“Hey,” he says. His arm drapes over me. “What’s this all about? You don’t want to be like your mother? What’s that have to do with me?”
“My father was in sports,” I say, glossing over the topic. “My mother ended up losing both him and herself to the game. Professional athletes are where they are because it’s their passion, the one thing that matters more than any other. You wouldn’t be where you are if that weren’t true.”
“Dani . . .”
I turn so I can see him over my shoulder. “I promised myself I’d never be like them. I’d never put those I love second to a game, and I’d never let another person take the game over me.”
“I’m not taking anything over anyone.”
“But you would,” I say, fighting my voice from breaking. “I get that. I respect it even. You can do something only a handful of people in the world can do. You have a giant opportunity in front of you. But I don’t want to be crushed as you go crushing the world.”
“I’d never crush you.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” I say, touching his cheek. “At least not on purpose. But it’s more than that.” My hand falls and I take a deep breath. “It’s not being crushed but it’s not having a life like my mother too. Waiting on my guy to come home. Hoping he calls. Listening to statistics over dinner and trying to get your man to squeeze some time for you in the middle of a couple of hundred games. It’s not the life I want. That life broke her. I watched it. I don’t even really have parents because of it. What I want out of life is the polar opposite.”
His features crease, his eyes darkening, as he takes that in. The soberness of his expression makes me think maybe he realizes how right I am, just how much I know what his life is like. And how this thing between us can never deepen too much.
“I like the way things are between us,” I say, my voice soft. “You are so much fun. Smart. Sexy as hell. But we really need to try to keep it on this level.”
“I feel like this is completely unfair,” he says, a sort of laugh in his voice that doesn’t mean he’s amused. “Out of all the chicks that want me, I have to like you.”
Slapping at his chest, we both laugh. He pulls me in close again. There’s a tenderness in his eyes that tugs at my heart. and if I let myself, I could fall right in. I also know I can’t do that. As much as it hurts to claw my way back from the ledge of doing just that.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Landry, but you’d be impossible to watch leave.”
“You don’t like the view of my ass?” he teases.
“Not as much as I like the view of your face.”
He takes a deep breath, his eyes troubled. “I like you. I really fucking like you. You make me remember what it’s like to be . . . more than me.”
“You don’t need to be anything more than you are.”
His grin hits me in a soft spot deep in my heart. “See?” he says softly. “Right there. That’s why I want to lock you up.” He peers into my eyes, like it’s going to drive his words home.
“Damn it,” I sigh, trying to keep this light before I succumb to his words. “You make it so hard to resist you.”
“So don’t.”
I consider this. “Do you know Weston Brinkmann?”
He makes a face like he just sucked a lemon. “Why?”
“He wanted to date me a year or so ago and I turned him down.”
“Smart girl. He’s a complete fucking cocksucker.”
I laugh, squeezing him tight. “I turned him down even though I kind of liked him just because he played baseball. For the same reasons I’m telling you about.”
He just watches me.
“See, that’s the thing,” I say. “I turned him down. I can’t tell you no. I don’t know what that means, exactly, but it scares me.”
“You shouldn’t be scared alone. It’s like drinking when you’re sad—have a partner,” he winks. “Let’s hang out. Take some batting practice. Have dinner, breakfast if things go well. I promise to use all my Southern manners.”
My leg slings back over him again, this time so my pussy is lined up with his cock.
“I can feel your heat,” he says, his breath picking up. “Want round two?”
“Only if you promise not to use those Southern manners.”
“Deal.”
Lincoln
SHE’S GONE.
When I woke up and she wasn’t beside me, I hoped she was in the shower. Or living room. Or kitchen. But I’ve thoroughly inspected every room and come up with nothing, save a little note written on the back of a take-out menu.
Morning, Landry.
Thanks for last night. And you’re welcome for it, too. I had some things to do this morning, so I went ahead and left. You probably need to go grocery shopping. You have no coffee. Who are you?
Xo
Danielle
“Sure you did,” I say, holding the note in my hand as I pull a gallon of milk out of the refrigerator. I give it a quick smell test before drinking straight from the carton. “You left because you had things to do. Right.”
She left because she didn’t want to have to deal with the fact that she slept all night in my arms. That we were together three times from the time we got home from the restaurant until she snuck out of here sometime after six a.m. That she liked it.
If she didn’t like it, she wouldn’t have smiled in her sleep or slept right against me like a log. She wouldn’t have let me kiss her while she slept or snuck out this morning.
She’s lame. The girl does have a flaw after all.
Grinning, I spy the mail from yesterday and sort through it. A letter from Arrows’ management is included in the pile of bills and junk and I rip it open and scan the contents.
“Blah, blah blah,” I read aloud, my eyes searching for words that mean something. “We expect . . . blah, blah, blah . . . a final assessment on Tuesday, November 25th. We will meet with you about your contract after the Thanksgiving holiday.”
I test my shoulder, rolling it around and around. It feels better, stronger, but not strong enough to fire one from two hundred feet out. Not strong enough to ward off this sick feeling in my stomach.
“Damn it,” I say, mentally rolling through therapy dates and schedules. How much harder can I press it? Can I speed this up in any way? What if this doesn’t work? What if—
The buzzing of my phone interrupts my errant thoughts, and I scamper into the bedroom and pick it up hastily to see it’s Graham.
“Just the man I was wanting to talk to,” I say, heading back into the kitchen.
“Why does that concern me?”
“Because you’re smart, G. Super fucking smart.”
“Well, let me go first,” he sighs. “Ford called this morning. He’ll be officially out in a few weeks and home for good. He wants to put together a new branch of Landry Holdings. Details haven’t been hammered out yet, but it would basically involve security for individuals, companies, things like that.”
“Sounds smart,” I chime in, detouring into the living room. Picking up a baseball from a chair next to a bookcase, I toss it in the air. “Why do I need to know this?”