Minutes later Cam and Reeve are on the sidelines together. Cam turns his head and scans our section. When he finds Lenni, he flashes her a smile that has her melting. Even after almost a year together, she still gets all girly and cute when he looks at her just so.
“How did he know where you were?” I ask.
“I always sit behind their bench. For the view.” For a secondI think she’s talking about the field, but her mouth quirks and she looks down at the long line of players standing in front of the benches, muscular butts in shiny, skintight white spandex. “Cam doesn’t even blame me.”
I watch Cam lean in and say something to Reeve, who looks over his shoulder toward us. My heart stops beating. It feels like an eternity before he finds me. His eyes lock on mine, holding me in the spell that is his gaze. Then he winks, kisses his fingertips, and points a finger straight at me before turning back to the field. My breath catches as waves of thrill run up my spine, and Lenni clutches my thigh, squeezing hard. She doesn’t have to look at me to know exactly what Reeve’s gesture did to me. In front of us, a few curious fans turn around to see where that gesture was directed, a few looking right at me but most looking around or beyond me. I have to bite the inside of my lip to keep from breaking into a grin and telling every one of them who that kiss was for.
God. Reeve Dalton is pure fucking magic.
In the second quarter,Reeve suddenly takes the field.
“Look!” I say, squeezing Lenni’s knee. “He’s playing!”
I’m aware that she’s smiling at my high-pitched excitement, but I don’t care. My stomach is quivery with nerves, and as much as I want to see him play, I’m wishing madly that I could fast-forward time to the end of the game and know it all turned out the way he wants it to.
And it does—I don’t have to understand the game to know that; I just have to look at the incredibly sexy and undeniably cocky grin he’s wearing by the time the game ends. By then he’s thrown two touchdowns to give them the win and made thekind of throw that has Lenni assuring me that the chorus of screams and cheers erupting from the fans around us are for none other than their star quarterback.
After it’s all over, I wait for him in the breezeway outside the football facility, counting the minutes. When he finally walks up, freshly showered and grinning like the Reeve I’ve known since the first time I looked at him, I jump into his arms. He kisses me hard, nipping at my mouth and digging his fingers into my thighs and my ass like he’s been storing up all the fevered excitement he earned on the field and saving it for me.
We don’t let go of each other on the short ride to my place. I want to tell him I’m proud of him, that seeing him take the field and win the game and draw that deafening cheer from the crowd lit me up like I was high. But back in my apartment, my hands and my mouth say it better than any words could. It’s not my victory and he’s not my man, but it feels that way, and tonight all I want to do is feel.
We make use of every surface, my tiny bedroom transformed into our playground. The desk, the floor, the windowsill, the bed. He warns me that tomorrow he’ll barely be able to lift his arm, but tonight his strength and energy are boundless. He pores over my body like I’m his only job in the world, like he’s left behind winning on the field and now all he wants is this. The man who could have any prize has picked me.
I barely register the influx of rings and beeps coming from his phone all night. But hours later, when we lie on my bed with the covers flung aside to let the ceiling fan cool our overheated bodies, I remember.
“You must have a lot of calls to return,” I say. “The fans are hungry for their hero.”
“No fans have my number.” He takes my hand and places it on his chest. “Unless we’re counting you.”
“It’s not your football skills that I’m a fan of.” I press my nails into his chest. “So if it’s not fans, then who’s blowing up your phone all night?”
He closes his eyes. “Friends. Guys from the team.”
“And girls?”
“Maybe.” He smiles behind closed eyes. “Okay, probably.”
“And what do they all want from number twenty-seven?”
“They just want to make sure I’m not dead. This is the first time in two years I haven’t been out on a Saturday night after a game.”
“Who were you home with on that legendary night?”
“Food poisoning.”
“Well, I guess I win this round.” I look at the clock. “It’s not even one. Don’t let me stop you if there’s a party calling your name.”
Reeve rolls onto his side to look at me. “Stop me? Girl, you own me. You know you do.”
Of all the words ever spoken, these are the ones I want to be true. I stare back into his blue eyes, bright even in the semidarkness. People talk about falling for someone like it’s a metaphor, but that’s exactly what I feel: like I’m free-falling, weightless, with no idea where I’m going to land and not the slightest concern.
My body is spent, but I lie awake for a long time. I look at Reeve asleep next to me. Everything feels surreal: him asleep on my pillow, me adrift in a sea of feelings after I swore that feelings for a guy would dictate absolutely nothing in my life anymore. Maybe if I’d realized a man could ever make me feel like this, I would have known better. I’ve had more boyfriends than I want to remember, so I know well the high of the early-relationship phase. But this is different. First because I try to keep the wordrelationshipout of my mental vocabulary. Andsecond because this feels easier, scarier, and infinitely better than anything I’ve felt before.
It should feel scary to let go—to believe our connection is as true and as deep as it feels, to hope that this is only the beginning of us—but it doesn’t. It feels as right and perfect as that first taste of his lips.
THIRTY
jade
