Why the fuck did I try to tell her the truth?

That was all I kept thinking for the rest of the night. I had no clue why I had thought I could trust her, and why I had thought she might take it well. There was just something special about her, something I couldn’t quite name. Maybe it was the fact that she could so easily read me; she was the first person I’d ever met who could do that.

She seemed interested in me. Not just the football star Owen Rack, but the real me, the person I was before football. She wanted to know what I liked off the field, and that was an attractive quality in a person. Ever since college, the only things people cared about were how fast I could run and how many touchdowns I scored in a season. Taylor didn’t seem to care about any of that football stuff, so long as my body was healthy.

That was her job. I understood that. We both needed to work together for the sake of both our careers. But she seemed to care about me outside that whole thing.

Which was why I had decided to tell her the truth. But that clearly had been a mistake. I shouldn’t have told her anything. I should have kept it to myself. I should have sucked it up and dealt with the fallout of blowing her off again. I should have held that pain and stress inside and protected her, even if that meant letting her be angry with me.

Instead, I told her. Maybe it was selfish. Maybe it was just dumb. Either way, it had happened.

I sent her a text, asking if she wanted to talk, but she didn’t respond. I wasn’t going to push her, so I went to bed early, trying not to stress too much about it.

The next morning, I was up early. I headed over to the facility, thoughts running through my mind.

What if she told someone? She could easily destroy my career if this got out. It was incredibly wrong for an athlete to engage in sports betting; that was what took down Pete Rose. It was even worse that I was betting on my own team.

I didn’t think she’d do that, though. She knew me. She knew I wasn’t a bad person. I had tried to explain it to her, but she clearly hadn’t hear me, or maybe she couldn’t hear me. As soon as she heard the word “mafia,” she probably shut down completely. That was a lot to handle for any normal person, and it had probably come out of nowhere for her.

I got to the facility and headed inside. I killed time in the hot tub before it was finally time to meet Taylor.

She didn’t show. Instead, some boring-looking asshole was waiting for me. He smiled as I walked into the exercise room.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Dan. Taylor took a sick day.”

I stared at him. “Taylor is out?”

“I’m her replacement. Ready to get started?”

I stared at him for a second and then slowly shook my head. “Maybe later, Dan.”

He looked confused. “I was told we need to do some therapeutic stretching for your knee.”

“Bye, Dan.”

“But, wait.”

I turned and left, shaking my head. Fucking Dan. There was no way I was letting some random dude do my therapy stretching.

I didn’t believe for a second that Taylor was actually sick. She had skipped work just to avoid me, which meant she was more upset than I had realized.

I couldn’t let this go on. I wasn’t going to let this shit get in the way of our professional relationship at the very least. She was good at what she did, and I wanted her back.

Really, I just wanted her. I could pretend that it was about work all I wanted, but it was about her. It was all about Taylor, and it had been ever since I first saw her.

I left the facility and called a car. It picked me up ten minutes later, and I gave him Taylor’s address.

Briefly, I thought that maybe what I was doing was a little insane. If she didn’t want to talk to me, I shouldn’t try to force her to. Maybe I was being a fucking stalker or some shit.

But no, I couldn’t risk this. I had to see her and to explain. I understood that she was avoiding me, but this wasn’t the kind of situation I could just ignore. I had to talk to her. I had to make her understand.

The car pulled up outside her apartment and I got out. I buzzed her apartment and waited.

She answered after a minute. “Hello?”

“It’s me.”

Another pause. “What are you doing here?”

“We need to talk.”

“If I wanted to talk, I would have come into work.”

“Taylor, buzz me up.”

Another pause. For a second, I thought she had disappeared. I was about to buzz one of her neighbors to let me in when she finally answered.

“Fine,” she said. “Come up.”

The door buzzed open. I went into her building, went up the stairs, and finally knocked on her apartment door.

I felt nervous, but I couldn’t explain why. Maybe it had something to do with finally explaining to someone that I was in deep with the mafia.

She opened the door. She was wearing short black running shorts and a tight white T-shirt. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen her so casual. She was usually wearing her work uniform, or she was dressed for the club.

“Come in,” she said, stepping aside.

I walked in. “I figured if you were going to refuse to come to me, then I’d come to you.”

“Me staying home from work wasn’t an invitation to you.”

“I’m here anyway.”

She shut the door and looked at me, her arms crossed. “Go ahead and talk. You have five minutes.”

“Not going to at least offer me a drink?”

“It’s ten in the morning.”

“Coffee then.”

She sighed. “There’s some in the pot.”

“Thanks.” I went into her kitchen, got down a mug, and poured some coffee.

She walked in and sat at the table. I leaned up against her counter.

“Four minutes,” she said.

“You know where I come from,” I said. “You know my situation. My grandmother didn’t have any money to give me back then, and the only people I knew who had money were gangsters.”

“So you asked the mob for a loan?”

“It was eighteen and fucking stupid. I thought they’d help me, I’d pay them back, and then we’d be done.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“Of course not. I paid them back, but they kept coming to me. They kept asking me to place bets with them, just to keep in touch, they said. But it was obvious what they really wanted.”

“What do you want, Owen?” she asked suddenly. “You talk about what other people want. What do you want?”

“For you to understand. This wasn’t my choice.”

“You always have a choice.”

“No, I don’t. Because of some stupid fucking decision when I was a kid, I’m trapped in this never-ending fucking loop. Every time I find success, the mob is there, asking for more.”

“So stop. Go to the police.”

“I can’t. I’m a public figure. It would ruin me.”

She shook her head. “I can’t be okay with this. Betting on your own team? It’s the lowest thing imaginable.”

“I don’t expect forgiveness, but I was hoping you’d at least try to understand.”

She bit her lip. “Why do you care if I understand?”

“You know why.”

“No, I don’t. One second you want me, and the next you’re blowing me off.”

“That was to protect you.” I pushed off the counter and moved toward her. “Plus, you’re the one who’s hot and cold. You want to be professional, but you also want to ride my cock in the hot tub.”

She looked away. “Yeah. I shouldn’t have done that. I make mistakes, too.”

“That wasn’t the mistake.” I stopped in front of her and crouched down. She looked back at me reluctantly. “The mistake was pretending like you didn’t want this.”

“I don’t know what I wanted, but I do know that you’re involved with the mafia. How can I see past that?”

“I know how,” I said softly. I reached out and took her chin. She didn’t move, just stared into my eyes, her mouth slightly open. “You want this as much as I do. Look at you. You’re practically trembling. I bet you’re dripping wet.”

“I’m afraid.”

“Good. You should be afraid,” I said. “The mob isn’t something to fuck around with. But I’m here, and nothing will happen to you while I’m around.”

“How long will that last?” she whispered.

“Don’t ask questions I don’t have an answer to.”

“You need to know. I need to know.”

“Nothing else matters to me but right now. Don’t you get it? That’s why I do what I do. That’s why I’m here.”

“You should have told me sooner.”

“I was protecting you.”

“I don’t need to be protected.”

I smiled at her and shook my head. “I know you think that, but you do.”

“What do we do now?”

The question lingered in the air between us for a moment before I pulled her against me and kissed her hard.

For a half a second, she seemed almost indecisive. She seemed like she couldn’t choose between the person who kissed me back and the person who pulled away, between giving in to what she wanted and giving in to fear. For a second, I wasn’t sure which version of herself she wanted to be.

Then she kissed me back, and I knew.

She wanted to be the version of herself that was mine. She wanted to be the version that said “fuck you” to everything that didn’t matter.

The mafia was still there. The problems were still there. My injury was still there. But as I kissed her in her kitchen, none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was her body against mine.

The only thing that mattered to me was her.