The Originals (Seattle Steelheads Book 3) Page 21
