CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Drew motioned to Tamera’s white couch, his expression serious. “Can we sit?”
She ran a hand through her hair, then blew out a breath. Why was he here? “Yeah. Sounds like this might take a while.”
Drew nodded and sank into the cushion. She could almost hear it groan under his weight. He looked comical, like a baby doll trying to sit on a couch made for Barbies. Wyatt and Drew were roughly the same size, but somehow Wyatt had looked like he belonged in her living room while Drew looked decidedly out of place.
Tamera sank into the chair across from him, wanting a little distance. “I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight.”
“I could tell how much the texts from Caleb were messing with you. I wanted to help if I could.”
His words touched her heart, easing the frustration she felt over the interrupted kiss. Tamera rested a hand on his arm. “Thanks for looking out for me.”
He covered her hand with his, but it felt like a trap instead of a comfort. When he looked at her, she saw something in his eyes she hadn’t noticed before. Desire.
She yanked her hand back, startled. Drew always flirted, but was it possible he actually meant it?
“What was Wyatt doing here?” Drew demanded.
Tamera looked away. “I can’t tell you.”
Hi eyes bulged and he clenched his hands into fists, resting them on his knees. “What do you mean you can’t tell me?”
“I signed a nondisclosure.”
“So you’re working for him.” It wasn’t a question.
“You know I can’t confirm or deny that.”
“Tonight looked like a lot more than a work meeting.” Drew leaned back, smashing her orange and teal throw pillows flat beneath his bulk. He gestured to the table, where their empty wine glasses and plates still sat. “Dinner. Wine. Sounds like a date.”
“It wasn’t,” Tamera said, unable to keep the defensive edge from her voice. She and Drew were just friends. Not even best friends. He didn’t get to comment on her love life.
“Did you want it to be?”
Tamera ran a shaky hand through her hair, thinking of the way her entire body had yearned for that almost-kiss. She’d leaned into Wyatt. Practically begged his lips to capture hers. “I don’t know.”
Drew swore. “I warned you about him, Tamera. Stay away.”
“What’s so bad about Wyatt?” Tamera threw out her arms. “I’ve spent a lot of time with him over the past two weeks, and I honestly don’t know what made you warn me to stay away.”
“He’s a snake.”
“He’s kind,” Tamera shot back. “He’s humble and chivalrous. He makes me laugh.”
“So does a cat video. That doesn’t mean you should date it.”
“We’re not dating.” She rose and began to pace, then stopped in front of Drew. “Why shouldn’t I date him?”
Drew’s jaw twitched. “I told you to trust me.”
“I do.” Well, she trusted him like ninety percent. Maybe eighty. She sank onto the couch next to Drew. “Trust isn’t enough. I really like Wyatt. If you honesty believe I shouldn’t date him, then I need to know what he did that was so awful.”
Drew raised a hand and rubbed at his shoulder, as though his injury from last season was bothering him again. “Wyatt and I weren’t exactly friends in San Antonio,” he said finally. “But we weren’t enemies, either. Not at first. We weren’t really anything. We worked together on the field, but that was it.”
If Drew had been keeping her from Wyatt over a vague dislike with no solid basis, she was going to kill him. “And that means I shouldn’t date him?”
Drew shot her a look. “Are you going to let me tell the story or not?”
“Sorry.” She pantomimed locking her lips and throwing away the key. She wanted to hear this story so badly it had her legs trembling.
Wyatt is a good guy, she repeated over and over in her head. Whatever Drew said, it wouldn’t change that. Right?
“Wyatt dated a girl for a while,” Drew said finally. “Becky.”
“The cheerleader he broke up with,” Tamera said, remembering the one small article she’d read on the subject. It hadn’t given a lot of information—just mentioned the couple had been dating, but Becky had cheated.
Drew nodded. “Yeah. The cheerleaders don’t usually spend a lot of time with the team outside of games and maybe a few parties. But Becky started hanging around more and more once she and Wyatt started dating. Before too long, she started coming onto me. I tried to put her off. I mean, she was Wyatt’s girlfriend. But she cornered me in the locker room one day and kissed me. Wyatt walked in before I could push her away and was furious.”
Tamera rubbed her temples, trying to process what Drew had just told her. “He thought you were having an affair with Becky.”
“I couldn’t really blame the guy.” Drew blew out a breath. “I tried to talk to him, but he wasn’t interested in hearing it. Becky was sobbing and saying she’d made a mistake, but Wyatt wouldn’t listen to her. He told her they were over. It was so cold. Like she meant nothing to him.”
“He’d just found out his girlfriend was cheating on him,” Tamera said hotly. She folded her arms, feeling her skin flush as she jumped to Wyatt’s defense. “That kind of thing hits you like a ton of bricks. It isn’t easy to control your reaction in the heat of the moment. I should know.”
“Shhh.” Drew grabbed her hand and pulled her toward him, forcing her head to rest on his chest. She resisted at first, but finally relented when his hands started playing with her hair. “I’m not trying to bag on Wyatt. I felt just as bad about the whole situation as he did. But then Becky wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Prickles of unease had Tamera feeling a little queasy. “How so?”
“She kept calling me, showing up at my apartment, that sort of thing. Somehow Wyatt found out. Maybe Becky told him—I think she was still trying to get him back. I don’t know. But from that point forward, it seemed like Wyatt’s mission in life was to ruin my career.”
The words sank in, and the queasy feeling in Tamera’s stomach hardened into a rock. She pushed away from Drew, shaking her head. “No. That doesn’t sound like Wyatt.”
“I wouldn’t have believed it either if I wasn’t there. Maybe we weren’t friends, but I always thought he was one of the good guys.”
Tamera rose and began pacing again. She ran a hand through her hair, imaging the way Wyatt’s deep brown eyes pulled her in and made her way to stay near him forever. She shook her head again, this time more frantically. “He wouldn’t ruin your career because his girlfriend was awful.”
Drew leaned back against the couch, watching her with his sky blue eyes. “You can’t ignore the facts, Tamera. Wyatt started slacking at practice. At first, I thought he was distracted because of the breakup. Things like that sometimes mess with a guy’s focus. But a few weeks passed and nothing improved. I started noticing he deliberately wasn’t protecting me from getting sacked.”
“No.” Tamera put a hand to her heart, feeling it twist.
“Wyatt’s the reason I got hurt last season.” Drew rose, and there was a fire in his eyes she’d glimpsed a time or two while they were playing Eye in the Sky. “He deliberately left me open and my throwing arm got damaged as a result. Coach saw what was happening as clear as day, and told Wyatt he could either be traded at the end of the season or he’d take what he knew to the press.”
Tamera blinked back the tears forming behind her eyes. “He wouldn’t do that. This ha got to be some sort of crazy misunderstanding. Did you actually talk to him after you got hurt?”
“I knew there wasn’t a point. He was so angry, and the damage had already been done.”
Red flags were waving frantically in Tamera’s head, but she didn’t know whether to trust them. Was Drew’s version of events actually false, or did she just want Wyatt to be good that badly? Drew wouldn’t lie to her, but sometimes perception wasn’t quite the same as reality.
Drew scratched the back of his head. “That was a really hard time for me. You actually helped me a lot on Eye in the Sky. Hanging out with you felt so normal.”
Tamera snorted. “Nothing about reality television is normal.”
“You know what I mean.” Drew nudged her arm, sending her a flirty grin. “I wasn’t sure if I’d ever play again. The uncertainty was killing me. But then I met you, and we had so much fun together.”
Okay, they were venturing into territory Tamera didn’t even was to put a toe in. “So you knew the coach was blackmailing Wyatt into a trade?”
Drew scowled. “It was a generous offer. Coach could’ve ended Wyatt’s career, but he didn’t.”
“The Coyotes is a huge step back and you know it.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to be part of a team,” Drew shot back. “Coach asked me to keep quiet, so I did. Wyatt was transferred to the Coyotes and that was that.”
She couldn’t be falling for another guy who’d fooled her into thinking he was something he wasn’t. “No. There’s got to be more to the story.”
“Tamera.” Drew grabbed her arms, forcing her to stop pacing. His touch was gentle, but firm. “Think about it. Why else would Wyatt trade from a team with a shot at the championships to a team that’s probably not even going to make the playoffs?”
Tamera had had similar thoughts when she first found out about the trade. In some twisted way, Drew was making sense. A tear fell and she quickly brushed it away. She folded her arms and looked at the ground, not wanting to meet Drew’s eyes. “I really liked him.”
Drew pulled her to him. He was bigger even than Wyatt and her arms barely fit around his waist. She blinked again, but all it did was make more tears fall onto Drew’s shirt. He wrapped his arms around her and she closed her eyes. Why couldn’t she be attracted to Drew in a romantic way? He was such a good friend and seemed interested in pursuing more. But her feelings had never been more than platonic.
“I’m sorry,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “I should’ve told you from the beginning. But Coach asked me to keep everything quiet. He was worried that the story would negatively impact the Vigilantes if it got out. Now that Wyatt’s been traded, I don’t want to throw mud at each other in the press. That’ll hurt me just as much as it’ll hurt him. I just want to move on and forget the whole thing ever happened”
“I won’t tell anyone,” Tamera whispered.
Drew rested his head on the top of hers. “I know you won’t.”
They stood there for a moment while Tamera tried to wrap her head around this new information. She’d been so wrong about Wyatt. At this rate, she’d never be able to trust her feelings.
“Come on.” Drew pulled away. “I’m taking you out on the town tonight. You need some fun.”
Tamera forced a smile. “Sounds great. Let me freshen up a bit and then we can go.”
Drew nodded and Tamera escaped to the solitude of her bedroom. She sank against her closed door and slid to the floor.
How could she have been so wrong?