Jillian
Katie pours me a glass of white wine. “How was it? Did you survive the first game?”
I motion for her to keep going with the chardonnay. “Let me put it this way. I’m ready to accept my medal in self-restraint. Have you made that trophy for me yet?”
“It’s on its way, along with a plaque.” She sets down the bottle and hands me the glass. “This enough for you?”
“Unlikely, but I’ll try to make do,” I say as I sink into my cushy couch and tuck my feet under me, taking a sip. “He made the J for me. For me. This is killing me.”
Katie nods sympathetically. “I better leave the bottle with you.”
“Leave a whole crate with me, ‘kay? Thanks.”
She pats my knee. “I will, but may I please point out how I’ll soon be taking you out for ice cream and pepper, and proving that it goes together like you and Jones? And you guys obviously go together.”
“We do not go together. Isn’t it obvious that we don’t?”
Bringing the wine to my lips, I guzzle. There is no way to mince words about how I drink it. After training camp, after seeing him every day, after still fantasizing about him every night, after the game today and the quick flight home from Seattle, I need a fat drink or two or three.
Katie shakes her head, her blond strands falling loose and long over her shoulders. “There really isn’t a way for you to manage this? C’mon. Football is always about finding openings.”
“No. I have my interview next week. I need to be focused on that. Being with Jones is too risky. I’ve gone over it in my head a million times, and there’s just no way for me to make this work and not be the pot who called the kettle black.”
“Oh, that’s terrible. Who would want to be the pot calling the kettle black? That’s like the worst thing anybody could ever say to you.”
I sigh. “It’s not that, Katie. It’s just . . . I can’t see this going well. Ending well.”
“You’re not Chelsea, who snapped his shot on Tinder. You’re not that model Annika, who drank champagne with him in a dress that bared all.”
My skin crawls thinking of his former conquests. I narrow my eyes, my nostrils flaring. “I hate them.”
“Meow, kitty-cat.”
“I know. It’s terrible. But I don’t know how to bring this out in the open and have it go well. All my work with him is predicated on this stuff not happening. Flings not happening. Risqué trysts not occurring. And he doesn’t exactly have a track record with relationships. Even if he said, ‘Hey, she’s my girl now,’ who’s going to believe him?”
Katie shrugs and says softly, “I don’t know the answer to that.”
“That’s the issue. The answer is that it likely wouldn’t fly. We’re trying to craft a more wholesome image, an image that helps him keep deals, not lose them.”
Katie lifts her glass and nods thoughtfully. “Right, but you’re only focused on work, Jillian. Not on the fact that you might have actual feelings for someone.”
I give her a sharp stare. “But isn’t that how forbidden relationships are always justified once you try to bring them out in the open? But I care about him. Like that exonerates people from responsibility. We couldn't hide it anymore.” I take another drink, trying to settle this tempest of emotions inside me.
“No, but maybe there are rules worth bending.”
I shake my head. If I bend, I’ll lose. If I bend even more, he could break my heart. I take a fortifying breath. I need to stay strong. “Even if we have actual feelings, it’s too risky for both our careers to be involved. Too often we think emotions give us carte blanche to excuse ourselves from right or wrong. Have an affair? It’s totally fine if you love the person you cheated with.”
She arches a well-groomed eyebrow, her blue eyes zeroing in on me. “So you love him?”
I roll my eyes. “You know what I mean.”
But later, after she leaves, I have to ask myself what do I mean.
Do my feelings for him run that deep? I can’t believe they do. I know better. I’m smart and savvy, and I simply wouldn’t let myself fall for a guy like him.
Like him.
That’s the me of two months ago talking. That’s the me who only knew Jones on the surface. When we started working on the calendar, he was a pretty face, a delicious body, a flirt.
That was all.
He’s so much more now.
So much deeper.
And yet, I’ve managed without him since we returned from Florida. That’s damn impressive. If I can pull off several weeks, what’s the rest of my life? It’ll get easier. As I strip off my clothes and tug on a tank top to slide into bed, it’s not easier. That’s why I told Katie all about him. It’s too hard to miss him like this by myself.
Maybe it’s the two glasses of wine, or maybe it’s the J he made on the field.
I take out my phone and send him a text.
Jillian: Hey.
Jones: Hey.
Jillian: I feel bad about something.
Jones: Don’t feel bad about trying to distract me with your hotness after the game, wearing that blouse I wanted to rip off with my teeth.
A stupidly big grin forms, but I stick to my plan.
Jillian: I would like to know how strong your teeth are. But in all seriousness, I feel bad because I know we said we were going to keep everything that happened in Miami a secret, but I told my best friend, Katie.
Jillian: I’m so sorry, Jones. I feel terrible.
Jones: So terrible you’d let me spank the terrible right out of you?
I cross my ankles, laughing at his response. He’s always made me laugh. His sense of humor is one of the things I adore about him.
Jillian: I guess I’m in very big trouble, then.
Jones: So big that if you were here, I would bend you over my lap and swat that gorgeous heart-shaped ass of yours.
I turn to my side, clutching the phone as if it’s the source of all the happiness in the world—or maybe just in my world.
Jillian: I deserve it.
Jones: I would smack you on one cheek, then the other, and you’d probably tremble all over because I’m pretty sure you like to be spanked.
Jillian: Pretty sure? Don’t you know? You already spanked me. Also, you’re not annoyed?
Jones: Woman, if you didn’t tell your best friend about me, I’d have been devastated. The fact that you told her makes me weirdly, stupidly happy.
Jillian: Why?
Jones: Because it means you like me enough to tell a girlfriend. Now, please don’t interrupt my spanking fantasy again. Because I’d like to put you on all fours, bite your ass, and nibble my way down your legs. I’d nip your right ankle, then your left, then I’d lick my way up your other leg to that absolutely delicious spot between your thighs where I know you’re already wet and aching for me.
More like on fire. I wriggle around on the bed, murmuring his name.
Jillian: How did you know the top two adjectives to describe how I feel right now? Wet and aching are shockingly accurate.
Jones: Because I’ve touched you enough to know what turns you on.
Jillian: What turns me on?
Jones: You like it when I kiss you like it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for years. You like it when I go down on you like you’re the hottest thing I’ve tasted. And you go out of your mind when I fuck you like there’s nothing I want more in the world.
Like that, I’ve entered a state of reckless arousal. I moan so loudly I’m sure my neighbors can hear, and I don’t care. I ache for him. I long for him.
Jillian: If you’re looking for me, my phone officially caught fire and melted.
Jones: Good. So I was right?
Jillian: You’re more than right, and I don’t think we’re doing a very good job at staying apart.
Jones: Are you in my house right now?
Jillian: Sadly, no.
Jones: Then, as far as I’m concerned, this is staying apart. No one ever said I couldn’t send you a dirty text.
Jillian: That was a little more than a dirty text. That felt like sexting. Like more than sexting.
Jones: It’s always felt like more with you. And now I can’t stop thinking about how much I want to be inside you again. So, distract me. Tell me what you told Katie about me.
I smile now, a giddy grin that seems to light me up from head to toe. I start to type, but he texts again.
Jones: Besides the obvious traits of awesome I possess. That I made you come so hard you saw stars, planets, and galaxies, and that my cock is illegal. Your words.
Jillian: And I like when you use that illegal weapon on me. I told her you rocked my world in bed. I told her you made a difference in the lives of families. I told her you helped my dad. I told her you’re very dangerous for me.
Jones: Dangerous?
Jillian: I told her you’re the most intoxicating mix of rough and tender.
Jones: In bed?
Jillian: In bed and out of bed.
Jones: And do you like that mix? I think you do . . .
Jillian: You know I do. You’re sweet and sexy. You’re funny and kind. You’re jealous and caring. You listen. And you also make my toes curl, my knees weak, and my—
I send before I finish the last word. My fingers went too fast.
Jones: What was the last my . . .?
You make my heart flutter. But I can’t say that to him yet. Once those words make landfall, you can’t take them back. I’d be putting that fluttering heart on the line.
Jillian: My belly flip . . .
There. That’s safer.
Jones: I wish you were in my bed right now.
See? He likes the sex talk, too, and as I contemplate a naughty reply, he’s typing back.
Jones: That’s because the most dangerous thing to me is how much I like it when you’re curled up in my arms and you fall asleep with me at night. Because that means you’ll be in my arms when I wake up.
Jillian: That’s my favorite way to wake up.
As I stare at the phone, the problem is clear. Miami wasn’t a fling. Miami wasn’t a no-strings-attached dalliance for either one of us. That trip across the country was the start of everything, and I want to take him back and make him all mine again, with no consequences, no risk, and no fallout. I want it all, without anyone getting hurt.
* * *
The next morning, I crunch on some toast and sip some hot tea as I work on the lineup for my Fire-Breathing Dragons. After I adjust my starting pitcher rotation, I check my email.
A message from Kevin greets me. I click it open, and it’s the usual from him—an interview request. Can Cooper come on my Sunday preview show?
I’m about to reply that I’ll check with the quarterback, when I see his postscript.
P.S. See you at Sierra’s wedding this Thursday! Be sure to say hello to Shelly and me! We can toast to Sierra together!
I groan loudly. I forgot he’d be attending the wedding.
I might be over the guy, but this is precisely why he irritates me.
Because he thinks I’d want to say hello to him and the woman he cheated on me with.
“You sure know how to pick ’em, girl,” I mutter.
My spine straightens. Wait. Just because Kevin is a dickhead doesn’t mean I have bad taste in men.
Of course not. Jones is nothing like Kevin.
My taste is not an issue.
But perhaps my judgment is. I did fall for a man I can’t have.
Maybe I don’t know how to pick them at all.