“I can’t believe he’s been keeping tabs on us all this time. From a distance. I’m not sure whether to feel violated or flattered.” Evie gazes up at me from where she’s nestled into my side in the safety of our home, our bed. Her blue eyes are so pitiful. Seeing her disillusionment hurts more than the usual bruises and joint pain after a game. “He just…disappeared. And now, he’s just…back.”
Silence descends on the room once again, but I can feel her mind working even in the darkness.
“I don’t know how to feel about it, Rob. Tell me how to feel.”
“I can’t do that, baby.” I run my fingers up and down her arm. It’s all I can do to help her relax and process this bombshell.
She sighs but burrows closer into the spot she’s made for herself near my heart. “What am I supposed to do now? Should I call Mama? Should I tell Tini he might be paying her a visit next?”
“I don’t know if he will. He said he’s been living in California since he left Ohio. Tini goes to school in Maryland. I don’t think he’s going to travel all the way across the country to see her.”
I’m surprised he even offered to take his older daughter to dinner after the game. If it wasn’t for knowing Byers would keep her safe, I wouldn’t have been able to let her go.
Evie deserved whatever answers her father could provide over a single meal.
I could sense by the look in her eyes she needed that closure for herself. To stand on her own two feet, without me by her side, and face the last of her demons.
The slight raise of her shoulders made it obvious she was hoping that hour-long conversation would bring her back to me whole, less broken than she was before.
It’s killing me not to pester and dig out every last detail of their conversation. But, I’m not about to break what Evie and I are working to rebuild. I have to trust she’ll confide everything in me, without holding back.
“Do you think…” Evie audibly swallows. “Do you think he only showed up to ask for money? Season tickets? Something?”
My gut instinct says no. Which honestly bothers me. The man beat the shit out of his daughter, then fled the scene for the sunny shores of California. He didn’t just go away, he went as far away as he could.
Not knowing how much more damage than just physical he did to this beautiful woman in my arms.
Still, he openly admitted he’s been keeping tabs on his ex-family through mutual friends. He actually shook my hand and thanked me for making his life a little easier when Evie’s photos and random interviews started popping up all over the internet, courtesy of my football fame.
It makes me sick to think I made it easier for him.
Just like I’ve probably been making it easier for Jackson.
Well, you know what? Fuck it. Let them drool over what they can never have. Every time she’s in the media only reinforces the cold, hard truth.
She’s mine.
“I don’t think he wants anything, baby. Unless he openly asked for something while you two were at dinner?”
Evie brushes her lips across my chest, the constant movement tingling my skin. She pulls back after a few moments while my heart lodges in my throat, waiting on her answer. “He asked for a second chance. He wants to be a part of my life again.”
I blow out a breath. While my instincts say he isn’t a threat, I’m not ready to give him another chance to hurt my wife, either. “What do you want?”
Evie tears herself from my hold, throwing her arms in the air and narrowly missing my face. “Haven’t you been listening? I don’t know what I want! I can’t make sense of any of this. I need your help, Rob. I don’t know what to do or what to think…”
I pull her back down against me and try not to wince as my sore ribs protest the extra weight. “Tell me what’s bothering you, and I’ll try my best to help you work through it. But, I can’t think for you, Evie. No one can.”
This is a new side of my wife I’ve never seen before. No matter what life has thrown at Evie in the past, she’s always been strong-willed, stubborn, mind-made-up, with a can-do attitude that I’ve always admired, even if at times her unwillingness to take a step back and breathe has worried me.
Why this particular situation has been the one to finally make her lose her cool, I may never know. I can’t put my finger on what’s changed.
“It’s just,” Evie sighs again. “What if he does want more? What, then? What if he’s constantly asking for money, and you’ll feel obligated to give it to him because he’s my father? What if we do end up having kids someday, and he pulls another disappearing act on them? How will we explain his behavior to them?”
That’s what’s changed.
That’s why Evie can’t make up her mind.
She’s isn’t thinking about only herself anymore. She’s thinking about her family.
Our family.
The Moms were right. This bet is over.
I kiss her face everywhere I can reach without my muscles screaming in agony. “We will handle him like the team we are. If he asks for money, we’ll discuss it, then make a decision and stick with it. If he hurts our kids…well, we won’t let him. Simple as that.”
“It’s not simple,” she whines.
Oh, yes, it is.
Everything feels simple now.
“Put yourself in my shoes, and tell me what you would do.” Evie sits up again, crossing her arms and plumping up her breasts until it’s all I can do to keep eye contact. “If your father asked for a second chance, what would you tell him?”
Screw it. We might be having a serious conversation, but I can’t wait anymore. I reach out and squeeze her perfect tits like fucking stress balls.
She smirks, but doesn’t tell me to stop. “Do you need tactile stimulation to think clearly?”
“I told you I’ve been getting twitchy.”
“You didn’t look so twitchy on the field today.”
“I can only force my head to be in the game so much, babe. Now is not one of those times.”
She eyes the distinct lack of a bulge beneath my shorts. I know exactly what she’s thinking, but we’re not done with our conversation yet. My wife deserves to wake up tomorrow morning feeling sure of our life, not second guessing herself.
“Can I take a raincheck on the BJ, though? I’m not a horny teenager anymore, so honestly I’m a little pickier about how and when I get it up. Having a conversation about our fathers is definitely not gonna make that happen.”
Evie laughs until she throws herself back on the mattress, groaning with even the softest impact. “As much as I agree with your suggestion to never mix pleasure with family business, I don’t think I’m able to service you tonight, anyway.”
I stretch out beside her, propping myself up on one elbow to look down at her gorgeous face. “I don’t want you to service me.”
She smiles up at me, and it’s…it’s everything.
Her eyes are clear, her face is relaxed. She looks at me like I’m her everything.
I hope she sees that same emotion reflected on my face. I drop a kiss to her lips that she accepts readily before pulling back to finish what we started. “The situation with my dad isn’t the same as yours. My father has already had a million chances and blew them all. He’s not getting any more.”
Our lives spin in constantly different directions. The situations with our fathers are similar, but different. Here, in this bed, with no space between us is where our orbits collide. Where we become one, sharing our problems. Making everything ours instead of only belonging to one of us.
Evie rolls her head back and forth, considering it. “Yeah. That’s a fair point.”
“So, the only question really left is…how many chances are we willing to give?”
For each other? An endless number.
Everyone else will have to get in line.
The restaurant is crowded, but not overly noisy. Servers hum past me with barely a passing glance from my private booth tucked safely in the corner of the room. The typical clientele is wealthy enough to not bother me. They’re celebrities in their own right, with no need to mob an NFL quarterback.
I glance at my watch again, wondering if he’s even going to show.
I haven’t asked much of him, but tonight is fucking important.
Finally, a full thirty minutes late, his tall body cuts through the aisles, his head down and gaze firmly fixed on the floor rather than making confident eye contact with everyone who openly admires him.
He slides into the booth with those same walls up.
This isn’t the behavior of the guy I know.
“Everything okay?”
He sighs, then pins me with his deep blue gaze. “I don’t know. You tell me.”
I lean back and study him. Really look. He’s never felt like so much of a stranger to me than in this moment.
He opens his menu, then closes it. A nervous energy emanates from him. He shifts in his seat, clears his throat, looks around at all the people enjoying their dinners.
“Alex.”
He jumps like his name coming out of my mouth sounds louder than a gunshot. “What?”
“Everything is fine with me. I want to know how things are with you.”
The muscles in his jaw twitch as his eyes seem to ice over. He blows out a breath, then relaxes against the plush leather booth seat.
This is a far cry from the old, dingy diner we used to sit in for hours on end.
And it feels like all that time spent watching, waiting, hoping is coming full circle.
“Cut the shit, Falls. You asked me to meet you after the game. What’s this all about?”
Fine. I wanted to play nice, for old time’s sake. He clearly has no interest in moving forward. “I’m getting engaged. I was going to ask you to help me pull off the proposal. I hoped you’d be my best man, but I can already tell the answer is no.”
A slip of excitement bleeds across his face before he covers it with a bored expression. “Couldn’t hack everything Evie wanted from you, huh? Can’t say I’m surprised. Who’s the new chick?”
If he’s hoping to provoke a reaction from me, the joke’s on him. “The bet between me and Evie is over, but there’s no new chick.”
He blinks while his mind catches up. “You’re going to propose? To your wife? To Evie?”
“Yep.”
Alex’s shoulders relax, but his laughter seems forced. “Is this some kind of prank? Did Mike set this up?”
“I’d give anything for the good old days of prank wars to continue,” I tell him honestly. “And I know Evie would, too.”
“We’re too told for prank wars.” Alex stretches his arms out across the back of the booth. It’s almost like he’s trying to make himself look bigger to threaten me. “We’re adults now. We live in different cities, with different lives.”
“Maybe, but we all love the same woman.”
Once again, his mask slips for a split second. “You have no idea how I feel about that woman.”
“You’re right.” I lean back in my own side of the booth. My posture is completely relaxed in contrast with his stiff shoulders. I have nothing to fear and nothing to hide. “You have twenty minutes to tell me.”
Alex can’t hide his curiosity. “What happens in twenty minutes?”
“Evie joins us for dinner. When that time comes, we’ll put whatever you tell me behind us.”
“Just like that? Like it’s not even important?”
“No. Like other things, other people, are more important.”
“So, Evie set this up.” Alex shakes his head, frowning at the table. “She asked me to patch things up with you at Jeremy and Alyssa’s wedding. I told her I would, then I…didn’t.”
That night still makes me smile, even though parts of it were downright excruciating. “In all fairness to you, Evie and I snuck out of the reception as soon as we could, so you didn’t have as much time as you could have. But, no. Tonight was my idea. Evie agreed to give us an hour alone before meeting us here.”
“Then, why do we only have twenty minutes?”
“Because you were a half hour late and it took ten minutes of bullshit to get to this point.”
He opens his mouth, but I cut him off by holding my hand up. “I don’t want to know where you were or what you were doing. It’s enough you’re here now.”
“Enough for you? Or Evie?”
“Both,” I respond simply. And it’s true. Nothing will ever come between us again, not even anything Alex might confess to me. “So, are you going to tell me what happened or take it to your grave?”
He knows what I’m really asking.
How did you fall in love with my wife?
Alex sticks his tongue in his cheek. For all his talk about us being adults, he looks like a kid again. “Does it matter?”
“To me? No.” I feel that truth all the way to my bones. “But, you’re my brother. If it’ll make you feel better to get it off your chest, then I can take hearing it.”
“Oh.” Alex crosses his arms on the table and leans forward, a little light returning to his eyes. “You want to hear all about how I’ve jerked off to fantasies of having her tight little pussy wrapped around my cock?”
My eyes must be popping out of my skull. Heat rises from the neckline of my dress shirt until my face feels like it’s on fire. I glance around at all the people eating their dinners that cost as much as my suit, then breathe a sigh of relief, realizing they didn’t hear a word out of his lying mouth.
Alex barks out a genuine laugh. “Man, you should see the look on your face right now.”
“This is not exactly the time or place to talk like that,” I hiss.
He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t try to wipe the smile off his face. “You always were such a prude. Please tell me you don’t treat Evie like one.”
“Nuh uh. This is not high school. Like you said, we’re adults. You’re not getting a word out of me about what I do with my wife in our bed.” And the shower, and the couch, and the kitchen…
And the hotel room right before I got dressed and dragged my lazy ass here.
It’s amazing I could even walk after what she did to me.
Evie’s finally secure enough in our relationship to abandon her previous ideas about penetrative sex being the most important way we can please each other. Orgasms have been flowing like water in our house. Even when we’re not together, all I can think about is the next time I can taste her, listen to her moans of ecstasy, feel the pride in my veins that I’m the only man who can make her feel such bliss.
She’s my drug of choice. I’m so addicted, and I’m never going to quit.
Right on cue, the first thing I see are the heels. Killer heels. The kind she wore to Homecoming and Prom. The kind I don’t get to see her in often enough because they hurt her feet.
My gaze works its way up. Legs that wrap around my waist like a vice; the silk dress I bought her that clings to every gorgeous fucking curve of her body. A gold necklace with Pops’ St. Michael medal, the Mati someone from Church gave her after the attack, and her own cross shimmer against her tan skin. If the lighting wasn’t so dim in here, everyone else would probably notice the slight hickey at the base of her throat.
“Hey, baby.” I stand up and kiss her.
Damn it. She still tastes like me.
I swear, this woman loves to torture me for her own pleasure.
“Hey.” She kisses me back, wrapping her hands around my arms possessively. “I’m a little early, so I can go window shop around the area if you two still need more time.”
I cast a glance to Alex, my silent option clear.
Speak now or forever hold your peace.
He declines absolution with a subtle shake of his head, then rises from his own seat.
It takes every ounce of restraint I possess not to burst out laughing when he kisses her cheek, then recoils in a way only I probably notice.
Yeah. He knows exactly what kind of appetizer she had before dinner.
I gesture for her to scoot into our side of the booth, making sure to give her cover for the inevitable second her dress rides up a little too far for public decency.
After we’re all seated, she picks up the menu. Her eyes devour the options with obvious excitement. “I’m starving.”
“Really?” Alex looks truly baffled. “I thought you were full already?”
I kick his shin under the table. That was a warning shot. The next one, I’ll aim higher.
Evie’s cheeks pink, but she levels a direct stare at him. “Jealousy does not become us.”
I almost choke on my water, hearing her call him out and be so obvious about it like that.
Even Alex doesn’t know what to do with her directly indirect admission about our activities before we arrived at the restaurant.
“I don’t know what to get,” she mumbles as we look over the options, our noses firmly between the pages of the menu.
“The steak. Please get the steak, baby. Stop worrying about the price. We can afford it.” If she’s not concerned about making anyone uncomfortable, then I won’t be, either. She can continue turning me on all night, and I’ll take it like the happy husband I am.
She places the menu down on the table, looking every bit the elegant woman who fits into this ritzy joint. Right until she throws a decidedly sexy raised eyebrow in my direction. “Is that part of winner’s choice?”
“Yes.” I don’t fucking care how much of this Alex overhears anymore.
“You only won on a technicality,” Alex grumbles, completely, or maybe willfully, oblivious as he continues reading his menu. “We would have kicked your asses if not for those blind refs.”
“Psst. Alex.”
He jumps when Evie’s napkin lands on his face.
She makes a crying gesture at him, and just like that, everything goes back to normal.
The rest of the meal is a good deal louder and filled with more dirty innuendo than the usual patrons provide.
But, we get away with it because hey…we’re football players.
Sometimes, it’s good to be us.
The plates are cleared and conversation winds down. Evie tries to hide her more frequent yawns behind her hand, but the jig’s up.
Time has run out on this little foray into our happy past.
“Lemon drops one last time?” Alex offers, his gaze and question directed solely at Evie.
It doesn’t hurt maybe as much as it should. I recognize the request for what it is.
He’s letting her go.
“As much as I’d love to, I’m exhausted. And, I have to be on a flight to Sacramento at the crack of dawn. Raincheck?”
She might not realize it, but her question gives Alex reassurance.
He relaxes into his seat with a soft smile, understanding it’s not the end. Just different.
As Evie makes her way to the front of the restaurant, he claps me on the shoulder. “I won’t hold a grudge, Rob. The best man won.”
I take a piece of very special notebook paper out of my inside jacket pocket and hand it over to him. “Not yet, he didn’t. But, the best man better show his ass up and follow these directions to the letter. Or Mike and I will both beat your ass.”
Alex stuffs the paper inside his own jacket, then meets my gaze with eyes I used to know almost as well as my own. “We good, then?”
“I don’t know.” I throw his words back at him. “You tell me.”
“Not yet.” He admits. “But, we will be.”
With my gorgeous wife on my arm, I walk out of that restaurant into the humid Orlando night, finally feeling like life is going the way it’s supposed to be.