It’s been four days since I worked up the nerve to go over to his house. What was born as a nerve-wracking shot in the dark to repair any potential confusion my hot/cold signals from last Friday night may have caused ended with a revelation. He’s hurting in more ways than one. It felt like he opened up to me. I’ve delayed my jog every morning since then, peeking out my window with my heart in my throat. I really thought he might show up.
That sticky feeling of being watched again prickles my skin. I catch Miles looking at me.
Right. I should probably act like I’m at least listening to the conversation since I invited him here to tag along with me.
“Um, I don’t get out of town very often. I work so much, and the new house has been keeping me busy with projects.”
“Hey,” he reassures me with a squeeze to my shoulder. “It’s all right. I’m not going anywhere. You know?”
Fuck my life. I owe Jamie a drink for calling that nuance.
I manage a smile, but direct my gaze anywhere other than at him. The last thing I need is to accidentally give him more encouragement. It turns out to have the opposite effect I hoped it would, though, because I feel his lips press against my cheek. It’s just a quick peck. It shouldn’t elicit instant nausea, even if I’m not interested in him. Add in the fact that I find Chris staring at me from across the room, however, and I’m well on my way to becoming fully ill.
What is he doing here? How long has he been here without my noticing?
He’s standing near a table in the far back corner of the room in a black dress shirt, the top button undone, and gray dressslacks. I spot a woman from a local news station who spoke to me earlier sitting at the table with her camera crew, and it all clicks.
Crap. I knew there were members of the press here. It escaped me, however, that this is technically a sports-related event. One that Chris is apparently covering.
He shifts his gaze away abruptly, walks to the nearest table, and sets down what looks like a glass of water. Turning on his heel, he starts toward the nearest exit. A sense of dread tells me something is wrong and that I might be the cause of it.
Whatever Miles is saying, I don’t comprehend. Squirming out of his hold, I mumble off an excuse without waiting for a reply, “Would you excuse me for a minute? I’ll be back.”
I’m moving before I can think better of it, fueled by a sense of dread, concern, and my Chris Mightener obsession. By the time I make it to the lobby, I’m breathless from my nerves and from hurrying after him.
The look he flashed me was so cold, weighted with disappointment. When I see his wide frame pushing through the exit door out to the street, I call out to him. Either he didn’t hear me or pretended not to.
Cursing under my breath, I practically sprint across the lobby. It felt like I made one step forward the other day at his house. Tonight, whatever he thinks he saw, seems like it could set us two steps back. Unless I’m just being conceited, and his scowly mood was about something entirely different. Outside, I catch him bounding down the sidewalk like a man on a mission.
“Chris!” He stops, and a fountain of hope springs up in my chest. “You’re leaving? I think they’re going to announce some—”
I don’t get to finish my lame excuse as to why he should stay before he cuts me off. “I think they’ll survive without some washed-up football player.”
His jaw is set so hard you could break a brick on it, and the wall of the hotel appears to hold more of his interest than I do right now. Did someone piss him off or make a comment about his accident?
“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“Why are you following me?” He snaps, sounding exasperated.
“Because… I care.”
“Care?” He snorts, turning to fully face me and holding out his arms. “Why?We don’t even know each other.”
Sucking in a breath, I muster the courage to say what I didn’t get to last week.
“I know, but I’d like to, though.”
He scoffs, and his shoulders go slack. The quick dismissal stings. Does he really only care about the physical? He’s still so drop-dead sexy he could get anyone he wants. I wish the way my pulse skips around him would stop if all I ever was to him and still am now is a piece of ass.
“What do you want to know?” He gestures with his chin, taking a step forward. “That my social life consists of a Rottweiler? That if you see me at a bar, it’s not for a night of laughs. It’s because I’m afraid that if I keep alcohol at my house, I’ll use it way too often to help me get to sleep. Did you want to know that I had to learn to walk again and have my parents help me wipe my ass for months? Or that shortly after I could again, I spent six weeks in rehab for a pain pill addiction?”
Wetting my lips, the picture he paints is brush-stroked in lead, the heavy, dark colors adhering me to the spot. Kicking a leg out, he stuffs a hand in his pocket as though this is some casual conversation that doesn’t mirror the barely checked anguish in his expression.
“How about how they don’t advertise that if you get a career-ending injury in the NFL, you only get the rest of the season’ssalary. And that I’ll be on disability for the rest of my life. Or how even though I’ve saved and invested what I could over the years to make sure I can keep the roof over my head, I still worry in the back of my mind that I won’t be able to manage it if I live to be a hundred. And while it doesn’t seem to satisfy my father’s visions of grandeur, the only thing I’m good for now is sitting on bleachers at high school and college games, writing articles about kids who hopefully won’t fuck up the way I did.”
The portrait turns into a cannonball that was just lobbed at the center of my chest. Each rise and fall of his chest creates new cracks in my heart.
“That’s not you. That’s just what happened to you.”
