Once to my condo, I push open the door and flick on the lights. It’s a clean, modern, bi-level with more space than I need. After signing with the UFL, I moved here with nothing but my clothes, a computer, and my stereo. The organization had the place furnished: overstuffed furniture and sleek tables made of dark wood polished to a shine. It’s decorated to catalog perfection and so not my taste it’s almost laughable.
I head to the open kitchen for a glass of water before going to bed where I expect to lie there all night, overthinking, while staring at the slow rotation of the bamboo ceiling fan.
A package on my countertop catches my eye. I move toward the foreign mass of brown paper and tape and find a slip of paper sitting next to it. My gaze jerks up to my living room. Someone was here. Are they still?
I move fast, taking two steps at a time up to my loft bedroom, and flick on the lights. No one. Bathroom looks the same as it did when I left this morning. I haul ass down to the guest bedroom, my office, the laundry room . . . all empty.
Dread settles in my gut, a sixth-sense that tells me exactly who was here and what’s in the package. I navigate my way back to the package and snag the note.
It’s all here and accounted for.
“Fuck!” I toss the scrap of paper and grind my teeth at the unsatisfying way it floats to the ground.
Tomorrow night. Zeus’s. Dammit to hell.
Thirteen
Trix
After getting home at the crack of dawn and catching a few hours of sleep, I woke to my alarm as it pulled me from the most delicious dream: waves, sand, and Mason. I dragged myself to the gym and hit the treadmill hard before coming in for my shift. As much as I enjoyed my time with Mason, things ended strangely.
When he left me at my door, he didn’t mention our date we’d set up for tomorrow night. I don’t know if we’re still on or not, and I can’t even call him because I don’t know his number. I suppose I could ask Gia, but there’s a tiny part of me that’s apprehensive. The intensity of what I feel around Mason scares me, and as much as I want him to smother me with it, I’m terrified of being lost to it.
My phone on my dressing table chimes with an incoming text, and my heart leaps. I drop the magazine I’d been mindlessly flipping through and snag the device.
Damn, not Mason.
My brother Isaac.
I MADE THE TEAM! BooYah!
I grin at how much my little brother is starting to sound like the teenage boy he is.
Of course you did! It’s your highly-tuned Mother Mary.
Hail Mary, Doofus.
When I spoke to my parents earlier today, they’d mentioned that he was going to find out if he made the football team tonight. I guess they leave for some kind of training camp to get all the players geared up before the beginning of the school year. It’s almost midnight, so I assume he’s been out celebrating.
My fingers furiously type and I giggle out loud.
Whatever . . . will I get to see you when I come home or will your big-shot football-playing self be occupied with your admirers?
I hit “send” and bite my lip to keep from laughing while I wait for his reply.
Have your people call my people.
“Let me guess.” Angel shuffles over, dressed in nothing but patent leather and metal, having just come from her S&M routine. She drops onto her stool at her dressing table and rips off her spiked collar. “Mason?”
I sit up straighter and curse my eager response.
She dips her chin to motion to my phone. “It’s so obvious! You’re grinning like a queen at the Pride Parade.”
A long sigh falls from my lips, and my shoulders droop in defeat. “Nah”—I hold up my phone and shake it—“it’s my little brother. He’s just really funny.”
“Oh, well”—she continues to unbuckle and remove the painful looking corset until she’s bare naked—“never mind. I assumed after all the hot and heavy spit swapping y’all did last night he’d be blowing up your phone today.”
I roll my eyes and regret filling Angel in on the details of my time with Mason. The second I got to the club after the way she saw us leave last night, she was begging for the tell-all. I gave her most of it just because it felt so good to share it with someone. Being with a man like Mason isn’t something a woman can keep to herself. That goodness doesn’t seem real until it’s spoken out loud between friends. And even then, it almost seems too good to be true.
“You tease, but it was ah-maze-ing.” I check the timer on my mirror and realize I have ten minutes before I’m up. “When was the last time you’ve been with a man that was content to kiss and feed you jerky?”
I drop my robe and pull on pieces of the costume I laid out earlier.
Angel ties the satin sashes of her black Zeus’s robe. “That’s easy. Not since high school.” Her eyebrows pinch and a slow smile tugs at her lips. “What’re you wearing?”
“Huh?” I’m tugging on a pair of board shorts over a bright yellow G-string. “This?” I stand up and loop the yellow triangle bikini top around my neck and tie it at my back. “I’m changing things up.”