I did it mostly as a show of defiance, seeing my former friends snickering to one another behind their sketchpads, pointing at me. I didn't even think about Jilly's response to my actions until I felt his eyes flutter beneath my fingertips, his warm breath caressing the back of my wrist. It was Titanic kind of hot.
I start at his eyebrows and repeat the process again and again until he's snoring contentedly, his injured arm resting comfortably at his side. When I know that he's asleep, I take advantage of the opportunity and skim my index finger over the tattoos that are visible above the crest of the sheet. The beaver paw must be from his time in the minors with the Stockton Beavers, the two crowns probably commemorating his two World Series wins with the Kings. The broken heart is courtesy of yours truly.
My finger lingers over the jagged edges of that one, wishing I could soothe the anguish I caused him with a simple touch. I don't want to hurt him anymore, but I'm afraid I will.
I give that broken heart a tender kiss. He stirs, and I quickly sit back on my heels, thankful when he doesn't wake. Instead, he just calls out my name, and that's when I feel my heart, for the second time, break right along with his.
Chapter Twelve
Jilly
"And the dish ran away with the spoon." I look up from the storybook I'm reading and glance at the preschoolers, who are sitting Indian-style all around me.
"Read it again!" a little girl in pigtails calls out.
"No, we're sick of that one. Read the one about the moon!" a boy in denim overalls shouts over her.
"Children, Mr. Gillette and Mr. Harper were kind enough to visit us today, but they are very busy men. Our time with them is about up, so why don't we give them a big round of applause and thank them for being with us this morning?" The young, overly enthusiastic teacher starts clapping and they all follow her lead.
"Thank God." Scott leans forward with a smirk. "I thought we'd never get outta here."
"What…not a fan of the Kings' mandatory community outreach days?" I bust him.
"I do as few of them as I can get away with," he admits, grimacing when the volume of the kids' chatter starts to rise. "I only signed up for this one because you did."
I raise an eyebrow at him, letting him know that I'm not buying his bullshit.
"All right, I thought the teacher'd be hot," he chuckles. "So I wanted to check her out for myself."
He wants me to ask him what he thinks of her, but I don't. I start collecting the books we read out loud and place them back on the shelf. Jesus, we're not in a damn locker room.
"And…" Scott draws out his verdict, watching every move she makes as she bends down to retrieve another one of the books off the floor. "I think I'm gonna enjoy getting to know that fine ass of hers a whole lot better."
"She's wearing an engagement ring, dipshit," I mutter.
Apparently, it wasn't low enough because one of the little boys who, five seconds ago, was busy eating a crayon starts running around the room, yelling, "Dipshit! Dipshit! Dipshit!" over and over again.
The now-frazzled teacher shoots me a disapproving look, but when Scott gives her his signature panty-dropping grin, she smiles back at him, hugging the stack of books to her chest and swaying back and forth.
"She's not married yet," Scott teases, poking me in the ribs with his elbow before sauntering over to get to know her better.
The kids are running wild through the classroom, waving safety scissors like deadly weapons and smearing paste all over the wall. I think this would be the perfect time to leave. I'm supposed to meet Hailey in Central Park, and I don't want to be late. She was still sleeping when I got up, but when I got out of the shower, she was gone. She left me a note to find her when I was done with story hour at the child development center.
Scott's flirting away and Miss McHottie bats her eyelashes at him, oblivious to the chaos and destruction going on around her. She has the undivided attention of Scott Harper and she's going to soak it all in. I really hope she doesn't end up sleeping with him. Her fiancé, the poor schmuck, whoever he is, deserves better than that. Scott's not going to whisk her away to some life she can only dream of. He'll be on to the next girl who catches his eye before she can even blink.
I don't wait for Scott to finish. Instead, I plow through the door as the rambunctious little urchins claw at my pants, begging me to stay.
"Please, Jilly! Throw this wad of paper like it's a fastball!"
"Jell-O, you can't go. I need to put glitter in your hair!"
"Why do you call yourself Jilly? Don't you know that's a girl's name?"
Somehow, I manage to get by them. I close the classroom door, herding them back inside so they can't follow me. Dealing with kids on a daily basis takes a lot of patience. They run up to me in restaurants and airports all the time, wanting me to sign something for them, their hands usually sticky.
Before I made it to the Kings, I always assumed that kids would be afraid of me since I'm so big. I didn't think they'd ever want to come near me. My presence on the mound seems to intimidate opposing hitters often enough. I'm usually aloof with people I don't know, but kids are attracted to me for some reason. A lot of them call me Hagrid like I'm some Harry Potter character. I think they're fascinated by how tall and stocky I am, like I can't be real and I must've stepped out of some fairytale.
"Dude, hold up!" Scott comes flying down the alphabet-lined steps behind me like a bat out of hell.
I don't stop. I don't want to hear how he got her number.
"C'mon, Jilly! Don't be like that." Scott comes jogging up beside me as I stride up to the town car that brought us across the bridge to Brooklyn this morning.
"I got some place I gotta be, man," I say, brushing him off, hoping he'll take the hint.
"Oh yeah? Like where?" Scott grabs the car door just as I'm about to close it, not letting it go.
"None of your damn business," I snarl, but I struggle with my grip when I feel an intense blast of pain shoot through my elbow. "Fuck," I moan, relinquishing my hold.
"Jesus, Jilly. You gotta watch that billion-dollar arm of yours or you really are gonna end up under the knife." Scott hurries around to the opposite side, tapping the driver's window for him to unlock the back door.
"You're not coming with me, Scott," I argue when he slides in beside me, telling the driver to go.
"You're meeting her, aren't you?" He gives me a devilish grin.
I don't respond, and he laughs heartily.
"Oh, c'mon. Let me meet her." He rubs his hands together in anticipation. "None of the guys have seen her up close and I wanna judge for myself just how Sasha-licious she really is."
"Don't ever compare her to Sasha again," I warn, letting him know that I mean business.
"Dude, they're practically clones. Well, except for the baby bump. At least that's an easy way to tell them apart," Scott says like he's dead serious.
"They're not the same. They're nowhere near the same." I shake my head, knowing I need to ditch him before we get there or he's liable to put his foot in his mouth and say something really stupid.
"She's a writer, huh?" Scott prattles on like he didn't even hear me. "That's hot. That's one kind of girl I've never been with. Writers are a rarity. You've got something special there, bro. It's getting all 'Fifty Shades of Jilly' up in here."
I smack him upside the head with my good hand.
"Oww. What'd you do that for? I meant it as a compliment."
"Stay the fuck outta my personal life, Harper."
It used to burn me up whenever Scott and the guys would talk about Sasha like that, and I'm not going to let them start in on Hailey. No way, no how.
"For an ox of a guy who's just teeming with testosterone, sometimes you act like a little bitch, man." Scott whistles, thumping his hand to the R&B beat of the song the driver has playing softly in the background. "Do you think she'd ever write a story about me? I'm sure I have plenty of material she can work with."
"God, Scott. She doesn't wr
ite shit like that, okay? So get your mind outta the gutter and come back to Earth." I stretch awkwardly in the limited space afforded to us in the back seat, wishing I were alone.
"She should write that shit because that shit sells. I may have never been with a writer, but I know chicks can't get enough of those books. They're always reading them—on the subway, on their lunch break, in bed." He rambles on and on.
"What…aren't you good enough for them?" I jibe him.
"See, that's the thing. My sex life has only improved because of that damn chick porn. Women know exactly what they want now, and they're not afraid to tell me. Some of the craziest shit I've ever done in the bedroom comes from trying to replicate some of those scenes. Hey, I'm all for expanding my creativity." Scott gives me a sly smile, knowing I'm nowhere near as experienced as he is.
And it makes my stomach drop. What if, when we do take the next step, that's what Hailey wants and I'm not able to give it to her? I know she said she wanted to take things slow, but what if she's just letting me down easy because she thinks I'll be a big dud in the sack? It's probably not hard to figure out that I'm seriously lacking when it comes to giving a woman what she wants. Hailey pretty much admitted it herself when she brought up graduation night. I left her high and dry without any kind of satisfaction. Why kind of guy does that?
I'm sure Scott would've sealed the deal. He wouldn't have bolted just because he felt like he was going to explode out of his pants in front of a room full of people. He would have whisked her away somewhere and taken care of it.
"Jilly, relax. I'm not trying to steal your girl. I'm just curious. That's all." Scott pats me on the shoulder reassuringly. "I'd never move in on somebody's dream date. Don't worry. I'm sure she's dying to cash in your v-card whenever you're ready."
My cheeks burn. "Teammate or not, say that in front of the other guys and I swear I'll break your neck."
"Calm down, Gillette. I'm not gonna say anything…even though I'm right, aren't I?" He doesn't laugh like I thought he would, but he's too damn perceptive for his own good. "It's all in your head, man. You could have any girl you want. You just have to step up to the plate. If you don't put yourself out there, you're never gonna get laid, and that's just sad."
I hate that I'm listening to him, but he knows a shitload more about these things than I do.
He takes my quietness as a sign to keep going, "This dream date chick? She sounds like the real deal. You went to high school together. She knows you from before you were famous. It's not like she's pretending to be into you because you're on the New York Kings. She saw hormonal, pimply Jilly and she's still interested, so that says something."
"I wasn't pimply," I mutter.
"Let me guess. You wanted to jump her bones back in the day, but you didn't want to ruin the friendship, so you pussied out and had a pair of blue balls the size of Montana to prove it. How do you not have sex when you're a teenager? Dude, you gotta explain that to me because I just don't get it. Talk about being the master of your domain. How the fuck did you manage to keep your hands off her for so long?" Scott asks, looking at me like I managed to pull off some kind of Herculean feat.
"It wasn't easy. It's not like I didn't want to do things with her." I rest my head against the window, avoiding his gaze.
"But you fucked it up somehow, right?" Again, he wallops me with his mind-reading skills. What is he? A sex psychic or something?
"You could say that." I close my eyes like I'm in some kind of Scott-centric therapy session.
"Ah, I see what happened. You brought the little lady to the brink, but you didn't take her over the cliff. You choked. The miracle worker in the most high-pressure situations imaginable got performance anxiety when it came to stickin' it to Little Miss Dream Date." Scott has no issues spelling out my problem, but I want to throttle him for how he's describing it.
"Watch it." I tilt my head to the side and glare at him.
"So, what happened after the big reunion? Please tell me you've at least kissed her by now," Scott huffs.
"Yeah, I kissed her plenty." I'm getting worked up from having to defend myself. "But last night, she said she wanted to take things slow, but then she came into my bedroom and—"
"Hold up." Scott sits up, suddenly interested. "She was in your friggin' bedroom and you didn't tap that ass? What was she doing in your bedroom?"
"She's living with me and—"
"What?" Scott roars.
"Temporarily," I finish. "Her place got broken into and I'm just helping her out until she gets back on her feet."
"Wow. Now I'm not so sure she's not taking advantage of you," Scott mutters.
"What do you mean by that?" I growl.
"Well, the timing seems a little suspect, don't ya think? You go on the dream date. You reconnect. Two days later, she's living in your apartment? Talk about a smooth operator." Scott looks at me like I'm in way over my head.
"It's not like that," I argue. "She was in trouble. I just wanted to help."
"And be the hero." Scott smirks. "Boy, she's got you pegged. This chick has you all figured out—hook, line and sinker. Hell, you might end up married to her by the end of the week if you don't watch out."
"Fine by me," I say to shock him.
"Jilly, if you fuckin' marry her, I'll—" Scott sticks his finger in my face.
"She's it for me, man. What can I say?" I plead my case even though I know a guy like him won't understand. "I don't want anyone else. I never did."
"Oh yeah? What about Sasha?" Scott pries.
"I thought that, if I couldn't have Hailey, then maybe I could have the next best thing. I got confused. I should've never given up on Hailey."
This time, he smacks me in the head. "Wake up, my man. You're on dangerous ground here. Now I'm more determined than ever to meet this girl, if only to protect you from yourself." He's looking at me like I'm scaring the shit out of him, but I don't know why.
Once upon a time, Hailey might have kissed my sworn enemy, Kurt Nelson, in order to hurt me, but it was only a plea for attention because I'd shut her out. She'd never hurt me on purpose. She's not like that.
"Be my guest." I gesture with my hand, swinging open the door as the driver comes to a stop in front of the Fifth Avenue entrance to the park. "I can't wait for you to see just how wrong you are about her."
"Or how right," Scott mumbles, slipping the driver a twenty and telling him to circle the block for ten minutes.
"You're not hanging around?" I badger him.
"This won't take long," he replies arrogantly.
"You're a little overconfident in your abilities, don't ya think?" I glance at him as we walk side by side, but he continues to stare straight ahead. "You don't even know her."
"It takes one to know one," he responds.
"She's nothing like you," I retort.
"Of course she is, or she wouldn't be here. New York is a city full of hustlers and con artists. Don't you know that by now? They just auctioned off your ass like a prized steer, and you let them. I think that pretty much makes you complicit in the whole scheme of things. I just wanna find out what her game is." Scott lengthens his strides to match mine, but we're already starting to draw attention to ourselves, thanks to me. Yeah, it sucks being a full head taller than every other person in the general vicinity.
"Whatever, man," I mutter, getting frazzled by the way people are starting to turn and gawk at us.
"You sure know how to attract a crowd," Scott chuckles, enjoying every moment of it.
"Why do you think I don't go out much?" I reply, and he shoots me a sympathetic glance.
"I guess it blows if you don't have the most outgoing of personalities. Me? I love it." He smiles at a spandex-clad runner jogging by, turning around to admire the view from behind.
"Really? I hadn't noticed," I groan, wishing I could disappear.
"Well, look who we have here. Hello, Goldilocks." Scott jerks his head toward Hailey, who's up ahead talking animatedly to someone on
the phone. For some reason, it bothers me that he spotted her first.
"You get outta line, it's over. You hear me?" I lay down the gauntlet in no uncertain terms. If he wants to give me his opinion about Hailey's motives, that's all it is—an opinion.
"Chill, big guy. I got this." He nods at me, never taking his eyes off her, making me wonder whom she's talking to.
There's no way she's setting me up. She can't be. Hailey would never do something like that.
Or would she?
Chapter Thirteen
Hailey
For someone who lives, eats, and breathes words, I sometimes have a hard time expressing myself.
I stretch out on the blanket I swiped from Jilly's, toss my phone aside, and stare up at the white, puffy clouds through the trees in Central Park. Writing about Jilly while actually living with Jilly is starting to mess with my head. It's not coming as easily as it used to. For the first time, it feels like work.
It's probably because things got so weird between us last night. It's like…the minute he got home from the stadium, we didn't know how to act around each other.
We know how to be friends, but we don't know how to be boyfriend and girlfriend. We're in new territory now and there are no boundaries.
We made out hot and heavy outside RelationSip. He finally kissed me. I mean really kissed me. It was the kind of kiss I'd only ever dreamed about. We couldn't keep our hands off each other, but then he put me in a cab and split, saying he had to go to the stadium. Later, when he came home all in the mood, I was the one who shot him down. It seems that, after spending all of these years apart, our timing's way off.
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