by Luis, Maria
I hate myself a little for letting his words impact me so greatly. In the grand scheme of things, Dominic’s opinion of me means jack squat. So what if he doesn’t find me attractive? There are plenty of guys out there who don’t make my lady parts tingle. Attraction isn’t always a two-way street.
And there is your hang-up, my conscience announces like a little traitor.
I promptly shove it into a mental box and flip the lock. I refuse to give any more thought to emotional hang-ups, specifically those that include my ex-husband making me feel like less of a woman.
Big smile now.
It creaks across my face like the reaper of death.
You. Are. Grateful. For. This. Job.
“Having Coach DaSilva on staff will no doubt open some doors for us,” I tell the moms, forgetting about my smile as my love for coaching filters into place. “In the past, I’ve always capped off the end of football camp with a weekend retreat for the players. Every player—even those with families who can’t afford the expense—deserve to go.” One by one, I catch the eye of every woman standing before me in a semi-circle. If I can convince even a quarter of them to help me out, I’ll consider this a success. “It’ll be fun for the boys after two months of hard work, and it’s a great way to solidify their bonds and friendships off the turf, as well as on it.”
Meredith looks to the field, a pensive expression on her face. “What’re you suggesting, then?”
“A parents’ and staff meeting at the Golden Fleece,” I say, barely leashing my excitement, “maybe this Friday? It’s time to brainstorm and think of ways we can foster a family environment for the Wildcats.”
Instead of a volley of voices rising to meet the cause, I hear the collision of pads and the occasional squawking of seagulls swirling above our heads.
I look to Meredith, hoping she’ll help a girl out. She sways on her feet, announces, “I’m with you!” and then retreats back into the fold.
My clipboard feels like a hundred pounds in my arms. Sweat gathers under my pits. It’s almost laughable that I was put out that not a single one of my players was willing to go to bat for me at the watercooler. Here I am facing down the firing squad—er, their mothers—and I’m an army of one.
Life must be so damn easy being Dominic DaSilva.
I take a moment to meet the gaze of every woman staring back at me. “While I can’t promise that every one of your boys will end up playing for JV or varsity, I can say with absolute certainty that an experience like a camping trip will be something they remember—”
“Will Coach DaSilva be at the meeting?”
I feel my brows go sky high. “He’s our assistant coach, so . . . yes. His duties aren’t isolated to whenever he’s blowing a whistle and telling the boys to give him more burpees.”
“Oooo, we should have him do a naked calendar!” someone calls out from the back of the pack.
What? “Absolutely not—”
“It’s a calendar for kids,” Meredith counters dryly. “You all do realize that, right?”
“It’s also for charity,” Timmy’s mom declares, her hands folded demurely over her chest. “And we’re the ones in need.”
“I need to see his naked chest,” crows someone else.
“September ought to be the month we have him pose with his dick in a sock.”
Startled, I stare at the thirty-something-year-old woman suggesting Dominic wear nothing but footwear on his penis. She has the good grace to look sheepish when she catches my open-mouthed gawking.
Not sheepish enough, though. “The sock is to keep the picture PG-13,” she defends with a loose-limbed shrug. “Plus, September is my birthday month. Happy birthday to me!”
“Have you guys seen DaSilva on Put A Ring On It? The only reason I’m hooked is because he’s totally dreamy. There’s this one shot of him pulling himself out of a pool, and let’s just say, his dick-print is what wet dreams are made of. I mean, I’m guessing he didn’t win the show since he’s here and all . . .”
“Does your husband know you’re salivating over someone else, Belinda?”
Belinda, a blonde who looks like she spends her days on a treadmill, only grins. “May I present to you all what marriage looks like after twenty years, ladies? We each have a celebrity free pass. His is that actress from How To Lose a Guy In Ten Days, and mine is Dominic DaSilva. It’s like the gods have answered my prayers because here he is in little old London, looking fine as heck out there in those shorts.”
As one, the women peer around me to check out the view.
Don’t turn around. Don’t tell them you know that even unaroused, Dominic DaSilva is packing more down there than any guy you’ve ever seen naked.
Which isn’t a whole lot, anyhow. Two guys, including Rick.
Okay, minor correction: Dominic DaSilva is packing more than any guy I’ve ever seen, both in real life and in porn.
Sue me.
“I hope he jumps around like that all day,” Belinda breathes out.
“I swear I can see his dick bouncing in his shorts from here,” Timmy’s mom echoes in awe. “Five bucks says he’s not even wearing boxers.”
Sweat beads on my brow as I clamp my clipboard to my chest.
“Friday at five, ladies,” I say, hoping they can’t get a read on me. I can only imagine what they’d hear: Oh, Dom? Psshaw. A complete tool but whaddaya know? He is packing, ladies. The big kahuna, if you know what I mean. The Weiner schnitzel of all Weiner schnitzels.
Oh. God.
I clear my throat, my cheeks burning. “Meet at the Golden Fleece. I’ll email the rest of the parents. Please bring your spouses or any family members—anyone who would like to be involved in the fundraising process.”
“Who are you bringing?” asks Miss Dick In a Sock.
I lift my chin and hope all they see is a coach ready to do anything to give her players an experience they’ll never forget—even if they don’t make the cut, even if they get stuck on JV instead of varsity, even if their wish comes true and they end up on the front line.
“I’m bringing Coach DaSilva.”
Even if I have to drag his dead, limp body with me.
7
Dominic
Three.
That’s the number of times in my life when I’ve felt absolutely blindsided by fate or the universe or whoever the fuck is pulling the strings behind the scenes.
The first time, I’d been absolutely sure that my top pick—the Atlanta Falcons—were going to call my name in the draft. After studying their roster, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know they were in need of a tight end. And, in collegiate ball, there’d been no one better than me. I had the record-breaking stats, the drive and the ambition, not to mention the heart to finally belong to something on a permanent basis.
They passed me over for a pimply-faced kid out of Utah, and I was left to await my fate on the metaphorical bench.
An opportunity that Tampa Bay didn’t squander.
While all the players around me were surrounded by family, all ready to leap up and lose their minds in excitement, I sat alone with only my coach from LSU cued in via speakerphone.
I accepted my blank Buccaneers jersey and team hat alone.
Went back to my hotel room alone.
Celebrated with a bottle of Patron alone.
The second time, I was down on one knee before Savannah Rose, Put A Ring On It’s bachelorette. The producers and the film crew and the asshole director, who looked like a frat boy and talked like a douchebag, all had a front-row seat to what should have been a private, tender moment. Only, I didn’t propose marriage to Savannah. Didn’t even propose lifetime commitment because that sort of promise doesn’t have a slot in my genetic makeup.
But I offered what I could give, what I’d never offered to anyone else before her and what I doubt I’ll be offering again anytime soon: the chance to see if I could love. Fully. With every corner of my soul. Something I’d given to no one but the game of football.<
br />
For the first time since my early foster-care years, a thread of hope had sparked within me. Bleeding out of every crevice, locking my limbs tight as I waited for her answer. I had no ring. I had no flowery language or desperate words of love because that was the ugly truth: I didn’t love Savannah Rose.
Not that it didn’t stop me from hoping she’d take a chance on my emotional defects and see that I was willing to give our budding relationship my all.
She turned me down.
Blindside number two.
Following the Wildcat’s first practice, driving down my street leads directly to blindside number three:
Levi’s banged-up Honda Civic is parked in my next-door neighbor’s driveway.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
I rack my brain for details from Friday night. She ordered an Uber from the Golden Fleece. No car to take note of at the pub, and when I arrived home, I had no reason to look twice at the house next door. Over the weekend, I packed a duffel bag and drove down to Boston to visit my Put A Ring On It castmate, Nick Stamos, and his new fiancée, Mina.
With my foot on the brake, I scrub my palms over my face and then release the pedal to coast into my driveway. The scent of pepperoni and cheese pizza saturates the interior of my pickup, re-centering my attention on the two boxes resting innocently on the passenger’s seat.
One box for today. The other for tomorrow, when I’ll probably procrastinate once again with heading to the grocery store.
News of me moving to London has spread like wildfire.
When I stopped to gas up my truck this morning, an elderly man sidled up to me under the pretense of needing to use the squeegee on his windshield. He didn’t even last twenty seconds before bringing up that dreaded 2015 game where I fucked up my leg and essentially ended my career.
At practice, I was bombarded by mothers, all of whom wanted a picture with me to post on their Instagram accounts. One lady—Belinda, I think—gave my ass a not-so-discreet squeeze when the flash went off.
Even the guy behind the counter at Pizzeria Athena slipped a bare napkin forward along with my receipt. It was a move I recognized well. Sign the damn thing, leave a good tip, or “Dominic DaSilva is an entitled dick” would be all over the internet by the 5 p.m. Evening News.
Maine was meant to be a reprieve from the bullshit of my normal life.
Instead, the only reprieve I’ve had thus far has come from a blond-haired coach who doesn’t seem all too impressed that I could buy this town three times over and still have enough money in the bank to last me a lifetime.
“Don’t do it, man,” I warn myself, already grabbing the two pizza boxes and climbing out of my truck. “Don’t fucking do it.”
I don’t listen to my own advice.
Still dressed in the same clothes I wore to practice, I cross the strip of neatly trimmed lawn that divides our two properties. Whereas my place looks like the stage model for 1970s suburbia, Levi’s Cape-Cod-style home is quintessential New England. Dark gray siding and snow-white shutters. Window boxes with colorful flowers peeking out, seeking the warmth of the afternoon sunlight. A cherry-apple-red door with a brass knocker positioned dead center.
Pizza boxes clasped in one hand, I step onto a ridiculous straw doormat that reads “Home is Where the Tacos Are,” and ring the buzzer.
You’re making a big mistake. You don’t even like her!
I don’t, no.
But I don’t dislike her any more than I generally dislike everyone else.
Two seconds pass before I hear a muffled, “Coming!”
Briefly I wonder if Topher’s home or if he’s out with friends. It’s summertime, after all. No school. No deadlines. No commitments to anything but football.
The door yawns open.
“Sorry about that, I—”
Levi’s apology cuts short at the sight of me on her front stoop. Eyes going comically wide, she lifts a hand to clutch the white towel wrapped around her head. Perspiration curls the strands that have escaped the terrycloth, so they peek out like little devil horns. Fitting, I guess, considering how much she rode my ass all day at practice. The woman is a menace with a whistle. My old Bucs coach would have bowed down to her in pure reverence.
Unbidden, my gaze slips lower, acting on its own accord, like a puppet controlled by the dancing strings of its master.
Spaghetti-strap tank top. The color reminds me of the muted pink shag carpet in my bedrooms. Unlike the thick, string-like carpet, however, Levi’s shirt is thin and practically transparent with Tweety Bird printed over the center of her chest.
No bra.
Tweety does nothing to conceal the fullness of Levi’s breasts. I wish to hell it did. It’s all I can do not to notice the deep shadows beneath Tweety’s jawline and the twin peaks thrusting up against the cartoon character’s yellow cheeks. Levi’s damp skin is not doing me any favors—it’s rosy from her shower and dewy from what has to be some miracle blend of lotion and, fuck, but does she always answer the door like this?
My fingers tighten reflexively around the warm pizza boxes, even as I allow my eyes to wander south. Black gym shorts slung low on her hips. No shoes or socks, only yellow-painted toenails that remind me of Tweety Bird and hard nipples and deep cleavage.
A weak man would drop the pizza and send Tweety flying to the ground, all so he could get a glimpse of paradise under that shirt.
I’ve never been weak.
But I’d be lying if I say I don’t feel a hint of annoyance that Tweety is smirking at me like a smug, little asshole from its vantage point across Levi’s breasts.
This . . . this is a new low.
No fucking shit.
Levi’s grasp on the door slips down a notch, like she’s fully prepared to sling it back in my face and call it a day. “What are you doing here, Dominic?”
Just looking to spend some time with a person who hates my guts.
I bite back the caustic response and lift the goods for her to see. “I come bearing peace offerings. Topher mentioned pizza.”
“Topher’s not here.”
She doesn’t move, not even an inch.
Even though her pert, unconstrained nipples are doing a solid job of answering my question all on their own, I ask, “Are you heading somewhere?”
Her lips purse when I flick my gaze up to the damp, turban-style towel wrapped around her head. “Does it look like I’m going somewhere?”
“Didn’t want to presume anything.” I drop my shoulder to the doorframe, getting comfortable under the watch of her icy stare. “Who knows? That tank top could be your most prized possession.”
As though remembering what she’s wearing—and everything that she’s not—she drops her hand from the towel to link her arms over Tweety Bird’s face. Only, the towel’s lack of support guarantees her nothing but a few precious seconds before she’ll have to make a decision.
Bend over to pick the towel up off the floor once it falls—and risk the chance of giving me a full-on, braless peep show—or accept defeat in the form of me getting an eyeful of her puckered nipples by raising her arms and keeping the towel in place.
My vote is for the former.
She chooses option number three: ripping the damn thing straight from her head and letting her blonde hair fall down around her shoulders, completely untamed. “I liked you better when you were a nameless jerk at the bar.”
I meet her gaze. “I liked you better before I realized we weren’t just coworkers.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Debating my next words, I rap my knuckles on top of the pizza box. “Back in L.A., I used to think about what it might be like to move to a small town. I figured there’d be cookies on my doorstep with a card saying something like, howdy neighbor. If not that, then at least a welcome to the neighborhood-block party.”
Levi’s blue eyes flash. “Your ego is limitless.”
“My point being, Coach”—I drop my face so that we’re nose to
nose—“is that I’ve come with neighborly tidings, and the least you can do is welcome me inside.”
8
Dominic
“Goddammit.”
Sardonically, I cock one eyebrow. “I’ll be honest, I was expecting more of a freak-out.”
Levi mimics my brow lift, then, without asking, snags the pizza out of my grasp. “In my defense, I thought I was hallucinating when I saw you next door on Friday,” she says, her back to me as she saunters past the entryway and deeper into her house.
With a kick of my heel, I close the door behind me. “Hallucinating?”
“Don’t you dare suggest your presence left me scatterbrained.”
“You said it, not me.”
If she weren’t holding the pizza, I have no doubt she would have gone oh-for-three and flipped me the bird.
Instead, she leads me past a contemporary-styled dining room and a half-bath that’s on the smaller side. Unlike the godawful layout at my place, though, Levi’s home is magazine praiseworthy. Spacious. Crisp-white walls with nautical-blue accent pieces. Sandy hardwood floors that are so glossy and freshly varnished I half expect to see my own reflection staring back at me.
Framed pictures decorating the walls catch my eye as I pause before them. Two are of her and Topher, both taken when the top of the kid’s head was level with his mom’s chin. In another, a young Topher sits on a front porch with his arm slung around the neck of a ginormous Bull Mastiff. The dog and Topher are rocking the same cheesed expression. Yeah, Topher’s tongue isn’t lolling out of his mouth but his smile is massive and his blue eyes are nearly closed he’s laughing so hard at whatever is behind the camera. In the corner of the frame, the date is marked in pencil: 04/27/2014.
I don’t think I’ve ever smiled the way Topher is on that front stoop.
As I check out the last frame, a beach-themed oil painting that reminds me a lot of the wharf off Main Street, I almost expect to hear the clip-clip-clip of dog toenails.
There’s nothing but the sound of my breathing and the soft whir of ceiling fans.