Sway (Keeping Score Book 6)

by Tawdra Kandle

  I understood perfectly what she meant, but I knew myself too well to jump at the chance to fill that role. “I don’t think I’m friend material any more than I’m dating material.”

  “Gideon, I’m not asking you to prick your finger and take a blood pledge, and I don’t want you to commit to sleepovers and braiding each other’s hair.” She was exasperated now. “I’m just saying, if our paths crossed now and then, I wouldn’t be opposed to hanging out. We could be each other’s safe space at Leo and Quinn’s parties when we’re both invited.”

  I considered. “Okay, that’s probably something I can handle. We could stand in the corner and talk shit about everyone else.”

  “That’s absolutely what I want in a friendship.” Sarah’s dimples popped out, momentarily distracting me. “But we still need to kick off this friendship of convenience with an official swapping of secrets.”

  I groaned. “Seriously? Are you sure you’re not thirteen? This is ridiculous. Friends of convenience don’t need to know deep secrets. That’s part of the appeal.”

  “I’m not saying we’re going to tell each other everything. Just this one thing.” When I continued to stare at her skeptically, she sighed heavily. “Humor me, would you?”

  “Fine.” I waved my hand. “Go ahead, then. It was your idea, so you go first. What’s this thing that no one else knows about Sarah Jenkins?”

  Her expression grew sober.

  "I hate my father.”

  I was taken aback. This was not exactly the kind of shared secret I'd expected. "Okay. Do you care to clarify that a bit?”

  "Does it really need clarification?” She sounded slightly bitter for the first time that evening. “But fine. To be more precise, I don't hate him because he didn't let me have a puppy when I was six or because he did something nasty to me. Nothing like that. He was never around enough to do anything too sordid. But I hate him because of how he treated my mother. He did whatever he wanted in life, with no regard for my mom’s feelings or the needs of his children. He was not a good husband, and he was sure as hell was not a good father.”

  "In what way wasn't he a good husband?” There were many degrees of bad-spouse behavior, running the gamut from careless neglect to blatant cruelty.

  "He cheated on my mother. Constantly.” Sarah swallowed, and I could see that telling me this was more difficult than she'd anticipated. And she didn't really try to hide it. “The hell of it was that every time he came back and ‘fessed up, she took him back. And then once that happened, we had to move, because he’d humiliated her or he’d lost his job due to his flagrant fucking around. I went to seven different schools in nine years. So you do the math.”

  "Whoa." I groped to think of something to say. "That's… that's rough. I'm sorry."

  "I didn't tell you so you'd feel sorry for me.” She hunched her shoulders and turned on the stool so that she faced the bar squarely, not giving me even a sideways look. “That’s my hidden truth. I don't talk about it with anyone, not even my closest friends. Leo and Quinn don't know anything about my father. And I went to school with them both for a long time."

  I frowned. "You said you started junior high with Quinn and Leo, so you must've been in the same place through high school, right?”

  “Since eighth grade,” she agreed. “That was the year that I gave my mother an ultimatum. I told her that I wasn't moving again once we got to South Jersey. I told her that if she tried to make us move again, I’d file papers to become an emancipated minor. She could do whatever she wanted, follow my father forever, but I was staying."

  Holy shit, the strength of this woman was seriously impressive. “You decided this when you were . . . how old?”

  “Fourteen,” she murmured.

  “And your mother agreed?" I couldn't imagine the kind of relationship where I laid down the law to my parents. I loved my mom and dad, and we’d always had a healthy give and take, but I would never have dared to have told them what to do.

  "Well…" Sarah made a face. "Yes and no. She took me at my word, and we stayed in New Jersey. We didn't change houses or move away, and I didn't have to switch schools. But she didn't give up my dad. And as it turned out, it was to his advantage that we didn't follow him from pillar to post anymore. He was able to live his own life, to do as he pleased, without having to worry about us. He contributed to our upkeep and paid some of the bills, yeah, but he didn't have to pretend to be the loving father or husband anymore. He still came back into town—hell, he still comes back into town now and then to see my mom. I have begged her and begged her to tell my father that she's done with him, but she won't do it. She says he's the love of her life, and that she won’t ever change how she feels about him."

  Although Sarah spoke with an edge of derision and anger in her voice, I couldn't help feeling pain for the little girl who couldn't respect her father. I couldn't help having sympathy for someone who’d had to be an adult long before she should have. Which probably explained why I did what I did next. I reached my hand across the bar and covered Sarah's hand with my fingers, closing them slightly around hers.

  "I'm not giving you pity,” I told her, keeping my voice even. “But I still want to say that I'm sorry you had to live through all that shit. No kid should have to deal with it."

  She stared down at our hands for a moment in silence. "No, you're right about that," she agreed. "But there're a lot of things kids shouldn't have to put up with, and when I look back, things in my life could've been a lot worse. The truth is that I have a mother who loves me and has always done her best to raise my sisters and me as well as she could. In her mind, not divorcing my father was a gift to us, because she'd grown up in a broken family, as she called it. She’d always promised herself that she wouldn't do the same thing to her own children. Ironically, though, in her quest to stay married, she gave us a totally different legacy. And not a better one."

  "It's hard for me to understand that," I admitted. “You asked about my family before. Yeah, football is a big thing for all of us. It's true that growing up, it sometimes felt like the game was almost another member of the family. But I never doubted that my sister Gabby and I came first with my mom and dad. When I was little, I had a small speech irregularity. My mother moved heaven and earth to get me the best therapists around. They made sure I had everything I needed to be confident. Also, my parents are both still disgustingly in love. Sometimes I pretend to find that annoying, but the truth is that they've given us both a strong foundation and an amazing example. I don't know what I would've done if things had been otherwise."

  "You would have lived through it." Sarah's response was crisp. “You would have figured out a way to survive, and you would have been fine. I can see that in your face, Gideon. Shit may come down on you, but I can't see you letting it win."

  I wanted to laugh bitterly and tell her how close I'd come to allowing some pretty shitty circumstances to bring me down, but I didn't want to go there. Not tonight.

  "Okay, so I told you my secret thing.” Sarah smiled at me, and I noticed that she hadn't pulled her hand away. Despite all of my talk about being a loner, I had to admit that I liked the way her fingers felt beneath mine. "Now it's your turn to tell me one deep, dark secret that you don't tell most other people"

  There was one deep dark secret that I could tell Sarah; more than one, if I was being truthful with myself. But maybe that wasn't really my secret to tell. Maybe I had to find something else.

  "I hate where I live.” I blurted out the words before I could stop and think of anything else to say. "I hate the condo that I own, even though it's beautiful and in a great building and has a wonderful location. So, before Christmas, I talked to Ellie Iversen and asked her to help me find someplace else to live. She came up with this beautiful property. It's kind of off the beaten track, way outside the city. It's almost a farm, although nobody's done anything with the land for a long time. The people who own it now started to refurbish the house and got it mostly done, but before they
could finish, they decided to move to Europe. That's why they're trying to unload it."

  I paused, feeling the corners of my mouth lifting up as I thought about where I was going to be living soon. "I haven't told anybody about it, because I don't think anybody would understand why I want to move. But now I’ve told you. There’s my cement for our friendship of convenience."

  Sarah shook her head slowly. “That's not your real secret. Your real secret is the thing that you haven't said out loud yet, even though it shines through. It’s how much you love this idea. It's how much you love your new place, and how much you can't wait to move into it.”

  I shrugged, and now I didn’t even attempt to hide my smile. “Yeah, I guess maybe you're right. Maybe that is the most hidden part.”

  "Well, I'm really happy for you Gideon. If you're as solitary as you say, you deserve to have—what was it that they called it in the comic books? The fort of solitude or something like that? I guess this is going to be yours. And if you're going to be alone and have a fort of solitude, it might as well be everything you ever wanted it to be."

  My heart beat picked up a little bit. This chick … she had just put into words everything that I'd felt about my move. It was crazy that we’d only met a few hours ago, yet she seemed to get me more than people I'd known for years.

  “That's it exactly,” I murmured.

  Sarah sighed. I sensed that she wanted to say something else, but she didn’t want to ruin this moment. We sat together, neither of us moving for a few moments, until I let my fingers curl around her hand, just the slightest increase of pressure. Her eyes went wide, and as I watched, the tip of her tongue darted out to swipe over her lips. Such a little movement, and yet it had desire rising in me like I hadn't felt in a very, very long time.

  And then, slowly, she turned her hand over so that our palms were pressing against each other, and she closed her fingers around my hand, too. It was so simple, so uncomplicated. We were sitting in a bar, two strangers who had just met, holding hands, and yet it felt like the most intimate experience that I could remember.

  She swallowed, and I watched the movement of the fine pale skin over her throat. I anticipated what she was going to say before I heard her words.

  "Gideon, choosing to be alone is one thing. I respect that choice. But you know, there's nothing wrong with… connecting with somebody else in the short term. There's nothing wrong with channeling some of what has got to be a tremendous –" She hesitated, and I suspected she was searching for a phrase that wasn't going to offend me or put me off.

  “Look, this is what I'm trying to say, I'm not great with beating around the bush and flirting—wait, that's not at all true.” She shook her head abruptly. "I'm really good at flirting. Like, Olympic champion level good at flirting. It's one of my skills. But I usually use it when I'm not looking for anything deeper. I rarely flirt with somebody who I'm really interested in. And right now, I respect you too much to try and play a game to explain what I'm suggesting."

  Her honesty jarred me, even as it fascinated me. "I like straight talk.” I let my hand press a little more firmly against hers. "Go ahead and say whatever it is you want to tell me. I promise, I won't get offended and go storming off. I'm generally a pretty reasonable dude."

  She laughed, and the sound reminded me of earlier in the evening, when I'd noticed her the first time. It was a sound that went straight to my core and lit a fire that I thought had long since gone dead. Like a fire, it was dangerous. But the temptation to let it burn was undeniable.

  "Okay, then, cards on the table." She lifted her chin, and there was both challenge and humor in her gaze. “Come upstairs with me to my room for tonight, Gideon. The truth of the matter is, even if you find that you are perfectly able to sublimate your . . . baser needs, we’ll say, for lack of a better term, I'm not. I haven't gotten laid in almost six months, and I'm horny as hell. I don't want to date you. I don't want a relationship—beyond our friendship of convenience, of course.” She winked. “Like I said, I don't date athletes. But I'm thinking tonight that I could quibble about the rules and take one to bed with me."

  I'd known where she was heading. I had suspected that this was what she was going to suggest. Still, the way that she made her case left me without the ability to speak for a moment.

  "Oh, and if for some reason I wasn't clear enough, if I left anything to chance, I mean you, Gideon. I mean, you're the athlete I want to take to bed tonight."

  I coughed, covering my mouth with my free hand, unwilling to end the connection with Sarah just yet. I hadn’t decided how I was going to answer her, but I still liked feeling her touch on my skin. "

  “Yeah, I got that." I quirked one eyebrow. “I'm not a dumb jock, if that's what you were thinking."

  "I never thought you were. But that's not an answer, Gideon. I want to know if you're going to come spend the night with me. No strings attached."

  "It's been a very long time.” My voice was hoarse. "Longer than six months for me. Longer than . . . well, long enough. I won't deny that I'm tempted."

  My head was whirling. There were so many reasons to say no, to turn around and go back home, to forget that Sarah had even made this suggestion. But there was one reason that was stronger than all the others to politely decline, to run away, and that was Sarah herself and the attraction I felt toward her.

  If I hadn’t been drawn to her, it would've been easy to say yes. But I sensed that walking away from Sarah Jenkins was going to be a whole hell of a lot harder than what she could understand.

  However, it turned out that I'd made my decision even as I was grappling with the pros and cons in my mind.

  “Okay.” Once again, when I spoke my own answer, it surprised even me. “Okay, yes."

  4

  Sarah

  It was the longest damn elevator ride of my life.

  Gideon and I stood next to each other, close enough that we could have been touching—but we weren’t. Another couple and an elderly man, who was dressed to the nines in a bowtie and was holding a hat, were along for the ride, and none of us was saying a word.

  I didn’t know about Gideon, but my body was humming, alive with anticipatory energy. My lady bits were singing a song of glee, and my heart was thudding against my ribcage at an alarming rate.

  My brain, however, was second-guessing everything.

  I hadn’t planned to invite Gideon upstairs with me for sex. Sweet Jesus, I hadn’t even planned to ask him back to my hotel for a drink. All of it had just . . . happened.

  The truth was that I’d been keeping my eye on him all night, since I’d first laid eyes on that very fine specimen of man. I had been chatting with Leo and his brother Danny, laughing about something that had happened years ago, when my gaze had locked on a guy who was definitely checking me out. Except . . . was he? He was staring, yes, but there wasn’t a hint of invitation in his expression. He almost seemed offended by me, or maybe just slightly angry, which was puzzling and a little annoying, considering I had no fucking clue who he was.

  Later, when Zelda had introduced us, the pieces fell into place. This was the enigmatic Gideon Maynard, quarterback for the Richmond Rebels, the man of whom Leo and Quinn spoke of with admiration, even as they admitted they really didn’t know him well.

  “I don’t think anyone really knows Gideon,” Quinn had confided in me on one of my visits to see Leo play. “He’s very . . . aloof. He keeps to himself. Leo says he’s passionate about the game, and he’s invested in the team, but off the field, he goes his own way. The only person he thaws out a little for is Ellie. He seems to have a special place in his heart for her, and who can blame him?”

  I hadn’t given him much thought beyond that short conversation with Quinn. But now, seeing him in person, I was intrigued. Talk about the strong silent type: Gideon Maynard was the embodiment of that trite old description. He was tall, towering over me by a good five inches, I figured; still, in a room filled with hulking football players, that didn’t ma
ke him the biggest guy around. He was built, and his well-cut dress shirt and suit pants didn’t hide that at all. His hair was blond, and while I remembered that he’d kept it short during the season, he’d allowed it to grow out a bit now. He had a straight nose, an angular jaw and a set of full, sensuous lips.

  But it was the eyes that caught me and didn’t let me go. His eyes were a fathomless deep blue, and I felt with unyielding certainty that mining those depths would be quite the experience.

  Gideon had been polite if reserved when we were introduced. And I’d had the distinct impression that he’d been on the verge of excusing himself to run away, but he’d been thwarted by the fact that Corey had begun the toasts at that exact moment.

  Since we’d all turned to face the speakers, I’d been able to watch Gideon without worry about being caught. He stood there stiffly, and a casual onlooker would’ve assumed that he was being polite, giving his attention to Leo’s dad as he went on and on about his son and Quinn . . . but I was close enough that I noticed how Gideon’s gaze darted over the crowd. I saw the tension in his jaw. And I took note of the way in which he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

  As much as I was always a woman who made plans and executed them, I might have had a teeny problem with impulse control. I didn’t always stop and think through every decision when it came to the opposite sex. That was why I didn’t hesitate to step forward and whisper into Gideon Maynard’s ear, which was definitely something that took him by surprise.

  That conversation had led to the hotel bar, which had led to more conversation, which had led us . . . here, to this elevator, where I was either going to melt from the awkwardness of the situation or explode with pent-up need.

  Either way, it was bound to be messy.