by Lisa Suzanne
Chase’s smile broadens when our eyes connect. He looks at home here in this mansion, and I wonder if he’s feeling the same butterflies in his stomach that I am. He strides confidently toward me and takes me in his arms, and I rest my head for just a brief second on his chest, taking all the comfort he has to offer me. “Welcome,” he says softly into my hair, and then I lean up and we exchange a gentle kiss.
“Is this her?” a booming voice beside us interrupts.
Chase chuckles a bit and breaks our connection. “This is her,” he confirms. “Delaney Lockwood, this is Travis Watson. He plays for the Broncos, too.”
“The tight end,” I murmur, and Travis looks impressed that I recognize him.
“You’re a fan?” he asks.
I lift a shoulder. “Not of the Broncos.”
Travis laughs and elbows Chase. “I like her already.”
Chase tries to hide a small smile, but I catch it, and it makes the butterflies beat a little stronger. He grabs my hand and leads me under the staircase and into the expansive kitchen, which is connected to a family room where a party is in full swing. I recognize several of the guys sitting around a big sectional couch, eyes focused on ESPN, as players on Chase’s team.
“Sorry I didn’t pick you up from the airport,” he murmurs into my ear. “But I had a few guests who wanted to meet you.”
I grip his hand a little harder involuntarily as nerves take over. He’s introducing me to his teammates—his family in Denver, the most important people in his life.
This weekend suddenly got a whole lot bigger than just the two of us finding time to reconnect.
“You must be Delaney,” a man on my right says.
I nod and lift my hand to shake his, my eyes meeting his dark brown ones. He’s handsome, but there’s something shadowed in his eyes that makes him a little mysterious as well.
“Drew Cartwright, Chase’s agent. Nice to meet you.”
“You too,” I say automatically.
“He’s told me so much about you.”
Wish I could say the same...but considering the actual amount of time I’ve spent with Chase since seeing him at the reunion, it’s sort of shocking that I’m even here right now, let alone meeting his agent and all these other people who are important pieces to the man Chase is today.
Lucky for me, Chase interjects before I have to come up with some small talk. “Drew has become one of my closest friends since I signed with him six years ago. He secured some Nike ads for me and a whole bunch of other endorsements.”
“That’s great,” I say, not really understanding the full scope of what that means or who else Drew might represent.
“Look at him,” Drew says, eyes on Chase. “Women want him and men want to be him. He’s got the perfect jawline for print ads and the perfect hair for TV.”
It’s precisely that moment that I glance around and realize who is noticeably missing from this gathering.
Women.
I’m the only one with a vagina in this room, and it feels suddenly very strange, like Chase purposely didn’t invite any women here tonight, just the guys. Maybe he’s not close with other women, which is fine—but even when Gavin invited me to their hospitality suite after the appearance, plenty of women were mingling. Gavin didn’t chat them up, but he didn’t pretend like they didn’t exist.
And then I realize Gavin has crept his way back into my thoughts even though my hand is tightly clenched in Chase’s.
I don’t want him in my head when I’m with Chase, but the fact that he’s managed to creep in anyway tells me I’m not ready to make a commitment just yet...not when a huge part of me feels so divided.
I just don’t know when I’ll get him alone to voice my truth aloud.
“Oh, stop,” Chase jokes to Drew after the compliment about his jawline and his hair. He rolls his eyes, but I can see in his face that he loves the attention. “Who needs a drink?” he asks.
Drew holds up a beer bottle as if to say he’s all good, and I raise my hand.
“Good. I have your favorite.” He lets go of my hand just as someone walks up to have a word with Drew, and I follow Chase deeper into the kitchen for my drink. Even the kitchen is a work of art. It’s industrial with the concrete floors, black cabinets, and white countertops. The appliances are stainless steel, and even though from the outside this place looks like it would be a family home, the inside is definitely all man.
He grabs a bottle of Captain Morgan and a two-liter of Coke. “Captain and Coke,” he says with a cheeky grin.
I don’t have the heart to tell him that rum and Coke was my drink of choice when I was eighteen and illegally drinking whatever we could get our hands on. My tastes have changed in that regard, and a glass of white wine or champagne sounds like heaven right now.
I force a smile back. “You remembered,” I say instead of my real thoughts, and he winks at me then nods.
“Of course I did. I didn’t forget anything, Dee.” His voice is a husky murmur, and it sends shivers down my spine as I think about other things I haven’t forgotten, either.
A timer starts to beep, and he shuts it off then grabs a hot pad and pulls a tray from the oven. “And your favorite snack,” he says. I eye the tray filled with pizza rolls...again, my favorite snack back when I had the metabolism of an eighteen-year-old high school student.
This time my smile is genuine. I haven’t had pizza rolls since...well, probably since the last time Chase and I chowed on them in my old kitchen our senior year of high school. Back when everything was perfect. “Wow, you really didn’t forget anything.”
He holds his beer up in a mock toast.
Oh my. Rum and Cokes, pizza rolls, and a potentially drunk Chase. My night just got a hell of a lot more interesting.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: GAVIN
I stare out at the ocean as the last remaining rays of light are swallowed by the water. I’m grateful as always for this view, but I’m wishing I had her beside me to share it. My neck hurts since I’ve been sitting in the same position for an hour, my feet propped straight on the table in front of the couch, my head turned toward the view, but I can’t find the strength to move.
Besides, from this angle, I can almost still smell her on my couch. I can still feel her in my arms, taste her skin, relish the pebbled peak of her nipple on my tongue.
She actually went to Denver.
I get it, even though I can’t do anything about it—just like I haven’t been able to since the day I met her.
She needs to make her decision fully informed. She needs to explore both options to be sure she’s making the right choice
She always loved him, and maybe it’s time for me to come to terms with the fact that she always will. I told her once that I’ve shared her with him since I met her, and it’s the truth. I just thought time would’ve allowed her to move past him so she could move toward me.
My fear is that she loves him the same way I love her. That’s the thing that makes this so fucking difficult. The difference is that there’s nobody else in the picture for me.
But as depressing as that thought is, it doesn’t matter. She hasn’t said I’m out of the picture yet, so I’m giving her the space she needs to make her decision...even if it kills me to do it. I still have a shot with her, and that’s the thought I’m clinging to with everything I have.
A knock at my door has me forcing my head straight again, and I already know tomorrow I’ll regret sitting in the same position for an hour when I have a crick in my neck all day. Getting older sucks balls. “What?” I call.
“Don’t be a dick,” Liam says, pushing open my door.
“What do you want?”
He plops down on the couch next to me. “Are you going to sit up here all night? Or are you going to get your ass up and come with me to Raven’s party?”
I wrinkle my nose at the mention of Raven. “Why are you going to her house?” Raven is Liam’s sometimes friend with benefits, and for as much time as he’s be
en spending with Rose, I figured they were off-again.
“Because she invited me, a plus one, and you idiots. Dane and Ollie are in and I’m bringing Rose. It might give you a chance to talk about Delaney...” He says the last part in a bit of a singsong voice, like the only thing that might motivate me to go is that I’ll get to talk about her.
“You’re bringing Rose to the house of the woman you’ve fucked on and off for the last two years?”
He nods. “She’s dating some dude and it’s pretty serious, so no more benefits. Besides, Rose already knows.”
“Everybody’s growing up,” I mutter.
“Except us, maybe.”
I huff out a mirthless chuckle, because ain’t that the damn truth? I’m stuck in the same fucking place I’ve been stuck for fourteen years, just with a few more dollars in my bank account and a few more women who’ve found their way to my bed.
Except Delaney.
The unattainable one.
I grab the notebook sitting on the table in front of me and jot that down as a potential lyric.
“What was that?” Liam asks.
“Fuck off,” I mutter, adding another line that comes to me out of the blue.
“Are you going to be a bitch all night, or are you going to come to the party with us?”
I finish scribbling my notes and look over at him. “I’ll come. But fair warning, I’m not exactly in the partying mood tonight.”
“Okay, Chuckles,” he says as he mocks me.
“What time are you going?”
He shrugs. “Around ten.”
“I’ll be ready. Is Rose coming here?” I stare down at my table rather than at my friend.
“You that desperate to talk about Dee?”
Sometimes I really don’t know why I try to have a serious talk with this asshole. “So what if I am? She might have some insight.”
“Just don’t steal her away for the whole night. Besides, Dee’s off doing whatever, maybe even some other dude, so find your own hole to fill.” He’s smiling as he says it, so I know his demeaning attitude is in jest, but that doesn’t exactly make it okay.
Besides, the thought that Laney is doing Chase right now makes me want to pick up my couch and hurl it through the glass doors separating my bedroom from the open air of the beach.
I make a face at him. “Classy, Liam.”
“Is it what you thought it’d be?” he asks.
I know why he’s asking. I’d been half-dreading and half-anticipating the reunion, half-dreading and half-anticipating seeing her there because of course she’d be there, half-dreading and half-anticipating what it would be like after a decade had passed.
And it was like no time had passed at all. We fell right back into a friendship as if the last time I’d seen her was yesterday, but now I had the confidence of a twenty-eight-year-old man who has bedded his fair share of women and seen more than his fair share of success.
I vowed I wouldn’t miss my opportunity this time, and that was why I confessed my truth to her in the car on the way to the bar, why I had sex with her in my hotel room, why I was so open about my feelings.
I already lost her once. What was the worst that could happen by telling her?
Oh...right. She’d still choose Chase over me, like history repeating itself.
And now she’s in Colorado with him, even if she hasn’t said he’s the one she wants. I’m trying not to get my hopes up that she’s ending things with him in person. I’m also trying not to picture her fingernails scratching along his skin as he fucks her.
When you kiss me like that, I want it to be you.
Her words come back to me, and with a deep breath, I push the negative thoughts from my mind. Except it doesn’t work.
“It’s what I feared it’d be,” I finally answer Liam.
“Chase?” he asks, and I flinch at the mention.
“Of course. Why should things have changed an entire decade later? I’m too late. I’ve always been too late where she’s concerned.”
“Are you, though?”
I glance over at my friend before returning my gaze to the table in front of me. He’s surprisingly intuitive in situations like this, and he’s known about my feelings for Laney since...well, probably since they first developed nearly half my life ago. “You’re sending me mixed messages, man. First you tell me to find someone to fuck at Raven’s, and now you’re telling me I still have a shot with Delaney.”
“Have that cake, dude. And eat the shit out of it.”
I chuckle. “The only cake I want is in Colorado. But getting drunk sounds like a solid plan.”
Liam laughs and slaps me on the shoulder with enthusiasm. “Yeah! There he is!”
Two hours later, I’ve managed to down four Coronas. The beer itself reminds me of the beach—maybe even the very one outside my window, the one Laney and I looked at together not so long ago. The hint of lime reminds me of the day I kissed Delaney in my kitchen after she’d eaten a chip dipped in salsa.
These thoughts are detrimental mixed with the beer, but I can’t stop the visuals that have aggressively attacked me since she left.
And I’m not talking about since she left for Colorado. I’m talking about since the day she left me nearly ten years ago.
Since the day she thought she was doing me a favor.
Maybe she was. I channeled my emotions into music, and some of those songs are our top hits now. In her own way, maybe she knew what she was doing.
But now that I have a shot to get her back, I’m not going to miss it.
I’m sitting in a recliner in my family room with Dane on the couch to my left and Ollie in the other recliner to my right when Liam walks in wearing a face that I can only describe as satisfied. Rose is a few steps behind him, seemingly fixing her slightly disheveled hair.
“Looking good, Ward,” Ollie says, eliciting a chuckle from both Dane and me.
“Fuck off,” he mutters childishly, and Rose pats him on the shoulder.
“It appears someone already did that,” Ollie fires back, resulting in more laughs.
“Well, I didn’t think we’d have time for that, but Liam proved me wrong again,” Rose says, her filter completely gone since the rest of us have already pieced together where they just came from.
“Liam’s always been a quick shot,” Ollie retorts. He stands and heads to the kitchen, passing by Liam on his way, who slugs him in the arm for the insult. “Who needs a refill?”
I hold up my empty bottle as Liam and Rose take his spot on the couch.
“Have you heard from Delaney?” I ask Rose. I’m not sure I would’ve asked quite that bluntly three beers ago.
She nods. “Just to let me know she got in okay.”
I quietly process that, and a beat of silence falls over the room. I’m not sure whether it’s an awkward silence because I’ve managed to drink away my filter for such things already.
Rose turns to Liam. “Can I talk to him a minute or do we need to go?” Her voice is soft, but I don’t miss it.
“We have some time,” he says softly back to her.
“Gavin, come with me.”
I stand without argument, trade my empty bottle for a fresh one as Ollie presses a cold one into my palm, and follow the best friend of the girl I love out the front door and onto my porch.
“I know it feels hopeless with her in Denver, but it’s not.” Her voice cuts into the silence of the front porch.
“It’s not?” I ask with far more hope in my voice than I should be revealing.
She shakes her head. “She’s into you, Gavin. She may be with him, but I guarantee she’s thinking about you.”
“Then why’d she go?” I slide down so I’m sitting on the porch step, and Rose leans on the handrail beside me.
“Because he asked her to. Because she’s been head over heels for him since high school. Sound familiar?”
I shrug, surprised she knows so much about me.
“If she would’ve invited you to
some other state where she lived, would you have gone?”
I shake my head. “Of course I would have, but that’s completely different.”
“Is it, though?”
I look up pointedly at her with raised brows. “Yeah. Because I’m not wavering in my feelings for her. There isn’t another woman I’m interested in. Trust me, I’ve been through most of what’s out there.”
She raises a brow. “Keep the dirty details to yourself.”
I huff out a chuckle. “I’m just saying that she went even though she claims to have feelings for me, too.”
“She wouldn’t claim to if she didn’t.”
“But she’s not here,” I remind her. I pick at the label on my bottle.
“She had to do this, Gav. She needs to know him now, to know you now.” She draws in a deep breath like she’s trying to control her anger, but her voice rises as she talks. “A week ago, neither of you was a viable option for her future. And now...well, you’re asking her to leave everything she knows to go away for a year. He’s asking her to leave everything she knows to live in a new place. What’s she supposed to do, just drop everything for these men who supposedly are in love with her? You don’t even know her anymore!” By the last sentence, I feel like she’s yelling at me.
“Fuck that. Of course I know her,” I retort, standing so I’m closer to eye level with the woman yelling at me.
She shakes her head and tips her chin defiantly at me. “Where were you when she lost everything?”
“She cut me out, Rose.” I glance across the street to break up the intense conversation we’re having. “I had no choice but to give her the space she wanted.”
“For ten years?”
“The longest ten years of my fucking life!” I roar at her.
She takes a step back at the ferocity in my voice even though she knows I’d never do anything to hurt her or Delaney.
“It’s just all happening so quickly,” she mutters. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
I shake my head. “You don’t get to judge. I wanted to tell her how I felt, but I pushed it away because she wanted him. But you know what? The night of the reunion, every single fucking feeling flooded back to me the second our eyes connected across the room. I knew then and there that the hope I held onto for the last decade wasn’t futile. We might finally, finally have our chance, and I’m not going to fuck it up this time. If she needs to figure out that he’s all wrong for her by going to Colorado and seeing it firsthand, then so be it.”