“I’m OK with that, as long as you never mean it for real. Deal?” I held out my hand.
“Deal.” She smiled and took my hand, and we both stared each other deep in the eyes. Ugh, I knew we both wanted to kiss each other. I knew we needed to be alone. It had been 3 weeks since we’d had our night together, and I needed to touch her again, touch her like both of us knew we could touch each other.
But we couldn’t. More specifically, I couldn’t.
“I gotta go,” I mumbled, getting up off the table after Charlotte moved out of the way. “Thanks for the tune up, I’ll be sure and keep her in good condition.”
Charlotte put her hands on her hips, clucking like a mother hen, playing along. “Every week you tell me that, then every week you drive back in here needing my help. What exactly are you doing every week?!”
I blew her a kiss. “Darling, you have no idea.”
“I have a little idea.”
“It’s much worse than you think.” I smiled and started walking out of the training room.
“Lance?” Charlotte said behind me. I stopped and turned back.
“Yeah, Charlotte?” I wondered what she needed. Was she going to ask for us to be alone for a few minutes? Because it was taking all my strength and willpower not to make that happen, and if I knew she wanted the same thing right then and there I would have moved the world to find a place for us to be alone and kiss even for a few minutes.
She looked at me all coy, like she wanted to do the naughtiest things to me. I felt my cock straining through my pants, and I knew she could see the outline. “What’s a left side pass rush?”
I groaned. “Come on, Charlotte, don’t do this to me.”
She put her finger up to her lips, totally playing things up, teasing me. “I mean it, what does that mean?”
“Now you’re getting into football?”
She stuck her tongue out at me. “Maybe a little bit. Why, I can’t take a professional interest in my professional interest’s professional interest?”
The way this woman had with words drove me fucking wild.
I closed my eyes, trying to get the visions of how hot she was out of my head even for a moment. It didn’t work, and I cursed under my breath, trying to clear my head and get ready for the game again.
At least her question was about football. “The pass rush is the defensive players they send forward trying to hit me before I pass the ball. My offensive line guys have to stop them from getting to me before I can throw.”
“OK, that makes sense. And the left side?”
“Most quarterbacks are right handed, so when they throw, they turn to the right,” I did the right handed throwing motion, planting my right foot back and cocking my right arm back. “See how tough it is for me to turn my head to the left like this?”
“Yeah.”
“We call that the blind side. I’m left handed, so my blind side is on my right side. And if you flip that over for the defense, it’s left side. So if the Steelers’ left side pass rush is scary, that means they’re really good at sending pressure to my right. Which, unfortunately, is where I have the most trouble handling it, because I’m left handed.”
“So this will be a tough game?”
“The toughest game we’ve had so far, yes.”
“You’ll watch out for the pass rush?”
“Yes, Coach Calloway, I’ll watch out for the pass rush. Can I go now?”
She held her hands up, exasperated. “I’m not keeping you here, you know.”
I cocked my head to the side, dropping my voice down low. “You know you are, right?”
“Huh?”
“I stick around in here because of you.”
Charlotte brightened for a moment then frowned, and my face fell at that. “Lance, we can’t…”
“I know, I know.”
“This is all your fault, you know.” She sounded tired.
“I know. And I’m just making it worse.”
She looked around, and we both realized the others had left by now, and we were alone. Charlotte rushed up to me and before I knew what was happening, she kissed me full on the lips.
I wrapped my arms around her and we played together like that; it had been weeks since we had touched like this and I didn’t want to let her go.
But I had a game to get to, and I couldn’t be kissing my athletic trainer right now. After a minute I pushed her back. “I can’t, Charlotte. I gotta go.”
“I know. Be careful out there.”
“I will. Thanks, Coach.”
“Get out of here.” But she was laughing all the while.
“On my way. See you after the game.”
And then I left the room, though I really didn’t want to. And that was the toughest thing of all. For my entire life football had been the most important thing, but already, in the corners of my mind I could feel that was starting to change, to crack just a little bit.
I couldn’t have that, not so early in the season. Not when this season was so important. I tried to shake the thoughts of Charlotte from my head as I went to the field.