But as deep into each other’s lives as we get, one area remains steadfastly out of bounds: relationships. Steven and Claire are not welcome in this house, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I don’t want to talk about Steven—I don’t want to ruin this lovely weekend by bringing him into it—but I am, as ever, dying to know about Claire. As I develop these new feelings about Lachlan, they’re accompanied by a louder and louder drumbeat of guilt and confusion about her. Where is she, what are they doing, is the separation real, why hasn’t he divorced her yet? I’m dying to know, but I take my lead from Lachlan and keep my mouth shut. After all, denial is the coward’s best friend.
As the night gets later, a change comes over him. There’s this thing that happens to his eyes when he scores a goal. They sort of glaze over with this almost manic look…It’s a visceral thing, primal. As the crowd screams at him, his whole body goes tense, like he’s been electrified. The rest of the team piles on all around him, but he’s in the middle like a statue, completely disconnected. I’ve seen his goal celebrations in person, but it wasn’t until I started editing video clips for socials that I noticed the eyes. Whatever emotion he feels when he scores is reflected there. It’s innate, intense. He’s tapping into some animal instinct about kill or be killed, a hunter yanking the spear out of the mastodon. Whenever I tweet a picture of him postgoal, I know exactly what I’ll get in the comments: hundreds and hundreds of people posting all manner of drooling, wide-eyes, and/or eggplant emojis. And I totally get it: It ishot. It’s the kind of look that a person canreally run with, just a hop, skip, and a jump away from him throwing you roughly onto the bed to claim another kill.
And that’s why, as I look at his face bathed in the firelight, I sit on the sofa feeling every single nerve in my body coiling in anticipation: He has his goal-scoring eyes on. Almost twenty years of constant training and the resultant 7 percent body fat have put to pasture any expectations about a Scotsman’s ability to hold his liquor, so as he warned me so many months ago, he’s drunker than a freshman at his first keg party.
We’re perched at either end of the sofa, and though it’s certainly big enough for us to keep to our own kingdoms, as the hours pass, our legs inch into the middle, drawn slowly together like dying stars collapsing into each other.
“Let’s play a game,” he says, somewhere around twoa.m.His eyes are dark but his smile is mischievous. “What did you Yanks do at slumber parties growing up?”
I cast my mind back to the days of sleeping bags and braiding hair and gossiping about boys. “Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board.”
He lifts up the blanket. “Not yet, but give it time.” He winks, a large, exaggerated number. As I smack his legs with a pillow, he smiles. “What about Truth or Dare? They’re always playing that in films.”
A shiver runs up my spine and I gulp my whisky to wet my throat, which has gone bone-dry. “Yeah, sure.”
“Okay, then, Truth or Dare?”
Hoo boy, okay, no foreplay, I guess: We’re doing this. My mind is spinning out a thousand different things that could happen if I choose Dare…so I top up my glass and choose Truth.
Lachlan’s smile widens, turning from mischievous into downright naughty. “Do you find Kieran Campbell attractive?”
“Ah, this old chestnut.”
“You have to tell me the truth.”
“I know, it’s just that I’ve never really considered it for more than the two seconds it takes to tell you I’m not interested in him.” I chew on my lip as I consider my answer—my honest answer. I don’t want the bad karma that comes with lying in Truth or Dare. “Okay, yeah, I guess objectively speaking, I do find him attractive. Beautiful skin, fantastic body. Great little smile. It’s unfortunate that he always smells like Axe Body Spray, but other than that, yeah. Definitely attractive.”
“I knew it.” He looks triumphant at being right, but also a bit dejected, maybe?
“Hang on, that doesn’t mean I want to date him, just that I think he’s hot. I also find Barack Obama hot, but you don’t see me going after him—largely due to the restraining order, but that’s just semantics.” I smile. “And why are you so hung up on this, anyway? Are you jealous?”
Lachlan frowns at me like I’m an idiot, like it’s the stupidest thing I could have asked. “Of course I’m jealous. He’s young, he’s in the prime of his playing life, he has a huge career ahead of him instead of maybe one or two more years like me, all his bones work, and then on top of that, he could also have y—” Lachlan cuts himself off and pivots, hard. “—He could be with whatever girl he wants.”
Oh. Oh, that’s interesting. Was he about to say…no, surely not. Lachlan cannot be jealous that Kieran could possibly haveme,not when I feel like I’m making it increasingly clear thatLachlancould have me. If we could just get around our tiny (massive) issues.
Still, the very idea of Lachlan being jealous at the hypotheticalof Kieran and me gives me palpitations. A heaviness grows, settles in between my legs. I want to play with his jealousy, I want to linger in this moment, this heat between us. I want to tease something really good out of him, because it’s been many, many long months since I’ve had sex, and even though I know it can’t happen with Lachlan, the whisky is making me want to push us as close as I can and hope my subconscious can finish the job later tonight. My voice is low and lusty as I ask him, “Truth or Dare?”
“Truth.” He takes a sip. “But make it good. Really juicy.” He flicks his eyebrows up at me at the same time as his big toe grazes my calf. Intentional? I don’t know. I don’t want to know. Because right now, I’m on a precipice. He’s definitely drunker than I am, but not by much. If I leaned into my tipsiness, whatever happens tonight could be blamed on booze, the ultimate scapegoat. I could ask him any number of things I’m dying to know, I could inch my feet up onto his lap, maneuver myself to be touching him, get as close to him as I want and not worry about tomorrow. But.But. A thousand buts. My job. His job. My heart. Hiswife. Is my plan actually stupid? Should I ignore my urges and steer us to higher ground?
But. He has his goal-scoring eyes on.
“You sure you want juicy?”
He nods, his impish Scottish grin curling above the rim of his glass as he raises it to his lips. “Make the nuns blush, McIntyre.”
“Okay then. What’s your favorite position?”
His eyebrows draw together. “Midfielder, obviously. Lame question.”
I burst out laughing. Oh, this precious man. “No, you idiot. Favoritesexualposition.”
“Ohhhh,” he says, the syllable traveling down his throat as hetilts his head back. He rests against the pillow and all I can see is the underside of his jaw, his throat, his collarbone, all gently vibrating as he hums. Then his head snaps back up and he takes another fortifying sip of whisky. “I think there’s really something to be said for anticipation. It’s a midfielder’s job to be able to know where the ball is coming from and where it needs to go to at any point in time. And sometimes when it comes to me, there’s this moment where it feels like the whole stadium is holding its breath, and I’m in total control of what happens next.”
“I reiterate that I did mean sexual position…”
He puts his hands up. “No no, I’m getting there. That’s what I like in bed too. I like to take a woman, throw her hands up over her head, make her wait, make her hold her breath while I decide what to do next. A little touch here or there, a pressure that I give and then take away, keeping her on her toes. And I’m waiting and watching and making her wait and watch. Teasing her with my tongue in her favorite spots, making her writhe as she tries to guess what I’m going to do. Take her to the edge but don’t let her jump.” He takes a sip of whisky, looks straight at me, and doesn’t check himself this time. “And then when you can’t wait any longer, when you’re begging for it, I let you have it.”
There’s a tightness in me now, a string begging to be plucked, and it pulls even tighter at the look in his eyes. I wonder if he can tell the effect his words have had, how turned on I am right now, how easy it is to imagine him making me wait for his tongue on me, in me, all over me, just like in my dream. As he spoke, our legs became even more intertwined under the blanket, to the point where my foot is now centimeters from his groin. The blanket is covering any physical evidence that he’s thinking what I’m thinking, and I want so badly to slide over and check, have him pull me onto his lap, have him flip me over and press me downinto the couch and make me beg for it until I feel like I’ll die unless he pushes himself inside me.
