Chapter Thirteen
EMERSON
It was quickly turning out to be the worst morning of my life. I woke up to Sanchez hovering over me with a mirror under my nose.
He was afraid I wasn’t breathing.
Good to know that his first response wasn’t to call an ambulance or even feel for a pulse, but to grab a freaking bathroom mirror and shove it underneath my nostrils.
Things just got worse from there.
I’d been trying to do the whole protein shake thing as per the manual’s instructions, only to wake up to sausage, bacon, toast, and eggs.
He’d made it all.
And while that would normally be the sweetest thing ever, he refused to let me leave until I ate everything on my plate.
Because, didn’t you know? Kids are starving all over the US, going hungry. Plus, he wanted me to keep my curves.
Okay, so maybe that was the good part of my morning.
But it quickly went to hell after I grabbed my bag and moved to the elevator.
Either Miller was literally stalking us through the peephole, or I had the worst luck in the world.
I heard the door open first.
Smelled his cologne second.
It was different than what he’d worn in high school, but somehow it still made my legs liquid and my heart pound a little harder.
Sanchez wrapped a possessive arm around me and tugged me into the elevator, but at least held it open for Miller.
“This is fun,” Miller said, seemingly to himself.
My lips twitched and then, maybe it was the breakfast, or the fact that I’d had a horrible night, but my heart hurt.
And I laughed. Hard.
Both guys looked at me like I’d just grown two heads.
“Don’t mind me.” I wiped tears from under my eyes. “I laugh when I get uncomfortable.”
“The hell?” Sanchez shook his head. “That can’t be convenient.”
“She laughed at her grandpa’s funeral,” Miller apparently felt the need to add.
Sanchez grinned. “No shit?”
“I had to keep handing her tissues so people would assume she was just sobbing really hard. And not heartless.” Miller sounded pissed, but I knew that if he remembered that memory correctly, we were also holding hands underneath the hymnal, and he’d inched my skirt at least halfway up my thigh in order to distract me from laughing.
(Then)
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
I could still feel his lips whispering against the outside of my ear as he confessed to wanting nothing more than to make out with me.
I was still dating someone else.
It felt so . . . forbidden.
The elevator dinged.
I gave a little jolt and glanced up at both of them, fully aware that my cheeks were pink and my breathing was a bit labored at the memory.
Miller’s expression changed from angry to . . . perceptive. Something shifted between the guys. I had no idea what.
When the elevator doors opened, Sanchez let me go first and then Miller. I could have sworn I heard Miller mutter, “First point goes to me,” as he strode to his Mercedes.
Sanchez rubbed his jaw like he’d just taken a hit.
“Everything okay?” I asked. It took a lot of concentration to not look behind me as Miller started his car.
“Yeah.” Sanchez grabbed my free hand and brought it to his lips. “How many years were you guys friends? Just high school, yeah?”
I gulped. “Since we were seven.”
“Shit.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” His grin was sexy, but it looked forced. “Now, get that nice ass in my car so I can take you to practice. And if your coach sees you, just tell her that your car wouldn’t start, and I was the only knight in shining armor available.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re more like the guy that kills the knight in shining armor then puts on said armor and steals all the maidens.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “See? We’re already best friends, and it’s been two days.”
I glanced away. “And here I thought you just wanted sex.”
“Best friends who have sex. That’s what makes the best part . . . best.” He pulled out of the parking garage and turned up the music. “Now, promise me we can go out this week.”
“No.”
“Please?”
“It’s weirder when you’re polite.”
Another laugh. “Would you rather I say something like ‘Bitch, you’re coming with me!’?”
Laughter erupted between us. “Please don’t ever say that again.” I checked my cell and panicked. “Crap!”
“What?” His expression paled.
“If I’m not at practice in five minutes, I’m going to have to run.”
“Hell no.” He slammed his foot on the accelerator, making it feel like my body was still five miles behind us as we careened toward the stadium. “I’m not letting them take away that ass.”
So, my morning had started off bad.
But after that comment?
Things were looking up.
“You’re flushed,” Kinsey commented after practice.
I gulped the rest of my water and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “I think, after that practice, everyone is flushed.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Hmm, I’m not buying it.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Curves!” Sanchez yelled at the top of his lungs, gaining the attention of every single person in the parking lot.
Great.
“Hold up.” He called again, his voice closing in.
Kinsey gave me a knowing look and crossed her arms. “Looks like someone has a crush.”
“I don’t,” I said quickly.
“Wasn’t talking about you, Em,” she said in a singsong voice and then, “Hey, Sanchez. Quick, what’s two plus two?”
His icy glare was so ridiculously out of character for him that I didn’t know what to say to cut the obvious tension between them.
“I don’t know, Kinsey. Say, how do you drown a cheerleader?”
“If you say ‘Put a mirror at the bottom of a pool,’ I’m going to give your balls a little tug and show Emerson how small they really are.”
“Time out!” I stepped between them. “Something I should know?”
“She wouldn’t sleep with me.” Sanchez shrugged just as Kinsey rolled her eyes.
“I wouldn’t sleep with him.”
“So, the hostility comes from lack of sex?” I offered.
Kinsey’s lips pressed together in an amused smile. “What can I say? I think Grant”—it was the first time she’d said his name—“is still under the impression that if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. I think his biggest fear is waking up without an erection.”
“That . . .” Sanchez nodded seriously. “And waking up with you naked.”
She flipped him off.
“Miller!” Lily, one of my teammates, called out his name and basically hung on his bicep like a cheap Christmas ornament. Her sports bra covered huge boobs, and her tiny shorts could double as underwear. “I’m having a preseason party. You should come.”
Kinsey and Sanchez both laughed.
What was I missing?
“Um . . .” Miller politely removed her hand from his body. “Yeah, I’ll think about it. Thanks.”
Lily walked off, her hair bouncing across her shoulders like she was on the catwalk instead of at practice.
“Ask me how many NFL stars she’s been with,” Kinsey said with a laugh. “It’s almost comical how fast she launches those talons. Last year after stalking Thomas during the entire preseason he finally fell for her charms. The poor guy ended up buying her diamond earrings and a trip to Mexico before he realized she’d already slept with half the team.”
Wow. Alrighty then.
“I think every new guy falls for it at some point,” Sanchez said, his eyes darkened before he looked right at me and shrugged. “It’s the tits.”
I smacked him on the arm.
“What?” he roared, rubbing the spot that I knew wasn’t even sore from my lame hit. “She’s got a nice rack, and sometimes it’s nice to just rest your face on the pillows for a minute . . . get some shut-eye . . . rub a little—”
I threw my hands in the air. “I seriously don’t know why I talk to you.”
“Best friends.” He nodded confidently. “But only if you say no to celery.”
“Gag.” Kinsey made a face.
Sanchez moved away from us and nodded to Miller.
I didn’t hear their conversation.
But any time they talked it made me nervous.
And then I felt stupid with that same thought because, how arrogant did I have to be to assume they were discussing me?
Miller looked over Sanchez’s shoulder when Sanchez was busy on his phone. Our eyes locked.
His had always been so blue.
So clear and pretty.
In perfect contrast to his mocha-tanned skin.
Full lips.
Lips that knew how to do things that no high school boy should ever know how to do.
And a mouth to match.
A shiver racked through my body before I could stop it.
“That.” Kinsey pointed to the two guys. “I’d be the cheese in that meat sandwich.” She sighed. “I’d just have to make sure I faced Miller instead of Sanchez, you know, because . . . Grant.” The way she said his name had me wondering if she really hated him or just hated that she and every other female was attracted to him and couldn’t help it—and that he knew we couldn’t help it.
“Miller had your car towed last night.” Sanchez tossed me his cell phone. “Give me your number, and I’ll call the tow truck company and have them deliver it to your house.”
“Convenient way to get someone’s number,” I grumbled. My fingers felt huge as I tried to type in the number as fast as possible. For some reason, giving him my number in front of Miller felt wrong. Like I was cheating.
“Well, Miller tried to have it delivered to your old house and found out the hard way that you no longer live there. There was no forwarding address so, yeah.”
Kinsey shook her head slowly at him. “What are you? A spy?”
“I ask the right questions in order to get the right answers.” He caught his phone as I tossed it back at him. “And I’m the one with the girl’s number even though last night that prick was doing all the work. See? Point, me.”
I looked between them.
Point?
Hadn’t Miller said something like that this morning?
I shook off the bad feeling and then realized that I didn’t have a ride back to my apartment.
“Shit.” Sanchez checked his expensive Rolex and popped on a pair of probably equally expensive dark sunglasses. “I have the Armani shoot in an hour.” He pulled me in for a quick hug then brushed his lips across mine before I could protest. “You need anything?”
I shook my head, momentarily stunned by the way my lips still buzzed from his touch.
“I’ll call you later, Curves.”
He got in his car and left.
By the time I turned around, Kinsey was talking to another one of our teammates, Cassie, who was really tall and smiled a lot. I actually liked when she hung around to chat, but she had a little girl so she was usually rushing back and forth between her house and practices. They were lost in conversation.
Which left me and Miller.
Alone.
His expression didn’t give anything away, but if the tension between us was any indicator, we were in unfamiliar territory—something I’d never experienced with him.
I’d been his biggest cheerleader, literally.
And he’d been mine.
My heart cracked a bit as he blankly stared, as if he didn’t recognize me. I wanted to yell at him. To tell him he could go to hell, that his judgment meant nothing, that he couldn’t hurt me anymore.
But it would all be a lie.
The pain of being told you were already forgotten—being told you were annoying—that the person you loved most in the world was avoiding you so he could let you down easy . . .
He’s destined for bigger and better things.
The words still burned.
Hung over my head like a blazing neon sign.
Miller turned and opened the door to his SUV then turned back toward me. “Need a ride?”
I shook my head no.
“So, let me get this straight. Sanchez can drive you anywhere, but I’ve got the plague?”
“You hate me.”
“I don’t know you.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Can’t hate someone you don’t really know. Can you, Em?”
I held up my phone. “I’ll call an Uber.”
“At eight in the morning.” He crossed his arms. “When everyone else is doing the same thing in order to get to work on time? Downtown Bellevue?” He took another step toward me. “I’m taking you.”
“You’re bossier than I remember,” I grumbled.
“You’re prettier,” he whispered and then, as if realizing he’d said it out loud, he shook his head. “Sorry, it slipped. Old habits.”
I smiled. “You never did have a censor.”
“Censors are for—”
“Sissies,” we said in unison.
He smiled briefly and looked away. “Get in the car, Em.”
He was right. But I still didn’t want him to see where I lived.
I still had my pride.
And my really crappy online teaching job that I needed to log into in about an hour.
“Okay,” I said quickly. “Thank you.”
I’d just have him drop me off on the side street.
He didn’t need to know that I lived in the apartment building.
Or that my dad was sick.
Or that my world had crumbled the minute he walked out of it.
“So . . .” He slammed the door shut. “Where to?”
I fired off instructions and tried to glue myself to the door so that I wouldn’t have to smell his cologne or, like a psycho, lean over the console and take a giant whiff.
He had no right to smell so good this early in the morning!
Traffic wasn’t too bad, which meant I’d at least get to grab something to eat before I logged in and started my day.
Neither of us spoke, but we’d never been those types of friends, the ones that had to fill the air with needless words.
Our words, even in teasing, had always held a purpose.
For some reason, just thinking about how we used to be had tears burning in the back of my eyes.
And then, of course, we had to roll to a stop in front of the McDonald’s where Miller and I’d had our first kiss.
I sucked in a breath.
The air stilled in the car.
Like someone had pressed pause on our lives and simultaneously shown us a preview of the past.
(Then)
I stood by his giant blue truck.
I felt his hands in my hair.
His tongue in my mouth.
The SUV jerked to the right so abruptly that my cheek nearly collided with the glass window.
And then we were parked in the exact same spot.
The lines of paint in the parking lot were faded.
The smell was the same.
Somehow it was the same.
“When you left . . .” I swallowed past the lump in my throat. His hand was tense on the steering wheel and the car still on, as if he was trying to figure out if he should ram it through the building or turn it off and park. “I used to grab a small order of fries and sit here . . . and pretend you were with me. Stupid.” What was I doing? “I know.”
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye.
Both hands still gripped the steering wheel.
His jaw flexed.
Miller’s eyes closed briefly, then flashed open before he jerked the key from the ignition and barked out, “Breakfast.”
It was like slow motion, jumping out of his SUV in my sweats, walking behind him as he led the way to the doors.
He let me go first.
My legs felt like lead, and my skin erupted in a million tiny goose bumps as I tried to find my voice, to decline food right along with the trip down memory lane.
“What can I get for you?” The teen didn’t look up from his fry-caged prison behind the cash register.
“Five sausage and cheddar McMuffins, two orange juices, and . . .” He paused. “Water.”
The guy repeated the order.
Miller didn’t ask if I was hungry or thirsty or anything.
I assumed I at least got an orange juice.
Then again, I never ordered at fast food restaurants. I’d always felt like I was getting judged, even if I made healthy choices; it was as if I couldn’t be free to eat what other people did because I somehow didn’t deserve it, even though I was healthy. I was over it—but I still hated dealing with the looks so I avoided them at all costs.
We waited for our food.
I tried to look at anything and everything but Miller, but everywhere I looked was filled with the past.
Even the stupid red and yellow straws reminded me of when we used to steal them and use them at school in our sodas. How he used to toy with them between his teeth, making my stomach flutter and my legs clench.
“Holy shit, you’re Miller Quinton!” a pubescent voice screeched. The guy who was helping us finally looked up. I blamed technology for people’s inability to look others in the eye.
“Yeah.” Miller’s entire demeanor changed from kicked, pissed-off bulldog to suave, confident, and sexy, and in front of my eyes, he became exactly everything I’d been haunted by during every stupid ESPN interview he’d ever done.
“What’s up, man?” Miller shook his hand.
And he then signed enough autographs to make my fingers hurt.
We walked in silence back to the SUV.
And I was tossed a McMuffin.
“What’s this?” I held the greasy thing in the air, and the paper crinkled as my fingers dug into the heated goodness. Saliva was already pooling in my mouth, damn him.
“Food.”
“I know what it is. I just thought you ordered for you?”
“Eat.”
“Are we resorting to one-word conversations now?”
He grunted and took a giant bite, his perfect teeth ripping at least half of the sandwich into his mouth.
The smell was killing me. I wanted to eat the damn thing so bad that my stomach growled, totally betraying me to Miller, who was already finishing off his last McMuffin and sipping his orange juice with a knowing smirk.
“It’s not in the manual.” I tried to hand it back to him, even though I wanted to eat it. It wasn’t even hunger that was winning, just some sick, misplaced nostalgia that if I did, things would be back to normal again.
He didn’t budge.
“Miller.” I groaned to myself. “I have to do weigh-ins every week.”
He sipped the orange juice louder, the straw coming up semi-empty with every draw. Miller shoved the empty cup into the cup holder, grabbed the sandwich, slowly unwrapped it, took one bite, and then handed it to me again.
“It won’t work.” I breathed out the lie even as I licked my lips. Yeah, it was already working.
The sandwich touched my lips. He grinned and then tilted his head in a very taunting, sexy-as-hell way.
He couldn’t get any sexier in that moment.
Holding a sandwich against my lips like it was better than sex. Which, let’s be honest . . . close tie.
“I won’t tell,” he whispered.
And suddenly, my brain wasn’t just lusting after the sandwich.
I took one bite.
A huge bite.
Too big for my mouth.
Miller’s eyes heated.
It was dirty McDonald’s foreplay.
I chewed.
He made a noise in his chest before visibly adjusting himself and letting out a curse.
I took the sandwich from him and neatly wrapped it back up, then tucked it into the bag and wiped my mouth with a napkin.
His breathing was heavy as he shoved the orange juice into my empty hand, then turned on the car again. He drove toward my apartment.
“Take a right,” I whispered, my chest heavy. “And then another left. I live just up the road so I can walk from there.”
Miller’s eyes gazed over the part of town I was embarrassed to be living in. He was in a penthouse, and I was living in the cheapest part of Bellevue, which wasn’t really even Bellevue anymore. The gas station across from the apartment had bars over the windows and a bail bonds company was attached to it.
“No.” He bit out the word like he was pissed again. “I’m not letting you walk. I don’t care that it’s daylight. Now, where do you live?”
My eyes watered.
They weren’t tears, right? Because that wouldn’t be fair. That he’d take me on a trip down memory lane and then remind me once again how far I’d fallen without him.
“Em.” His eyes pleaded.
“Go another half mile,” I whispered.
When he was close to the apartment building, I closed my eyes and said, “We’re here, on the right.”
Luxury Apartments.
That’s what the sign said.
But anyone with two working eyes could see that the paint was chipping off the walls, the grass hadn’t been mowed in weeks, and the sign still had rates from three years ago.
A few people had Christmas lights on from the previous year, and trash was littered around the four-level building.
“Do you live here by yourself?” he asked.
“No.” I breathed a sigh of relief that I didn’t. “My dad and I live here.”
“What happened to your house?”
“That’s enough questions for today.” I swallowed the harsh pain swelling in my throat, making it hard to breathe.
“Em—”
“Drop it.” I opened the door and grabbed my duffel bag. “It’s not your problem, alright? I’m not your problem, remember? You don’t even know me.”
I threw his words back at him, hoping to inflict pain, even if it was minute compared to the emptiness I felt every day.
My phone rang, and the screen flashed Sanchez’s name.
He nodded slowly, eyes flashing. “You’re right. I don’t.”
“Thanks for the ride.” I tripped over the words and slammed the door so fast I was surprised I didn’t stumble backward. I let the call go to voice mail.
And let a few tears slip onto my cheeks before putting my armor back in place and walking into my apartment, head held high.
“Hi, baby!” Dad grinned from the couch. “Hope you listened well in school today!”
“Yeah.” I forced a smile and lied. “I, um, have homework. So, I should get on that.”
“I’m so proud of you.” He looked down at the book in his hands and frowned. I knew before he said anything that he hadn’t remembered reading it, even though it was his favorite. Some days it brought him out of his fog; other days it just made him angry and confused him more.
The good days were happening less and less.
And I knew it was only a matter of time before I had to figure out another plan for him. The state only paid for so much, and putting him in a home cost more than an Ivy League school.
My only hope was getting a better job.
But getting a better job also meant I couldn’t cheer.
I couldn’t follow my dreams.
Before my dad got this bad, he’d made me swear I would never give up my dreams for him.
It was unfair of him to ask at the time, without knowing how fast the disease would wreck his mind. We’d thought we had years before he lost his job, before he lost his sanity.
We’d been wrong.