He gave me a bored expression and, leaving the door hanging open, strolled around the hood to the driver’s side. I stepped up into the cab at the same time he did and buckled in. The radio turned on to some annoying fast-paced punk song, and I reached out to tune in to a different station. He slapped my hand away.
“Hey! I’m a guest in this vehicle.”
“And I’m the driver,” he said, starting down the road.
“Will we ever agree on anything outside of football?” I asked.
He ventured a glance at me. “We don’t always agree even on the field.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “Because you hate that I’m in charge.”
At a red light, he cut his eyes to me. Could’ve melted steel.
“Now you’re wishing you could toss me out of the car?” I guessed.
The light turned green, and he shrugged. “Something like that.”
I folded my arms and stared out the window, wondering if it should feel comfortable to be sitting next to my assistant coach and self-described enemy, doing this weird push-pull.
“I know you lied,” he said after a while.
“Huh?” I turned to him.
“About your car and whatever else you said you had to do today.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
I huffed defensively. “Am not.”
“I saw your car parked on the next block back.”
“Damn, I thought I’d gotten away with it.”
“Why?” he asked as we drove down a street with a rainbow of businesses lighting up the dark sky.
“I don’t know.”
He waited in perfect silence until I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“So you wouldn’t think I was a loser who sat at home by herself,” I confessed. But as proof of my loserdom, after two months of living in this city I had no idea where we were.
He hmmed, but didn’t actually speak any words. Honestly, his silence was the worst form of torture.
“Just say what you want to say! Jeez, you’d make Mother Teresa lose her temper.”
“Don’t yell at me in my own truck.”
“I’m not yelling.”
“Your voice is raised.”
I clucked my tongue. “You are impossible.”
“And you have no chill.” He kept his eyes on the road the whole time, even more irritating that he could argue with me like he was listing his grocery order.
I pressed my hand to my chest. “I have no chill?” I remembered the group of girls in my third-period gym class who hated to participate and thought I couldn’t see them fiddling with their cell phones. They’d told me I had no chill when I made them hand ’em over. “I am chill. You have no chill,” I countered, sounding beyond lame.
He laughed, and then I laughed, and then we sat smiling at each other once he’d parked.
“You ready for me to kick your ass?” he asked, swinging his door open.
“Ha. Like you could.”
Turned out neither one of us could, not with Piper offering Blake sexual favors in return for his Boardwalk real estate. They were sickeningly sweet. And I envied it.
Blake whispered something in Piper’s ear, making her crack up just as McGuire’s phone rang. He breathed out a silent sigh of relief that I don’t think they noticed. He didn’t seem to find their antics as romantic as I did. He peeked down at the screen and answered quickly: “Hey Kim.” He stepped a few feet away, and I barely caught it when he said, “Tonight? I might be able . . .”
“Who actually calls anyone anymore?” Bear asked no one in particular.
Blake moved his hand to Piper’s back. “It’s probably that chick he’s been hooking up with.”
“Which one?” Piper asked, as if it was a common occurrence.
He shrugged, and I tried to sound as nonchalant as possible when I asked, “Does he hook up with a lot of women?”
“Well, you know him, doesn’t say much. Especially about that.”
“But he gets it more than I do,” Bear added.
“Anyone gets it more than you do,” Piper teased, and Blake high-fived her. “Why are you even here? I thought you were going to Chicago with Sonja.”
He kept his attention on the colored paper money in his hands. “Her coach said she needed to focus on the fight.” He didn’t seem happy about missing it when he rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
Piper and Blake exchanged a glance that I didn’t understand before he said, “I’m getting a drink. Anybody want anything?”
I shook my head as Piper lifted up her glass. Bear stood up too, saying something about chips and dip. I took a moment to gaze at a couple of the pictures hung by clothespins on a string along the wall.
“Pinterest?” I guessed, surveying the arrangement, and Piper laughed.
“Of course. I’m not a great cook, but I like to make things. Do you Pinterest?”
I reached for a pretzel. “Not really. I have an account, but it’s mostly sayings from wise women and recipes for fried chicken.”
“I can get down with that.” Piper smiled, then tilted her head in the direction of McGuire, who had put his phone away. “How’s it going with him?”
“Fine.” When she eyed me suspiciously, I inwardly pondered how truthful I should be. “We coach. We fight. We coach. We fight. We’ve got a good routine going.”
She nodded, pushing the game board over a few centimeters. “Should we play a different game? Monopoly takes forever.”
Piper might have been done with the McGuire conversation, but I wasn’t.
“Are there are a lot of women?” I asked, the words racing off my tongue. “With Connor, I mean.” His first name felt foreign when I said it.
Her green eyes flicked up to mine, lighting with interest. She held back a smile as best she could. “You guys never talk about that?”
I shook my head. “We talk about the I and shotgun formations, but never girlfriends.”
Piper blinked. “I have no idea what you just said about shotguns and eyes, but Connor doesn’t have girlfriends.”
“No?” I sipped my wine.
“Not really, no. Just hookups. I don’t know much but”—she leaned closer, whispering—“I’ve heard stories. Like this one woman was a sex columnist for a women’s magazine and tested out some BDSM tips on him for her article.”
My cheeks heated, but I remained quiet as Piper went on.
“I don’t know the details because it was a while ago, but could you just imagine Connor with chains and whips?” She laughed to herself.
I forced myself to laugh to cover up the odd feeling in my belly that gurgled and bubbled as if I’d drunk too much soda and the fizz was going straight to my head. It didn’t feel good, thinking about him with other women.
Piper’s attention floated to the kitchen for a moment. “This is all secondhand knowledge through Blake, but apparently some girl named Alison broke his heart, and now he tends to go for divorcées and women who’ve seen something of the world. You know what I mean?”
I didn’t, but I tucked that bit of information away. Bowls and glasses clinked behind us, and I glanced back to see the trio of men returning. Connor’s hat was turned backward, giving him a boyish appearance, and a fist squeezed my heart. As he sat down next to me with a nudge to my shoulder, I wondered if he thought I was just one of the guys. Or, with his gaze settling somewhere around my thigh, if maybe he saw me as something more.
Or maybe he just had a thing for leggings.
Monopoly dragged on for another hour before we all finally gave up, too mentally exhausted to try another game. We said good-bye, and I got hugs from Piper, Blake, and Bear, like I was one of the gang.
“Looks like you won’t have to make up plans next time,” Connor said, once we were back in his truck.
I nodded. “Maybe we can finally get around to playing Clue.”
“So you can murder me with a wrench?”
“I heard you prefer r
opes.”
He glanced at me with a confused face.
I’d learned a lot about him tonight, and I didn’t know where or how to begin dissecting it. “A little birdie told me you might be into a little kink.”
“A little birdie named Piper?” When I didn’t answer, he grumbled, “This is exactly why I don’t tell people shit.” And then went silent for six minutes.
I watched each one pass on the digital clock on his dashboard.
“You’ve got a lot of notches in your bedpost?”
His grip tightened on the steering wheel. I couldn’t see it in the dark, but I heard the whine of the leather. “That’s none of your goddamn business.”
“What did I tell you about taking the Lord’s name in vain around me? God has nothing to do with this.”
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” he bit out. “You’re pushy with other people, but stubborn as hell when other people try to push you. You’ve got no problem speaking your mind, but you don’t know when to shut your mouth. You curse like a sailor but are offended by saying G-O-D. What is your deal?”
I inwardly flinched at his accusations, more examples of how I didn’t make sense to other people, to him. I swallowed. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—let it affect me.
“You’re the one who refuses to answer any questions. What does that make you?”
He parked in front of my house and breathed audibly. The leather creaked again. I touched the button above our heads to turn the light on, determined. “Who is Alison?”
He kept still as a statue. A beautifully irate, sharp-jawed statue.
“Connor.”
At his name, he whipped around to face me, and I swallowed, the thought to stop baiting him running out of my mind as quickly as it’d raced in.
“No one,” he said finally.
I circled my finger around his face. “She’s obviously someone if you’re making your angry face.”
“I don’t have an angry face.”
“Yes, you do,” I said breezily. This was what we were good at, lobbing barbs back and forth. This was comfortable. The other stuff, the soft gazes and slight touches—that was the new, awkward stuff. “It’s not obvious to someone who isn’t trained in the art of conducting animosity from you. But I am a professional in earning your hate-filled glares.”
“I don’t hate you, Charlotte.” He seemed to enjoy my discomfort at his use of my given name. “I just dislike a lot of things about you.”
“I’m sure you stay up every night thinking about me, listing all the things you dislike.”
He barked out a single laugh and shook his head. “You have no idea.” He took his hat off and dropped it on the dash with a sigh, then considered me seriously. “You really have no idea.”
I refrained from combing my fingers through the light-colored strands that stuck straight up in the back like Alfalfa’s. I had some idea.
I tried again. “Who is Alison?”
“A woman.”
“I assumed as much. Who was she to you?”
“An ex. We broke up a lifetime ago.”
“Oh.” I played with the hair ties on my wrist, and two long, thick fingers lined up next to my own. I gulped in a breath of air.
“How many of these do you actually need at a time?”
I kept my gaze down so he couldn’t read anything on my face as his calloused fingers skimmed over my skin. “One, but that’s not the point. You never know when you’ll need another.” I shook him off, not to be distracted, no matter how good he was at it. “Are you going to tell me about her?”
“No.”
“What about Kim?”
“What about her?”
I sighed. “Your newest hookup who called you. Are you going to see her tonight?”
His lips ticked up in the corner like he’d caught me stealing a cookie from the jar. “Why do you care?”
“I don’t.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I am not.”
His mouth spread to a wicked smile. “What’s that quote? ‘The lady doth protest too much’?”
I growled and, like a child, resorted to violence. I thumped his shoulder with the side of my fist, but he didn’t let me pull back. I felt the distinct pressure of each of his fingertips as they wrapped around my wrist, and before I knew it, his mouth was on mine, kissing me.
Then I kissed him back.
And the world was upside down.
But with his lips—a little velvety, a lot demanding—I didn’t care if I floated away into space. We were already in a different dimension.
He let go of my arm and moved both hands to my head, pulling my hair tie out with ease to let my hair drape against my shoulders. His fingers dug into it. Weeks of resentment, irritation, and fury had bubbled up and burst through our bodies, and I couldn’t get enough, finding my own hold on him. I squeezed the soft material of the T-shirt over his chest, yanking him closer, anchoring me to him. Like every argument we’d had, we fought with everything—lips, teeth, tongue—caressing, nibbling, and sucking.
He tilted my head, allowing me to catch my breath and, along with it, my brain. We came back to earth slowly, and I released my fingers from his shirt.
My offensive coordinator had kissed me. I’d kissed him back. “What the hell was that?”
He blinked and backed away from me by an inch, but not enough for me to escape the heat from his body. He blinked again, his eyes finding focus, then licked his bottom lip. Purposefully.
“I don’t know, but stop staring at my mouth.”
I zipped my attention up, and he laughed. A deep, rich sound I didn’t know he’d been hiding.
“If I knew that would shut you up, I would’ve done it a long time ago. You’re much less aggravating when otherwise occupied.”
“Only you could turn a good kiss sour.” I got out of the car, half expecting him to stop me, to do something. He didn’t. I refused to look at him until I was at the door. He was leaning forward in his seat, watching me. Once I was inside, I heard his truck rumble and drive away.
“Bastard.”
CHAPTER
14
Connor
Holy shit.
Holy fucking shit.
It’d been a constant chant in my head since Saturday night.
I’d been so wrapped up in trying to keep Charlie Gibb at arm’s length that she sneaked up on me.
Or I on her.
I didn’t know who’d done what anymore.
For sure, though, this wasn’t a one-way street. We’d been going full-tilt at one another for a while now. I suppose we had to collide at some point. I just never thought it’d be with our lips.
Jesus, her lips.
And this time it wasn’t in vain. Her mouth, which she usually used to toss a few sharp words at me, was a miracle, and I offered up thanks. She was right about me: I did stay up thinking of her, just not in the way she assumed. And now, after I’d had a taste, a tease of what she had inside her, I wanted more.
When, where, or how didn’t matter. But it did give me a lot of grief.
We taught at the same school. We coached the same football team. She was the head coach. My boss. I didn’t know what I was thinking.
Because I wasn’t thinking.
One minute we were arguing, the next kissing, and I’d been suffering from whiplash ever since. I was restless, buzzing with angst, not used to feeling out-of-control. This was why I kept my romantic encounters short, a few weeks at most. And with women who were usually older than me, who knew what they wanted. No questions, no thinking. A simple yes or no.
With Charlie? There were no easy answers.
And after tossing and turning for a second night in a row, I got up early and packed my work clothes. Normally I exercised at night, but I needed to work out some of this energy, so I headed to the weight room at school. At this time of day, it’d be empty.
I got my keys out to unlock the door, and promptly dropped them on th
e floor as soon as I opened it. “What are you doing here?”
Charlie jumped up from where she was bent over. “What are you doing here?”
I picked up my keys and shut the door behind me. “I’m here to work out.”
“Me too.” She pushed a twenty-five-pound plate onto a bar at the squat rack. “I come here every morning.”
“You do?” I put my bag down in the corner, next to the speaker her phone was plugged into, playing an annoyingly upbeat song.
“Yeah.” She gave me a reproachful frown in the mirror’s reflection. “If I’m going to ask the kids to give it their all, I’m going to too.”
“Your music is garbage. How do you work out to this?”
She flipped me off, and I watched her set up, bare arms on display as she held on to the bar on either side as it rested across her back and shoulders. She stood up, lifting the bar off the rack, and squatted nice and deep. Impressive.
Not only her physical strength, but her commitment to a work ethic people would never know about. She wasn’t all talk or hired for the job because of her father. She was here at six-thirty in the morning because of her dedication to the team and the sport.
She finished her set, the bar clanging onto the rack. “You’re staring.” My gaze raced up to find hers in the mirror, and she rolled her eyes. “I knew you had a thing for leggings.”
“What?” I put hundred-pound plates on the straight bar.
“My leggings.” She plucked at the stretchy material on her thighs, doing nothing to help keep my attention away from them.
I lay on the bench and gripped the bar above my shoulders. “No. Your legs.”
“You like my legs?” Her voice was uncharacteristically high, as if she thought it’d be impossible that I admired her legs.
I lowered the bar to my chest, breathing in, then pushed it back up on an exhale. “And your ass.”
A minute passed in silence as I mentally counted reps to ten.
“You do?” she finally squeaked out.
“Is it that much of a shock?” I sat up, waving my hand down her body. “You’re fit. You’ve got a really nice body. Face isn’t bad either.”
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