“I thought you southern girls all wore cowboy boots and listened to country.”
I let out a relieved laugh that it wasn’t any of the other stereotypes generally cast on me.
“What?” he asked, making a left by a strip mall.
“I just thought you were going to say something else.”
“Like what?”
“Like . . . you’d assumed wrong things about me.” I studied him, his jaw cutting a harsh shadow along his neck under the fluorescent lights above us at a drive-thru. “People expect me to be a certain way. Sometimes they don’t bother to get to know me beyond their own assumptions. And other times, they don’t like what they find when they do get to know me.”
He nodded and put the car in park as we waited in line.
“Like how I’d assumed we would eat at a real restaurant. A place with tables, chairs, and physical menus.” I raised my eyebrow at him.
He held up his hand. “Well, you know what they say about assumptions . . .”
“That sometimes they’re right, and it makes you look like an ass when you take a girl to a drive-thru?” I bit my bottom lip, which drew his attention. His eyes stayed there for a long moment before meeting mine.
“Greasy french fries always cheer me up,” he said with a shrug.
“Really?” I took off my scarf and coat, finally warmed up. “You seem like the type who never indulges in fast food. You probably survive on raw almonds and a couple ounces of plain chicken.”
“Assumptions make an ass out of you and me,” he said in a singsong voice, pulling forward for our turn at the speaker. “What do you want?”
“Fries. Obviously.”
He smiled at me and poked his head out the window to order two large fries and two sodas. He paid, got our food, and pulled off to the side by a gas station that was closed for the night. We settled into our food, and after a minute or two, Connor turned to me. “Gonna tell me what Spencer senior said to you?”
I shoved a couple of fries in my mouth. “Nothing, really. Just your average asshole-type stuff.”
“But you’re upset.”
I sipped my Coke, giving myself time to think. “I’m upset over a lot of things.”
“Want to talk about any of those things?” He shifted in his seat like he expected me to start spilling.
I pointed at him with a fry. “You don’t strike me as the type who is good with emotions.”
He bit my fry. “You don’t strike me as the type to be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” I said, pouting at my half-eaten fry before popping it in my mouth.
“You’re upset.” He became absorbed in something on the road. No car was in sight, but a streetlamp kept us illuminated. “I don’t want you to be upset,” he said quietly, clearly a secret he didn’t want to share too loudly.
I swallowed thickly. “First, we lost the game, which might take us out of division playoffs. Second, Spencer was—”
“Totally out of line,” he cut me off, shoving his drink into the cup holder with an audible thud. “I’d really like to punch that guy in the throat.”
“Huh. You and me both.” I polished off the rest of my french fries, and Connor handed me a couple of napkins.
“Is there a number three?”
I put my garbage back into the paper bag. “My dad.”
“You don’t get along?”
I played with the straw in my soda. “We get along fine.”
“Sounds real convincing.”
“Sarcasm is not one of my favorite qualities of yours.”
“No?” He smirked. “What is?”
I huffed haughtily. “The arrogance that you think I even have a favorite.”
He elbowed me. “I know you go home and write in your diary about me. Stop pretending.”
I mushed his face with my hand, and he took hold of it, keeping it in his grasp. There was something about the roughness of his fingers grazing my palm that I loved. I stared at our hands together, my fingers obviously feminine next to his. I loved that too.
“My dad and I have nothing in common outside of football. Sometimes I feel like if I hadn’t played as well as I did, he would’ve totally ignored me.”
Connor’s thumb smoothed the back of my hand, encouraging me to keep talking.
“I know he was heartbroken when my mother died, still is, and I think he didn’t know how to deal with me without her. So on one hand, it’s good we have this connection, but on the other hand, it’s not enough. For me, at least.”
He nodded, his eyes on mine, and I realized he might often be irritatingly quiet, but he was also an excellent listener. I supposed that was my favorite quality of his.
“Must be kind of lonely,” he said.
Lonely. That word hit a chord within me. It could have described my life, always on the outskirts. I had friends, but none I was really close to. And my family wasn’t much better. “It’s why I appreciated Sonja and Piper accepting me into their group, and Bear and Blake too.”
“Not me?” He actually seemed hurt.
“Aren’t you the one who wants my job? You said it yourself, you don’t like me.”
He let go of my hand and rolled his head back to the headrest behind him. I watched his lips work as if he was going to speak. When he didn’t, I gave in to my desire to take him in. And I did so leisurely, noticing things I hadn’t before.
Like the freckles that dotted his cheekbones, barely there, softening all his hard angles. The sleek muscle of his shoulders meeting the slope of his pectorals, the sign of his past as a quarterback, was shown off by his long-sleeved T-shirt as if it was made to contour his body. I imagined what his skin might feel like under that soft material, under my fingers. What the weight of his body might feel like over me. His kisses on me. His stubble scratching me.
He moved, turning his face to mine, and my cheeks burned. He couldn’t see inside my head, but with the way he surveyed me, it seemed like he somehow knew. Maybe from the way I breathed or how I molded my legs together.
I prayed he couldn’t detect the impure thoughts running through my mind.
It’d been a long time since I’d been with a man.
And with the way his gaze roamed over my face, I questioned everything I knew about this man. Every sarcastic comment and mean look we’d ever given each other was now suspect.
I asked myself it if was all some sort of weird foreplay—sexual tension wrapped up in pretending to hate one another.
Or maybe he really did hate me, and I’d just been out of the game for so long I hoped it meant something else.
“I do want your job,” he said, lifting me from my fantasies. He shrugged one shoulder, totally cool. “And your fancy office.”
I refused to smile at his teasing. “If I were a man, I’d have a fancy office.”
He nodded without looking at me, and I went on.
“You want my job, but you want me to forget all that and be best friends with you?”
“Best friends? I don’t know about that.” He shook his head.
I leaned in close. “What do you want?”
He remained infuriatingly quiet.
“Honestly, sometimes I could kill you,” I said, fisting his shirt in my right hand. If he was going to make me take the first step, I would. I yanked him to me and pushed the hat off his head. Maybe it was what had happened tonight, or maybe it’d been building with our antagonism, but whatever was causing this, I felt unleashed. I scrambled into his lap, kissing him like my life depended on it.
He didn’t seem to mind. With his mouth on my throat, he scooted back against the door, giving us both room to explore. One of his hands went to my hair, the other to my back, scrunching up my shirt, and his palm pressed against my spine. I ran my fingers up and down his chest, alternating petting and scratching, and he sucked in a breath through his teeth. The sound pushed me to dig my nails into his shoulders, and he rewarded me by holding me tighter.
We were overly eager, like a co
uple of kids, bumbling in our excitement. It didn’t take long for the windows to fog up, my heart beating just as wildly as my breathing, but I eventually broke away from him. His hands slipped out from under my shirt, taking the heat of his fingers away. But instead of letting me go completely, he hung on to my hips, pressing me down on his hardness underneath me.
“What now?” I asked, knowing my hair was a mess, my lips swollen.
He shook his head, eyes blinking at me as if in a haze. “I don’t know.”
CHAPTER
16
Connor
It was déjà vu.
After Charlie and I spent Friday night together talking and making out in my truck like we were sixteen, it’d been weird. Admittedly, I wasn’t great at relationships, which was why I didn’t have them, but we were already in one. Charlie and I had to be around each other.
Saturday during films, we were both aware of one another, but neither of us approached the other. And the only words out of our mouths were about routes, sacks, and downs. Saturday night, I caught a hockey game with Bear, and that nosy shit wouldn’t stop asking me about her. About how she was getting along, if she was fitting in well at school, whether or not she was dating anyone. I gave him one-word answers: “Fine,” “Yeah,” and “Why?”
Bear talked a big game about girls like he had them crawling in and out of his bed, which wasn’t at all true. We all knew he was not-so-secretly in love with Sonja, but him even asking about Charlie had me defensive.
“I’m just curious,” he said. “Anyway, she’s not my type. She’s kind of . . . plain.”
“Plain?” I lurched back.
He ignored me, clapping when one of the players checked another into the boards by us, but I couldn’t pay attention. I was too busy stewing.
Charlie wasn’t plain.
Sure, she was blond, not unusual, and her brown eyes might be dark, but they gave her a sense of mystery. They covered for her, and I never knew what would come out of her mouth. It was a surprise.
She was a surprise.
“She’s not plain,” I said.
“Huh?” Bear laughed at me. “What are you talking about?”
“You said Charlie was plain. She’s not.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Bro. That was like half an hour ago.”
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, refusing to acknowledge him. I didn’t want to give him any more fodder. Gossipy son of a bitch.
But it had me thinking of her all night long. Again.
And I ended up back in the weight room early Monday morning. Again.
When I opened the door, Charlie didn’t seem the least bit startled. “We meet again,” she said, hands on her hips. Today she wore long black leggings and a white tank top. “Eyes up, McGuire.”
I raised my gaze, but took my time in doing so.
“Come here just to gawk?”
“Arm day,” I said, peeling my sweatshirt off. My T-shirt lifted a bit, and Charlie’s attention snagged somewhere around my waist. I tugged my shirt down. “Eyes up, Gibb.”
She rolled said eyes at me, the corner of her mouth lifting in a sexy slant.
No, Charlie wasn’t plain at all.
We worked out together, saying nothing in particular, walking small circles around the big issue between us, but we buried it by fighting over what we listened to and a push-up contest. She did more in a minute than me, but her form was crap. We finished up, a sheen of sweat on both of our faces. She twisted open a blue aluminum water bottle, and without something to do, we fell into loaded silence.
The first kiss was a chance. The second was on purpose. But neither of us was going to be the one to acknowledge it. Instead, we agreed to meet tomorrow morning at the same time, and I started my day with a hop in my step. With no definable terms or any particular plays in mind, Charlie and I had made a silent deal to not make it a big deal.
Relaxed, just how I liked it.
Which was why Al caught me off guard.
I’d always found the teachers’ lounge too busy. Whether it was the clank of the copier, somebody cursing something like not having enough resources, or the crinkle of plastic and snap of carrots while people ate, there was always so much noise. But today I’d claimed my spot in the corner, away from the long table where most teachers ate, and opposite Mrs. Fay’s big art cart that had caught me in the side one too many times. Fourth period was the forty-three minutes of the day I had to myself, and I took them to eat and read the newspaper in peace.
“A bit old-fashioned, don’t you think?” Al said, tugging the corner of the paper.
I snatched it out of his hands. “You should know—you were around when it was invented. What’re you doing here, Al?”
He laughed, pulling up a chair next to mine. “I like to see that fire in you. Good, we’re going to need it.”
I opened the paper back up.
“Hey, put that down, wouldya?”
“I’m reading about our game on Friday.”
Al huffed. “You mean that humiliation.”
“Hey,” I snapped, putting the paper down. “I don’t—”
“I know, I know,” he said, shushing me with his hand. “If you were head coach, you would’ve won. I know.” He shook his head sadly, and I cocked mine. That wasn’t what I was going to say or what I was even thinking. “Listen.” He got up close to me to whisper, “I talked to Jack Spencer.”
I refused to whisper, knowing that whatever Al had up his sleeve, I wanted no part of it. “What does this have to do with me?”
“Shh. Keep your voice down,” he said, looking around conspicuously. No one was paying attention to us.
“Al, what do you want?” I checked my watch, annoyed.
“I want you to keep your head down and keep doing what you’re doing. Those kids do well with you. Keep it up.”
“Okay. Will do.” I rubbed at my eyes. There were only a few minutes left of my lunch, and I didn’t want to be bothered. I picked up my paper, and he smacked my shoulder.
“We’ll take care of the rest. Don’t you worry about it.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said, back to reading already. “See ya later.”
He walked away, and I followed him out of the corner of my eye. The conversation was odd, definitely laced with a disturbing undertone, yet Al was no sinister villain. He was a guy who counted down the days to his retirement. I knew he still felt ill will toward Charlie for firing him, but he was no serious threat to anyone. He could barely stay awake during his classes; he didn’t have it in him to overthrow the regime or whatever stupid idea he was floating around.
Before I could think too much of it, the bell rang and I headed to lunch duty, which was fast becoming my favorite part of the day.
I met Charlie at our usual spot by the side doors.
“Long time, no see,” I said in greeting, and she stood up from where she leaned against the wall.
I didn’t tell her how the few hours apart were starting to feel like a long time. We’d known each other for about two months now and had spent the better part of that either arguing or glaring at one another. I figured all this time together was catch-up.
“You seem so happy about it,” she said, sarcasm getting the best of her tone.
“I am happy. Do I not seem happy?”
“Your happy looks like this.” She stared straight ahead of her, mouth in a line. “And your sad looks like this.” She made that same face again. “And your angry looks like this.” She made the face with a slight frown, her eyes a tad bigger this time. She held it for a few seconds before looking at me. “Subtle difference, but most people wouldn’t notice.”
“You notice,” I said, and she nodded, shrugging as if it was no big thing. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that I was difficult to read. God knows I’d heard it enough times in my life.
“I am happy to see you,” I said after a while, and she waved me off.
“You’re going to try to charm me now? Be sweet to
me after all this time?” She shook her head exasperatedly, and I watched as her eyes drifted around the cafeteria, landing on a couple of girls at the end of the table fiddling with what looked like a small robot, a tiny smile flirting with her lips.
Charlie wasn’t exactly an open book either. She put up a tough front, and I knew she wasn’t happy that I’d seen all the tender stuff she was made of when I caught her crying this past weekend. But I wasn’t going to tell. I’d keep her secret.
“Is it too late?” I asked, and she turned back to me, lifting one shoulder like she didn’t care, but her smile told me otherwise. “I was reading the analysis of the game on Friday.”
“Ugh.” She raised her palm. “Don’t tell me.”
“Said it was a fluke.”
“I told you not to tell me.”
“They said the Otters are a different team, and are improving with every game. At this rate, we’ll make it to state.”
She dragged the hair tie out from the way her hair was done up all sloppy on the top of her head, only to redo that same knot. “Oh, great. The newspaper guy thinks we’ll make it to the end. My life is complete.”
“I thought you’d be happy to hear that.”
“It’s just more pressure.” She shook her head and exhaled deeply before shaking her head again. “If I’m a bad coach, it’s because I’m a woman. But if I’m a good coach, I’ve got to be undefeated to prove that I am. I can’t be so-so. I’ll either be the experiment gone wrong, or the coincidence. There is no average for me.”
And when she looked at me with those brown eyes filled with all that emotion—good, bad, and everything in between—it clicked for me. Her whole life she’d been trying to fit in the right box, and she’d never even gotten a chance to know if it was the right shape. A loss for any other team might have gotten a paragraph or two mention. For Charlie Gibb, daughter of Lloyd Gibb, it got a whole page write-up.
“Average is not the word I’d use to describe you.”
She shouldered me. “What word would you use?”
I thought about it for a while, fixing my tie so it lay flat against my torso, but she flipped it back out of place. “Antagonizer.”
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