Yeah, pretty much hot all the time.
She cast him a sly glance out of the corner of her eye to see his reaction to the conversation behind them. He gave none but kept his hard gaze on the game below as he watched Matt.
And how had she ended up pressed to his side in the first place?
She was supposed to be here with Annabelle. But Ruth, Annabelle’s epileptic mother, had suffered a seizure and had to be rushed to the emergency room. Stella had received the text message from her friend just as she’d pulled into the parking lot. She’d sent a quick reply to call when she knew how her mother was doing and then entered the stadium alone. She’d made it halfway up the bleachers when she spotted Brandon talking to a woman next to him. Stella recognized her as a mom of one of the other players. If she remembered correctly, the woman had been divorced for several years.
Whatever.
Brandon could talk to whomever he wanted. Why should she care?
Brandon’s gaze shifted and connected with hers the split second before she turned around.
And what was she supposed to have done then? So she’d continued her ascent, trying to avoid the obvious I-don’t-want-to-sit-next-to-you-so-I’ll-watch-the-game-from-the-Porta-Potty move. The woman next to Brandon had kept chatting away while he tracked Stella’s movements up the bleachers. Then she’d been next to him, and instead of offering a hello, he’d simply lifted a dark brow at her.
As though to say, Yeah, you were caught.
An hour later, the stands had practically doubled in occupancy, forcing her and Brandon to be even closer to each other, allowing her to get intimately acquainted with his left side. Which included a corded bicep, covered in a thin black Bobcats T-shirt that was pulled tight over his bulky shoulders and loose at the waist.
Stella had always been a sucker for a man who knew how to hone his body. Brandon obviously knew how to work his. He knew how to wear a pair of jeans to make a woman weak in the knees with those lean hips.
“I’ll catch him one of these days,” Lois commented. “I’ll just sic my granddaughter on him. She could snap a picture of him before he even realizes it.”
“You’ll just scar that child for life, Lois,” Virginia warned. “I live right next door to the man. I’ll get a picture of him.”
Stella tried to tune the conversation out, but it was hard since the ladies were right behind her and making no attempt to be discreet. She cast another glance at Brandon and expected to see that hard jaw doing all kinds of clenching, making his face go hard and chiseled. Not that she noticed.
Instead, the corner of his mouth twitched as though he found the conversation amusing. Not horrifying like she did. Horrified at the idea of Lois tasking her pubescent granddaughter, pigtails with pink bows and all, to stalk a thirty-four-year-old shirtless man to take pictures for her horndog grandmother.
“Maybe they don’t realize you’re sitting right in front of them,” Stella suggested to Brandon.
Brandon didn’t take his eyes off the field as Matt took his position for the next play. “They know,” he told her. “But they’re going to get more than an eyeful if they’re not careful,” he said loud enough for the other women to hear.
Lois leaned forward and focused her laser-sharp hazel eyes on Brandon. “You wouldn’t do that to a little girl, would you?”
Brandon cast the woman a glance. “Push me far enough and see.”
The crowd surged to its feet when the other team was penalized ten yards, giving the Bobcats the advantage. Lois tried pushing herself to her feet three times before Brandon hooked a large palm through her elbow and helped her up.
He helps little old ladies, Stella warned herself. Even ones who stalk him with their camera phones and use their granddaughters.
Stella stood with the rest of the crowd, trying to place even a millimeter of distance between herself and the man next to her. The one who always smelled like he’d just stepped out of a steamy shower and was constantly crowding her.
He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted something to Matt. Of course Matt didn’t hear as the play continued and the Bobcats intercepted the ball and gained fifteen yards. The band fired up once more and the crowd surrounding her and Brandon threw their hands in the air, waving their foam fingers and orange and black pom-poms.
The familiar and unwanted itch started at the back of her skull and worked its way forward as the woman next to her pressed too close. Stella’s heart kicked into double time when the noise level of the crowd heightened. The breathing technique she’d learned helped slow her heart rate down but didn’t stop the sweat that dotted her forehead.
Had there always been this many people at the football games? And after so many years of thinking she had her claustrophobia in check, why was it becoming a problem again? What had triggered it?
Was it because she’d been skipping her medication?
“You okay?” a deep voice said close to her ear.
Too close. Like whispering-against-her-skin close. Funny how it could feel that intimate with so many people crowding them.
They took their seats again and Stella put on her brave face. One she used to show her mom when they’d move to a new city and Gloria would fuss over Stella nonstop.
“Do you need Mommy to buy you a new toy?” her mom would ask after they’d settled into yet another apartment.
Or, “How’s your room? Is it big enough?”
After a while Stella would just nod and say everything’s fine. Just so Gloria would stop worrying that her daughter was so emotionally stunted that she couldn’t handle another move.
Because you couldn’t.
But what her mother didn’t know, had never known, was that it hadn’t been the moving around that had traumatized her. It hadn’t been changing schools twice a year or not being able to make friends.
No, what had flipped the switch was far darker and life-altering than any city or school change. Traumatizing enough to produce panic attacks and a fear of intimacy so great that she’d failed to have a serious relationship in…well, since Rick.
“Stella?” Brandon said when she’d slipped into a trance, remembering all her past mistakes.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Funny how that always slipped out of her mouth so easily.
“Sure?” he questioned. “Need another scone?”
His concern had her smiling.
“The snack shack doesn’t sell scones,” she pointed out.
“How about a sip of my drink, then?”
And put her mouth where his had been?
He’s looking at you, waiting for an answer. Say something.
“I’m allergic to soda.”
Really?
His deep chuckle sent a shiver down her spine. “That’s creative, I’ll give you that. But also a lie.” He handed her the cup. “Drink. You need the sugar.”
She narrowed her eyes at him and accepted the soda. “You’ve said that before.”