#Awestruck (A #Lovestruck Novel)

by Sariah Wilson

  Evan offered me his hand and helped me back to my feet. Where I happily discovered that my limbs had started functioning again. He put his arm around my shoulders, hugging me to his side as we walked back.

  “So, good kiss, right?” he asked.

  Good kiss? Great kiss. Spectacular kiss. Life-altering kiss. “I suppose.”

  “What you’re saying is I did something right?”

  “Law of averages,” I told him. “It had to happen eventually.”

  He laughed and kissed the top of my forehead, and I felt a sparkling lightness that I hadn’t felt in a long time.

  Right as we reached the sliding glass doors, Evan said, “For those people keeping score at home, I’d like to point out that that was Kiss Number Two.”

  I hoped it was the second of many more to come.

  My family and I went to the Jacks game on Thursday (the Jacks won, thirty-seven to nine) and got to watch from the luxury box again. Evan and I had dinner together after at my place. Where he left well before either one of us could fall asleep.

  We spent the weekend in a kind of bubble away from the real world. I pretended like Brenda and my issues at ISEN didn’t even exist. I let myself talk to him, confide in him, tell him things about myself that I’d never told anyone else. We went out to dinner, watched movies, played some video games (where I maintained my number-one spot on the leaderboard).

  There were also a couple of times we shot some hoops, and Evan committed a world record number of personal fouls against me. Mostly of the holding variety.

  I didn’t mind.

  In general, we hung out the way a dating couple would.

  And our physical chemistry? Off the charts would be underselling it.

  He invited me over to his house for dinner on Sunday night. He was anxious about it, maybe even a little nervous, and I wondered why. We’d been alone together more than once.

  I texted Nia to let her know I would be in the neighborhood, thinking maybe I could stop by before or after my date with Evan.

  His house was even more impressive up close than it had been the one time I’d driven past it with the Owenses. Like it had probably had a moat at some point.

  I knocked on his door, and it took a bit for him to answer it. “Hey. I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Me too. Thanks for inviting me.”

  He kissed me quickly and then let me inside.

  Even though he made more money than any one person probably should make, his home didn’t have that designer-y feel to it. It wasn’t cold or modern at all. It felt very homey and cozy. Almost like the inside of a giant cabin.

  The kitchen, however, was totally state-of-the-art. “So you made me dinner, huh?”

  I was a bit worried about it because during a previous conversation he’d said to me, “I was banned from using the stove or oven for years. And I’m not going to tell you the whole story, but it was justified.”

  He shrugged. “I wanted to do something nice for you.”

  “But you cooked instead?” He laughed at my teasing. I laid my purse on the counter and went in to see what he was working on.

  “It’s chicken stir-fry. The YouTube video made it seem easy enough.”

  It was endearing to see him fussing over a frying pan, and I jumped up on the island counter to watch him. “Do you need any help?”

  “I’ve got this. The table is already set, and it looks like dinner is almost done. I just need to get a serving spoon . . .” He turned around and walked to me. He picked me up by the waist and moved me over two feet in order to get into the drawer under my legs. Like it was no big deal.

  I loved this feeling—where a man could lift me like I was a bag of flour that needed to be shifted over.

  It was . . . heady.

  “Let’s eat!” he said.

  I jumped off the counter and followed him. He pulled out my chair for me when I went to sit down. It was something I was becoming accustomed to.

  Evan served me first and then filled his own plate.

  “It smells really good,” I told him with a smile.

  Then I took a bite.

  And I chewed it. And chewed it. And chewed it.

  The chicken was rubbery, and I was worried whether it was cooked all the way through. And the more I thought about it, the more grossed out I became. But I couldn’t exactly spit it out because he was watching me, and it seemed so important to him that I like it.

  Then the spiciness hit me. He had put in way too many hot peppers. It was burning my esophagus, and my eyes teared up.

  My only saving grace was when Evan put a forkful in his mouth, and I could tell he was having the same reaction. “This is really awful,” he said, spitting it out into a napkin.

  Relieved that I could finally do the same, I got rid of my mouthful and then drank down the entire glass of water on the table.

  When I finished, I said, “It was really sweet of you to cook. And it wasn’t . . . that bad.” Even though it totally had been.

  “You have to stop doing that.”

  Did he mean the lying? “Stop doing what?”

  “Saying things that make me want to kiss you.”

  “Me saying your cooking wasn’t that bad even though we both know it was makes you want to kiss me?”

  He leaned forward and kissed me slowly, lingering, savoring me. The way I wasn’t able to enjoy his dinner. “I’m discovering that everything you say makes me want to kiss you.”

  Oh. I was okay with that.

  “I’m going to order some pizza. Any preference?”

  “I like just about everything.”

  He raised his eyebrows playfully at me, and I cleared the table while he made the call. “It’ll be here in half an hour . . .” Evan was staring at his phone, and he’d seen something that upset him.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I just saw a message from one of my college teammates. About our old coach, Coach Oakley.” Evan had had a full ride to a Division 1 school—with the best college football team in the country. “He was just fired from his position.”

  He sat down hard on one of the barstools, the shock evident on his face.

  “Do you know why?” I asked him. Those kinds of decisions were not made lightly.

  “This article says that he claims some of his players were at a party and tried to take advantage of an unconscious girl, and the coach stopped them. He was planning on kicking all the players off the team. And rather than cut the school’s entire starting lineup, they fired him instead. Can you give me a minute? I’d like to text him.”

  “Sure. I’ll just clean all this up.” I threw the completely inedible dinner out and put all our dirty dishes in the dishwasher. I wondered if Evan cleaned up after himself or if he hired someone to come in and do it, because I didn’t see a speck of dust or a dangling cobweb hanging off the twelve-foot-high ceilings.

  After I finished cleaning, I found him sitting on a dark-brown leather couch in his family room. I came over to sit next to him to wait.

  A few minutes later, he said, “It turns out that he’s moving up to Seattle. He took a job at a junior college there. He says the story is true. But the girl was his daughter. Somebody put something in her drink, and she called her dad before she passed out. Apparently, he laid a couple of the players out.”

  “That’s really terrible,” I told him, shaking my head and shuddering with disgust. That poor girl. What a nightmare.

  “I feel really helpless. I wish I could do something. I wish I’d been there. Maybe I can go up to Seattle after the season is over and see if he needs any assistance. I don’t know what I’ll be able to do. Maybe help with his new team?”

  I didn’t know what else to say to tell him how bad I felt for his coach and his daughter, so I ended up asking some random question in response to the last thing he’d said. “Is that what you want to do when you retire? Be a coach for an NFL team?”

  “No. During the season NFL coaches don’t see their families.
Players have a pretty regular schedule, but the coaches have beds in the offices down at the stadium for a reason.”

  He was uncharacteristically quiet and sad.

  “I feel so bad for her. That must have been really scary. I’m sorry it happened to her.”

  Evan nodded. “I’ve always been the kind of person who learns from other people’s mistakes. It’s another reason I chose celibacy. One of our tailbacks has a higher number of children with different mothers than the average first grader can count to, and his life is pretty hard. And the guys who do stuff like this, getting drunk and going to parties where they treat women like objects. They could have ruined that girl’s life. And is she the first?” He put his head in his hands. “I’m glad this kind of thing isn’t part of my life right now.”

  “I can see that. It still must be hard, though. The waiting.” As soon as I said it, I felt guilty. Like there was some part of me that wanted to make Brenda happy and was still searching around to make sure I had the total truth about Evan. I wished I could take it back.

  “I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t. I think about it a lot. Like when you’re on a diet and all you can think about is brownies? Because you know you can’t have brownies?”

  “I love brownies. Does it bother you that I’ve already had brownies?” I found that I was holding my breath. Once my feelings toward him had started to change, this was a topic that had occurred to me from time to time and concerned me. Would he look at me differently?

  “Of course not.” His reply was immediate. “Why would that bother me?”

  Relief flooded through me. “Some guys are possessive.”

  He absentmindedly kissed me on the forehead. “All that matters to me is who we are together, right now. And the past may not matter, but the future does. I want my relationships to be real. Someday I want to fall in love with my best friend. I read this study that said the level of emotional connection you have when you start having sex with someone is the level you stay at. And I know that I will want an incredible marriage, and I’m willing to do what it takes to get it. I guess my parents spoiled me. I want what they had. I want to love a woman the way my dad loved my mom. For who she was inside.”

  “Inner beauty doesn’t get you free drinks,” I joked, as the air had become incredibly heavy and serious around us.

  “It doesn’t. But it can get you a lifelong commitment with the right man. But that desire helps me to stay focused on other things. I focus on what I can do instead of what I’ve decided not to do.”

  “But don’t you worry about marrying someone and then finding out the sex is bad? Like you wouldn’t buy a car without test-driving it first, right?”

  He shrugged. “I think if you love someone, have a high level of attraction, and are committed to honest communication, you’ll figure out the other stuff. And you can tell whether or not you have sexual chemistry with someone. Like what we have.”

  Was it hot in here, or was that just Evan? “Oh? You think we have chemistry?”

  “The kind an evil scientist would use to blow up a small country. It’s why I hesitated to invite you over tonight.”

  “Were you afraid I was going to attack you and you wouldn’t be able to fend me off?” I teased.

  “You’d be surprised at the kind of stuff that happens. Like a couple of years ago, I had a woman over to hang out, and I went into the kitchen to get us some drinks while she used the bathroom. When she came out, she no longer had any clothes on. She was not happy with me when I asked her to leave. My home has always been my sanctuary. You’re the first woman I’ve had over since that incident.”

  That was incredibly sweet. And made me feel very, very special. I kissed him to show him how that made me feel.

  “What was that for?” he asked when I was done.

  “For being you.”

  “Well, I’m me all the time, so if you want to come back over here, I won’t complain.” He yanked on my legs, pulling me in closer. He leaned his forehead against mine. “And it’s so sweet that you were willing to burn off your taste buds for me.”

  “That’s just the kind of girl I am.”

  “I know. And I love . . . I love that about you.”

  What? What?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Even though Brenda had told me I didn’t need to bother coming into work, I now felt compelled to show up. Although I knew I’d probably lose my shot at a full-time job with ISEN, I didn’t want them to be able to say that I’d quit or just stopped coming in. I knew that I should start looking for another job. Because I believed Evan and thought there was no story there. Unless he was the most amazing actor and best liar alive, he was a virgin. No matter how badly my soon-to-be-ex-boss didn’t want him to be.

  I wouldn’t be able to give her the story she wanted.

  On my way in I texted my sisters and Nia to figure out what his “I love,” pause, “I love that about you” meant. Was it just a casual slip? Or had he wanted to say something more and thought maybe it wasn’t time? Or we weren’t ready?

  The general consensus from their replies was that they didn’t have enough information to proceed. Nia told me she had to throw up, Rory advised me to get with all that as soon as possible, and then Aubrey said:

  Walking into the office was one of the hardest things I’d had to do in a very long time. Everyone on my floor stopped and stared as I went over to my tiny cubicle and sat down. I had just switched on my computer when I heard my name being called.

  It was Brenda. “In my office.”

  “You’re in trouble!” Rand said with a smirk and a singsong voice, his feet upon his desk and fingers laced behind his head. I considered pushing on his shoulder so he’d fall backward but refrained.

  “Well?” Brenda asked as soon as I entered the room. She sat at her desk, glaring at me. “Do you have any updates?”

  There was nothing I could say that would make her happy in this moment, but I had to give it a shot. “I’ve talked to Evan, and—”

  “I’m not interested in what Evan Dawson tells people. I’m interested in the truth, and you’re not going to get that from him when he has an image to protect.”

  “Then no, I don’t have any updates for you.”

  She crossed her legs while she glowered at me. “I wasn’t joking about your job being on the line.”

  I’d never thought she had been. I had taken her very seriously. “I just don’t think . . .” I took in a big breath. This was hard for me, standing up to her. “I don’t think there’s a story there. I think Evan’s telling the truth.”

  Brenda just stared at me like I was the stupidest person alive. She did it for so long that when she spoke again, it startled me. “But you’re still pretending to be his fiancée. He’s getting something out of that. Shouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” I didn’t say that it was feeling less and less like pretend.

  “You’re not some shrinking virgin, too, are you?”

  It so surprised me that she’d said it that at first I wondered if I had imagined it somehow. But, given the look on her face, I knew I hadn’t. I’d have to check with Aubrey at lunch, but I was pretty sure that was illegal for Brenda to ask. And it wasn’t like I could go to HR. Her cousin was the HR manager. I knew he’d take her word over mine, and trying to file a complaint would just get me kicked out faster. I wanted to tell Brenda it was none of her business but couldn’t make myself say it. Instead, I just sat there, mute and unable to defend myself.

  She let out a sigh of disgust. “I guess I have to spell it out for you. If you’re dating him, I’m guessing it wouldn’t be too hard to seduce him.”

  It was like she had slapped me. After all of my conversations with Evan about this subject, it would be a total violation of him and what he stood for. “I . . . I can’t. I won’t.”

  She frowned at me for a really long time. “Then I don’t know why you’re still assigned to this story. You told me you’d be willing to do anything to br
ing Evan Dawson down. You’re forcing my hand, and I’ll have to assign someone else. Someone who can get the job done.”

  Someone who wouldn’t have a problem seducing him? Was that her endgame? If Evan really was celibate, then she’d find somebody to make him not be?

  Brenda pushed a paper across her desk. “This is an official reprimand form. On it I have noted your refusal to fulfill tasks that are assigned to you.”

  Was she serious? “Did you also note that you just told me to have sex with someone for a story?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ashton. I never said anything like that. It would be against the law and company policy.”

  Shock made my mouth drop open. It had literally just happened. But I saw from the expression on her face that she was serious, again. She would deny that she’d told me to seduce him, and everyone at work would believe her and not me. Especially her cousin.

  “Given that you’re Evan’s fiancée, and that you seem much more devoted to him than you are to this network, and how you’ve accused others in the workplace of jealousy, do you really think anyone will ever believe you?”

  All of that was untrue. Brenda had the experience, nepotism, and connections that I didn’t. She was feared and respected. I was just some nameless intern. She was right. Nobody would listen to me. They would all choose her side.

  Why wasn’t I like one of those women in movies who had their phones out recording when the bad guy made an incriminating speech?

  There was a big lump in my throat, and I swallowed it down. “I’m not . . . I’m not signing that.”

  “I’ll note your refusal to sign along with the date. That’s all, Ashton. You may go.”

  I seemed to be operating solely from muscle memory. I walked back to my desk, not really seeing where I was headed.

  “Aw, is your love affair with Brenda over?” Rand asked as I sat down.

  “Shut up, Rand,” I told him, the words sounding vicious even to my ears. I could not deal with him right now. I wanted to lay my head down on my desk and sob. Over being on the outs with Brenda. Losing my job. Worrying about what they might do to Evan. And instead of being able to cry, I had to get to work and pretend like nothing bad was happening. The sharks on this floor would smell blood in the water.