chapter eleven
Emme
Today’s Learning Objective:
Students will understand the assignment.
I hatedto admit it but the meal was not five thousand dollars impressive. It was very good, definitely better than anything I would’ve thrown together, but it didn’t come close to my expectations.
The expectations might’ve been the problem. I’d had it in my mind that every bite would be a gold-flecked orgasm or something. Maybe the gold-flecked orgasms were reserved for the twenty-five-thousand-dollar dinners.
Here was what I thought would happen: Lots of air-kiss schmoozing with snooty people who had snooty things to say while drinking snooty cocktails like rye on the rocks or pisco sours. Ryan would just glad-hand his way through it like the media-trained superstar he was while I’d smile and make innocuous chatter likesuch an important causeandaren’t the flowers a wonder?
What actually happened: There was a small stampede to get a photo with Ryan, andeveryone—even the actually snooty people with their foamy pisco sours—wanted all the insiderfootball gossip. They wanted the drama going down between the coaches, managers, and owners, they wanted the scoop on trades and draft picks, they wanted to know if the fast receiver with good hands was on the road to recovery after another knee surgery or if the tight end who had a knack for being everywhere Ryan needed him on the field would be extending his contract.
And god love him, Ryan handled every question like he hadn’t already answered it forty-seven times. He had a patient, natural way about him as he clapped people on the back and leaned in close to repeat the same evasive yet fully chummy response that he’d given everyone else, and these peopleate it up.
Once again, I was in every photo, but at least I didn’t have to say a single word about flowers. And it was a good thing, because with the lengths Ryan was taking all this performative affection, my body was stirring up some thoughts that I’d left alone for the past few months. I could feel the red staining my cheeks when he pulled me in close for a photo or he kissed my temple or he fitted one of those big hands around the curve of my hip and gave it a squeeze like he did that all the time—but with a whole lot less clothes. Every time his fingers traced the ball of my shoulder or followed the line of my dress across my back, more heat pooled low in my belly.
Of courseI was having naked feelings from some absent-minded petting—and a few kisses for the cameras that’d hit harder than any real kisses I’d ever received. The past few months had been lonely. I hadn’t bounced back from Teddy with any random hookups. Maybe I should’ve because I was damn near climbing out of my skin.
Surprising no one at all, I wasn’t helping myself in shutting these naked feelings down. I responded to all this coziness by slipping my hand under Ryan’s jacket and walking my fingers up and down the corded muscle in his back. Or dropping a lovinghand to his chest and then letting it slowly slide down the solid length of his torso to the abs that felt like cobblestones. I kept my hand there through several tedious conversations until Ryan snatched it up and lifted it to his lips only to growl, “That’s enough. We’re leaving right fucking now.”
“But—”
“No.” He led us to the door in long, quick strides that had me struggling to keep up. “We’re done here.”
“But dessert,” I whined.
We were almost to the elevator when we heard, “Ralston, get your ass back here.”
“Motherfuck,” he muttered. He cut a sidelong glance at me. “This will only take a minute.”
Turning around, I found half the New England offensive line ambling toward us, bow ties loose and beer bottles in hand. I hadn’t spotted any of these guys during cocktail hour and I would’ve, since they stuck out like sore thumbs. Very tall, very broad, very confident thumbs.
I pulled in a breath and let my eyes close for one final moment of peace before football crashed into my life all over again.
“Where the fuck did you fools come from?” Ryan asked, leaning in for one-armed embraces. He hadn’t released my hand from his hold.
“I thought I was supposed to pick up Wilcox,” said Crawson Bigelow, pointing to the running back, a thick-shouldered Black man with the kind of perma-smile that could thaw ice.
“I thoughtIwas pickinghimup,” Jaden Wilcox replied, pointing a baseball-mitt hand at the left tackle. Bigelows’s chest was about as wide as a freeway and he had a dusting of freckles across the light brown of his cheeks. Adorable. “So I was waiting outside his place for an hour, but he was at my house.”
“And both those motherfuckers forgot us,” said Trenton Hersberler, slapping Damon McKerry on the back.
“But we were playing Mario Kart and didn’t notice,” said McKerry, tossing his long, braided locs over his shoulder.
Hersberler, the tight end everyone loved and wanted to see on the field with Ryan for another season, extended a lightly suntanned hand toward me. “Hello,” he drawled, a stunning smile on his face. “Trenton Hersberler, though my friends call me Trent.”
“Your friends call you Pumpkin Dick,” Wilcox said.
He bared his teeth at Wilcox. “That’s not—no. That’s not true. It happened one time. No one calls me that.”
McKerry snorted out a burly laugh. The boy was half bear, there was no doubt in my mind. Just like all the other left guards in the League. “We do,” he said to me with a glazed grin that told me he was enjoying the hell out of his off-season. “Wanna know why?”
“My girl doesnotneed to hear that story,” Ryan said. He curled his thick arm over my shoulder, his palm flat on my chest while his thumb and forefinger bracketed the base of my throat like he could deflect the silly filth of locker room talk.
“No, actually, I’d love to hear that,” I said, beckoning to McKerry to hit me with the dirt. I glanced up at Ryan. “I won’t be able to leave here without getting that story. I’m in it now, and so are you.”
