Chapter 3

Erik

“Okay, I’m ready,” Legend says as he steps out of the bathroom.

I don’t respond, but continue to stare at the ceiling from my spot on the bed. Hands behind my head, one ankle crossed over the other.

Mulling about Blue.

The conversation on the plane didn’t sit well with me, and it was because of the palpable derision in her voice when she informed me that she knew exactly the type of man that I was.

Completely condescending and way off base in my opinion, and yet she acted like she had insider information.

“Dude,” Legend says and I roll my head to look at him. I’d been lying here for fifteen minutes as he showered and changed after our long flight from Phoenix to Miami so we can go out to dinner. I’d gotten first crack at the shower and have been patiently waiting for him. “What’s eating at you?”

One eyebrow rises. “What do you mean?”

“You have that look on your face.”

“What look?”

Legend grabs his wallet off the dresser and shoves it into the back pocket of his shorts. We’re eating casual tonight and it’s hot as hell in Miami so we both dressed accordingly. “You know…that look. Perplexed. Confounded. Stumped.”

I roll my body off the bed and snatch my own wallet and phone from the bedside table. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s something,” he presses. Although we’ve known each other barely a month since both being traded to the Vengeance in the expansion draft, we’ve gotten pretty close. We’ve roomed together on all away trips and we tend to hang out with each other in our downtime.

Legend’s a cool dude and fairly laid back. He’s just sort of easy to be around.

“Blue,” I say, needing only one word for him to understand.

All of my teammates have been witness to the extremely cold shoulder I get from Blue, stemming from the very first time we met on the team plane. After her stunning beauty knocked me stupid for a few minutes, I’d recovered and promptly hit on her before any other teammate beat me to the mark.

For some reason, she took great offense and has been nothing but rude to me since then.

At first, I was amused, because I kind of liked getting under her skin. Now I’m just flat out annoyed because while I have my many faults, I don’t think I deserve the type of enmity she’s throwing my way.

And I’m frustrated, because even though she was extremely nasty on the plane, I’m not turned off or rebuffed in the slightest. I still want to get to know her better. It’s like a compulsion and when I want something, I usually get it. I’m not afraid of a challenge and I can be overly stubborn at times. She’s in my sights and I’m not about to give up just because she dislikes me.

“Man, you should just give up on that,” Legend says as if he was just inside my head reading my thoughts.

I shake my head. “Not yet.”

“Why?” he says as we leave the hotel room. I follow him out and pull the door shut behind us. “I mean, yeah…she’s smokin’ hot. Who wouldn’t want to tap that? But there are plenty of super hot chicks around who would give it up a lot easier.”

This I know, but because I’m so focused on Blue, I’d have to reason with myself that I want more than to just “tap that.”

“I can’t explain it,” I tell him as we head to the elevator. “I’m totally intrigued by her, especially after seeing her with her brother.”

Legend wasn’t at the harvest festival with us three days ago, but I’d told him the next day at practice about seeing Blue there with her brother, Billy. Something about watching her dance with him touched me deep inside.

And how something like that made her infinitely more interesting to me. It’s almost as if I’m looking beneath the veneer of beauty to see what makes her tick. It’s not a curiosity I ever remember feeling for another woman, and that in and of itself fuels me.

Nope. Not about to give up now.

The elevator door opens and Legend and I board. He taps the lobby button and when the doors whoosh close, he asks, “So what’s your game plan? Because she won’t give you the time of day on the plane.”

“I haven’t quite figured it out yet but I know what I won’t be doing,” I tell him with a grin.

“What’s that?”

“Flirting,” I say as the elevator car coasts to a stop and the doors open to reveal the blue-veined, marbled floor of the lobby. “She told me to stop it and I told her I would.”

Legend clutches a hand to his chest and makes an exaggerated gasp of disbelief. “You mean the great womanizer Erik Dalhbeck can actually converse with a woman without flirting with her?”

“Shut the fuck up,” I gripe at him as we head across the lobby to the exit doors. We’re headed to a Cuban restaurant a few blocks away where a few of the other guys on the team agreed to meet up for dinner. Our game isn’t until tomorrow afternoon so we have the evening free.

“All I’m trying to say,” Legend drawls dramatically, “is that you’re not exactly known for providing scintillating conversation with women. You’re more the bang ’em and leave ’em type.”

“Is that really how people see me?” I ask him curiously, without an ounce of defense in my voice. I really don’t care what people think but if it gives me insight into Blue, I’d like his opinion.

“You’re a player, dude,” Legend says with a laugh and slaps me on the back. “Nothing wrong with it. You’re young and in your prime. You should totally be sowing all your wild oats.”

He’s got a point. Except the only oats I want to sow are in Blue Gardner’s fields.

I shake my head. Wait. That doesn’t sound right at all.

Legend makes it to the lobby door right at the same time I see the other three flight attendants walking out of the hotel. Legend opens the door and motions for them to precede him out. They’re all dressed in short, sexy dresses, with high-heeled sandals. They give flirty smiles at us as we all step out into the humid Miami evening.

“Where are you ladies headed?” Legend asks.

Valerie, a tall redhead with a distinctive southern accent answers. “We just thought we’d walk around until we spotted something.”

“You can join us if you want,” Legend offers. I don’t miss the slight predatory twinkle in his eyes. He may not be a serial skirt chaser like I am, but I know he’d totally nail any one of these beauties if they were so inclined.

“We’d love to,” the brunette named Lyla says. She’s definitely a party girl and I know this because several of the other players have carnal knowledge of what lies between pretty Lyla’s legs.

“Then let’s go,” Legend says and suavely offers an arm to each lady so he can escort them down the sidewalk. They giggle and loop their arms through his.

I turn to Sadie quickly. “Where’s Blue?”

Her eyes cut to Legend, Lyla, and Valerie walking away from us before coming back to me. “Swimming.”

“Swimming?” I repeat, because that just seems…odd.

“Yeah. She loves to swim. Used to swim competitively in high school or something like that. She’s in the pool any chance she can get when we’re on the road.”

“Huh,” I mutter, my head turning to look back at the lobby doors.

“We better go or they’ll leave us behind,” Sadie remarks as she points in their direction.

I look that way, then back to the lobby doors for just a brief moment before bringing my gaze to Sadie. “Look…I know you’re good friends with Blue. Or at least it seems that way on the plane. How much of a fool would I be if I went to go talk to her right now?”

“Ten times the fool,” she says without missing a beat. But then she smiles sympathetically and nods to the doors. “But doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.”

A grin breaks out on my face. “I like your pep talk, Coach. I might catch up with you guys later.”

“Good luck,” she says.

“Thanks,” I say with a wave as I turn away from her. “I’ll need it.”

Inside the hotel, I hit up the front desk and get directions to the pool. There’s actually one indoors on the basement level and one outdoors on the rooftop. I’m guessing if Blue is swimming for exercise, she’s going to be in the indoor one. I imagine the rooftop pool is filled with partiers clad in bathing suits and drinking fruity cocktails.

The smell of chlorine hits me as I turn down a hall and I come up against a long glass wall that encloses the indoor pool. There’s a handful of people in one end with some kids, and then there’s Blue. Swimming freestyle at the far side. Her suit is a one-piece and black. She’s wearing a swim cap and goggles.

She slices through the water with ease, her strokes consistently smooth and measured. Her head tilts to the side for air about every fourth stroke.

I walk slowly around the pool as I watch her swim. She makes it to one end, executes a perfect flip and heads back in the opposite direction. It’s not my intention to interrupt her workout, so I take up residence at a table in the corner where a gym bag and towel are sitting there—presumably hers—and I wait for her to finish.

She seems utterly tireless and I stop counting after twenty-five laps.

Finally, she swims back toward me and rather than flipping when she reaches the wall, her hands go to the edge and her gaze lifts up to lock with mine. She’s barely out of breath and I’m impressed.

Blue lifts the goggles from her eyes so they’re perched on top of her head. Her lips are flattened as she asks, “What are you doing here, Erik?”

“I’ve come to apologize,” I tell her.

She sighs and hauls herself up out of the pool. I try really damn hard not to notice how amazing her body looks in her swimsuit and maintain eye contact with her as she walks toward the table. I reach over, nab the towel and hand it out to her.

“Thanks,” she murmurs as she wraps it around her body, tucking it in at her chest.

“Sadie told me you were here swimming,” I explain to her. “And I really just want to apologize for offending you. I know I have and it wasn’t my intent at all.”

“You couldn’t help it,” she says tiredly as she pulls her goggles and swim cap off. Her blonde hair tumbles down her back and she reaches into her gym bag to pull out a hair tie. As she fashions her hair into a messy bun on top of her head, she adds on. “It’s just your nature.”

“Okay,” I say with a tinge of anger to my voice. “You keep saying shit like that, implying you think you know me. But I think you’re offering pretty harsh judgment based on a few conversations on the plane.”

“I do know you,” she retorts as she crosses her arms over her chest. “We met five years ago.”

There’s no stopping the momentum of my jaw as it drops wide open. “Excuse me?”

For a moment, she doesn’t answer me. Rather, her teeth bite down into her lower lip. They shine bright white against the natural cherry tint of her mouth. I’d normally find it sexy, but I’m too rattled to think much of it at all.

“Five years ago. At a party in L.A,” she finally offers.

“No fucking way,” I return adamantly, shaking my head for emphasis. “I’d remember you.”

There is no way in hell I could ever forget someone like Blue.

Just…no fucking way.

“We did,” she says confidently. “I had dark hair then but that doesn’t lessen the sting of you not remembering.”

“No, no, no. Not possible.”

“We slept together,” she tells me, and my head starts spinning.

“Now that’s a goddamn lie,” I growl as I stand up from the table.

“It’s not,” she murmurs with her brown eyes locked to mine, and it’s her soft tone that has me really doubting myself. She doesn’t seem angry, but merely resigned to the fact we had an encounter, which for the life of me I can’t seem to remember.

Goddamnit all to hell.

“Look, Erik,” she says as she grabs her gym bag and slings it over her shoulder. “I think it’s best we just go our separate ways. I’ll promise to be nice to you on the plane, and you already promised me no more hitting on me. It’s all good and let’s just forget this conversation happened.”

I’d like to readily agree to what she just said, but I’m actually reeling a bit to know that Blue and I had met.

Had fucking slept together, and whatever happened five years ago has seriously caused her to be pissed at me. My stomach churns knowing that I did something that clearly angered her, or even worse…hurt her.

But I can also see she’s done talking about it too and I don’t think it would be in anyone’s best interest to push her right now.

So I merely incline my head toward her, a silent show that I acknowledge and accept what she just suggested.

I get a relieved smile back from her. “Good. Thank you.”

“Sure thing,” I tell her. “Have a good night.”

She doesn’t respond and I watch her walk all the way out of the pool area. When she disappears from sight, I rub my hand over the whiskers on my jaw wondering what in the hell happened between us. It’s a goddamn mystery to me and I don’t like being in the dark.

My stomach rumbles, reminding me that in addition to being slightly sick from that conversation, I’m also still hungry. I decide to go catch up to Legend and the girls, intending to have a good meal and hopefully many, many mixed drinks to help me forget about Blue.