Game of Love

by Melissa Foster

  “What did you do in Maryland when you needed to escape?” Dex asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you felt trapped.” He said it like she knew what he meant.

  She knew.

  All too well.

  “I…what we’re doing now. I got out and walked.” She slowed her pace and he followed. “But I walked alone.”

  “You think it’ll ever change? Your need to escape?”

  She shrugged. She caught a glimpse of his eyes, shadowed with worry.

  “Why do you feel trapped with me, Ellie? I’m the one you used to run to.”

  And the one I ran from. His voice was so filled with hurt, it slayed her. “It’s not you. It was never you.” Except it was. When she left the first time without saying goodbye, it was because of Dex. She loved him too much to say goodbye. And when she left him four years ago, it was because she’d loved him too much to stay.

  They continued walking in silence. Ellie’s cell phone vibrated. She checked her text, and her heart stopped cold when she saw Asshole on the screen. The name she’d given Bruce after they broke up. She’d thought about deleting his number, but she’d wanted a warning if he ever called. She didn’t want to accidentally answer a call from him. She read the text. I miss you.

  “Something wrong?”

  Everything. She’d ended things with Bruce under no uncertain terms. She’d made it clear to him not to contact her again, and there was no way she’d respond to his stupid text. She turned her phone off and shoved it back in her pocket, then upped her pace.

  “Ellie, I know you said you’re not the same girl you were before, but you sure as hell act a lot like her.”

  She tried to free her hand from his, but his grip was too tight.

  He pulled her into an alley, away from the eyes of strangers, and he looked down at her with the most intense stare she’d ever seen on him. His body wasn’t touching hers, and yet she felt heat radiating from him. He wasn’t pushing into her, but she felt the curves of his body, ached for them. What was wrong with her? She didn’t ache for men. And here she was, staring into Dex’s eyes, which were caught between angry and sad, and all she wanted to do was climb beneath his skin.

  He took a step forward. Her back met the brick wall.

  “Level with me, El. I can’t be another pit stop. I won’t be another pit stop.” He breathed so hard, his chest expanded before her.

  “You were never a pit stop.” Why am I whispering?

  “No? What was I? You showed up four years ago, climbed into my bed, and ran away two days later. What do you call that?” He searched her eyes, and she knew he was looking for the truth.

  The truth hurt.

  The truth sucked.

  She lied.

  “A mistake,” she said.

  He narrowed his eyes. “No. That was anything but a mistake. No fucking way.” His voice grew louder. “No, Ellie.” He stepped away from her and released her hand.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say, Dex. I came here four years ago because I missed you.” The truth poured out of her. “You were all I thought about for all those years, so I tracked you down and came to see you. I needed…I needed to be sure of you.” She crossed her arms and looked away. She felt like she was in a bubble that might pop at any moment. Just a few feet away, people passed by without noticing that her life was spiraling out of control and she was barely hanging on.

  “You left me.” He narrowed his eyes, and they bored right through her. “I told you I loved you, and you left me.”

  He’d let her back into his life without any questions about why she’d left without saying goodbye as a teenager. She could hardly believe it then, and now she felt like a complete heel, and she was petrified that he’d be the one to send her away this time. But she wouldn’t lie to him again. He had to know the truth, no matter how embarrassing.

  “I couldn’t stay. I’d have messed up your life and continued to screw up mine. I needed to make something of myself in order to be something for you.” Tears pressed at her eyes, and she closed her lids tight against them. When she opened her eyes, he was still staring at her, waiting. He was always waiting. “You didn’t need me hanging around like a needy child.”

  “So you made the decision for me? Like I was unable to determine what was best for myself?” His face was red, his eyes more angry than she’d ever seen before.

  “I needed to become a self-sufficient woman, whatever the hell that means. You deserved someone so much better than me.”

  “You’ve been self-sufficient since the fifth grade, Ellie.”

  His voice was so soft, thick with love, but she didn’t miss the hint of hurt that rang like a constant reminder of what she’d done.

  “Is that why you didn’t make love to me that weekend?” he asked.

  “You never tried,” she whispered.

  “How could I?” He turned away, and when he drew his eyes back to hers, they were filled with honesty. “I wanted you so much it hurt, but you weren’t a sure thing, Ellie. You’re like a…I’m not sure what. Something that’s there one minute and gone the next. I needed to be sure. I thought it would go one of two ways. You’d make a move, letting me know it was safe to love you, or…”

  “Or I’d leave.” She wanted to wrap her arms around Dex and tell him she didn’t understand why she ran away and that all she’d ever wanted was him. It had always been him. But she hadn’t even realized it until this visit, and she couldn’t move her arms, and when she opened her mouth again, no words came out.

  He closed the gap between them and planted his palms on either side of her head, pressed against the brick wall. He’d caged her. Trapped her. One powerful leg outside of each of hers. He had to know he was making her sweat, kicking up her pulse to panic mode, inciting her flight response in a major way. He had to hear her breathing as if each breath was drawn through a kinked hose.

  “I just needed to be sure of you,” she repeated.

  “You can always be sure of me, Ellie. Just don’t break me. I can’t go through it again. Twice just about killed me.” He lowered his unshaven cheek and brushed against her face. “Be sure of me.”

  He smelled familiar. Safe. Masculine. He smelled of the only love she’d ever known. She reached up and touched his cheek. Her heart swelled. He grazed his lips over hers. Testing. Tasting. Sending heat down her center. Dex leaned his forehead against hers. She stole his breath as he exhaled, craving the taste of him. She wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and pulled his lips to hers. He kissed her gently, a soft, loving, long-awaited kiss that had her falling to pieces, melting bonelessly against him. One strong hand swooped around her waist and pressed her to him, rescuing her from her body’s defeat. He buried his other hand beneath her hair and pressed his body to hers. She clawed at his hips, pulling him closer, taking what she needed, deepening the kiss and stealing the breath from his lungs. His hips gyrated against hers. She met his efforts with her own, her mind a heady mess of want and need—tangled by tentacles of guilt that infiltrated and squeezed the desire, creating pain where there had been pleasure.

  He drew back, and they both gasped for air. He searched her eyes, but his feelings were so raw, it was too painful for her. She didn’t want to think. She wanted to feel. She needed to feel him against her, to hide her pain within the emotions she drew from him. Ellie grabbed at him again and pulled his lips to hers. She swept his mouth with her tongue, following the dips and delicious curves of the edges of his lips, which she’d thought about for so long. He drew back again, and she sucked in air once more, needing him to enable her to breathe.

  “No,” he said in one long painful knife to her heart.

  She opened her mouth to protest and no words came out. She clenched her jaw and covered her face.

  Dex took a step back. “I love you, Ellie. I’ve always loved you.”

  She dropped her fingers. Love. You love me? No one loves me. “You love…” Her voice trembled. “Saving m
e.”

  He stepped back, narrowing his dark eyes until they appeared almost pitch black. “No.” He shook his head. “You don’t need saving. You’ve never needed saving. You needed to be loved. And now you just need awakening. You need to see that you’re loved, to feel it, and to love back, Ellie.”

  She couldn’t stop shaking. From the kiss or from the fear that coursed through her, she couldn’t be sure, but every breath took a bumpy ride as it was pulled from her lungs.

  “Why?” She swiped at a lone tear that streamed down her cheek. “Why would you want to be with me, Dex? Why do you love me? I hurt you. I’m bad news.”

  He stepped forward again. “You’re not bad news. You’re scared. You need love. You’re fucking frustrating, but, Ellie, you’re the best news I could ever get. But…”

  She held her breath.

  “But I won’t survive you walking away again. One more time and I’m done. I’m a strong man, Ellie, but I’m not Superman.”

  Done? Of course he’d be done. Ellie was surprised he hadn’t cast her aside already. Then again, Dex would never do that. She looked at the pain in his eyes and her certainty faded. Oh God. Maybe I’ve hurt you so badly that one more hurt would really push you to be done with me.

  I’m scared as hell. Don’t give up on me. Please don’t give up on me.

  He folded her in his arms and held her tight. His lips met the top of her head. For the first time in her life, Ellie didn’t want to run. She’d given in to the fear that had consumed her and had propelled her forward four years ago. Now, as the fear came rushing in, she fought against it. She had to. Thoughts of Dex had drawn her to New York. She knew that now as clearly as she knew that Dex was worth fighting for—even if the only one she was fighting was herself.

  Chapter Thirteen

  DEX FELT AS if he’d been put through the washer and spun dry. His body ached with desire for Ellie. Desire he’d repressed for all those years, muddled with the all-too-clear memories of when she’d left and the torturous weeks of trying to pull himself together afterward. He’d sworn he’d never put himself in the same position again, and as he unlocked his apartment door and watched Ellie walk in before him, he knew that no matter what happened four years ago, or what might happen tomorrow, she was the woman for him.

  Quite possibly the only woman for him.

  He followed her inside and silently took her hand. They went to the balcony, and instead of sitting on a chair, Ellie slid her legs through the iron railing and sat on the cold concrete overlooking the park. Dex sat behind her, one leg on either side of her, and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. He closed his eyes and felt her heartbeat through her back. He knew the chance he was taking, allowing himself to feel for her again. To love her. Hell, he couldn’t help but love her.

  “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if I had grown up in a normal house, with a normal family?” she asked.

  All the time. He’d never admit that to her. Admitting that would be like saying there was something wrong with her for not having had a normal upbringing. “No. If you had, you probably wouldn’t have spent time with me.”

  “Sure I would have. I just wouldn’t have been so…unhinged.” She let out a long sigh and leaned back against him.

  He turned her face so he could see her eyes. “You’ve never been unhinged. Just a little lost.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Tell me about Maryland, Ellie. Tell me about why you’re here.”

  She took a deep breath, and he felt her weighing her answer. When she didn’t respond, he changed the subject. Anything to keep her in the present. He was so afraid she’d fall back into her need to run. Was he stupid to want her to stay? Would she ever stay? Was she even capable of staying in one place when she wasn’t forced to?

  “Tell me about what you want to do as a teacher.”

  She pulled her legs from between the railings and sat cross-legged facing him. Her eyes held a spark of hope, and when she spoke, her voice was markedly more animated. “There’s so much I want to do. The interview I went on today was really disheartening. The low-income schools are really just scrambling to keep up. They have no money, they have minimal resources, and the worst part was that today, every time I asked about the kids, the actual children, the answers came in statistics and school-wide goals and percentages.” She looked away and shook her head.

  Dex wanted to pull her back against him, to feel her body against him again. He reached for her hand just to remain physically connected to her.

  “Do you remember when we were in elementary school, if there was a kid who had trouble, they had a person who came into the classroom to help them, or the teacher would spend a few extra minutes making sure they understood?”

  “Sure.” He caressed her arm, from wrist to elbow. He loved listening to her and hearing the excitement in her voice, but he needed to touch her.

  “Well, that doesn’t happen anymore. Now there are more kids from low-income families, and they’re often from troubled families. They face the additional challenges of poverty and are sometimes several years behind their peers. Many times one parent has been in trouble with the law and they can’t afford the things they need, so they go without or their older siblings work to help the family, or in many cases, steal and get into other types of trouble.”

  She stopped talking and looked at his hand, which was now caressing her other arm. She smiled and took his hand in hers, drawing his eyes to hers, distracting him from touching her.

  “Those kids need a different way of learning altogether. Where each child in an upper-income school has a laptop and programs available, the lower-income schools have half as many.”

  This was the Ellie Dex knew so well. The take-charge, pull-it-together-and-make-it-work Ellie. If only you could be that way with your personal life, too. Maybe one day, if I love you enough. If you feel safe enough.

  “And what’s the solution?” He knew she had a solution. She always had a solution, even if sometimes that solution was running away.

  “I don’t know. But I know that I don’t want to work somewhere that the kids aren’t the primary focus. I don’t care about statistics and meeting the school’s goals as much as I care about the individual children finding their path to learning what they need to learn. I know that as a teacher, the other stuff should be vitally important, but it’s their learning that I want to be a part of. At the end of the day, I want to know I’ve done everything I possibly could to help them, not everything I could to ensure the statistics are met. That will come with successful learning, but I don’t think it needs to be the focus.” She fiddled with a seam on her jeans.

  He wanted to fiddle with her jeans. He suppressed the urge to run his hands down her thighs.

  “I know it’s a little Pollyanna of me, but I’ve done some research and there are government programs that offer grants to develop educational software programs for kids. I can’t help but believe that there would have to be a way to make the resources they do have—even if they only have half as much—work for the entire class. Software that would have elements for teaching grammar, math, and even history in some kind of fashion that would make it fun for kids to use.”

  “Like…some kind of MMO where the kids share the platform and instead of games they’re using educational software?” Dex’s mind clicked into high gear.

  “I’m not sure what an MMO is, but the idea is shared computers, shared software, somehow…”

  “An MMO is a massive multiplayer online game. It enables lots of kids to play the same game at the same time. But you don’t have to go that direction. It’s just a cool idea. Maybe something with its own platform.” His mind was spinning down a developmental path, moving way too far ahead of the idea stage Ellie was playing with.

  “Platform?” Ellie shook her head.

  “Yeah, a system, like Xbox or PlayStation, only you use it for educational purposes instead of gaming. Anyway, the software runs on the platform. I’m just thinking out loud here
, but as you conceptualize the software, it’s something to consider. Kids can share the platforms.” He saw the confusion in Ellie’s eyes. “You know what? I’m getting way ahead of myself. I’m sorry. This is your baby. Let’s just focus on the grant end of things.”

  “I know it’s a long shot, but I can’t believe that entire schools of children aren’t being taught all they can be because of limited funding. What does it say about our world if kids are statistics and their futures depend on the resources available to them?”

  Dex laughed a little. “But that’s exactly what our world is, El. You know that. And it’s not just that. Hell, I feel like even what I do hinders kids and their learning.”

  “How so?”

  “I love gaming; you know that. But lately, there’s this strange thing that goes on in my head. I feel like I’m achieving everything I always dreamed of, and I’m making millions of kids…gamers...happy, but I’m also feeding into the sedentary lifestyle that comes with gaming that I really despise. Kids are becoming couch potatoes. Hell, they were couch potatoes when we were young. Remember? I spent hours in front of my computer, too. I don’t know why it bothers me so much, but it’s like now they’re not socializing in person. They don’t even flirt in person anymore. Foreplay is all done on phones and message boards. It’s crazy. We’re all so plugged in these days, which is great, but…I don’t know. I guess I feel like kids are spending all their time playing games instead of experiencing life, and it’s been bugging me, which is kind of stupid, because I don’t do much besides gaming, either.”

  “Yeah, but you can’t really change everyone else,” Ellie said.

  “I know, and I’m not sure what you’re proposing, but it’s something I’d like to think about. Helping the educational side of kids’ lives as much as the entertainment side seems like a meaningful thing to do.”