Well Played

by J. S. Scott

  “What are you thinking?” Graham asked with a slight squeeze of my hand.

  I turned back to him. With anyone else I would have kept my thoughts to myself, but this was the Graham I’d grown up with, the one who accepted me the way I was. “I was estimating the number of people in Crystal River based solely on what I can see. I realized my guess might be completely off but that it doesn’t matter. Sometimes it’s fun to not know. I get it now. This is an adventure.”

  “Exactly,” he studied my expression and looked like he wanted to say more, but didn’t.

  We pulled up to a small hotel on the water. The driver stopped before pulling up to the office and turned in his seat. “Is this the right place?”

  Less than pleased, Graham looked around and said the name again.

  I scanned for signs. “That’s where we are.”

  The driver pulled up to the check in office. “I’ll wait.”

  Graham shook his head. “There has to be somewhere nicer than this. Let’s go.”

  I touched his arm, hating that he looked disappointed. “It looks fine, Graham. And it’s right on the water. I don’t need anything fancy. Let’s try it. How bad could it be?”

  A few minutes later we were standing just inside the doorway of my room. I wanted to love it—after all I was in adventure mode. The room was warm and smelled like something might be decaying in a corner of it. The blinds on one window were hanging slightly askew and beneath our feet was a large, dark stain.

  “All that’s missing is an outline of a body,” Graham joked.

  I was relieved that he was having a similar response to the room. “How did you find this place?”

  A slight flush rose on Graham’s cheeks and I began to question the recentness of that dentist’s last trip to Crystal River. “I bet this was a nice place—fifty years ago.”

  Graham looked irritated, but not with me. “Fuck. I really wanted this to be nice for you.”

  I pulled him back out into the hallway. “I’m fine, Graham. Do I look disappointed?”

  He met my gaze. “No, but I should have booked a room at the four-star Hilton a few towns away. My doorman said he’d heard you could see manatee right from this place’s boardwalk.”

  I touched his face gently and joked, “I bet you see a lot of things here.”

  I felt his smile before it spread across his face. “You deserve better than this.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. “I sure as shit do,” I answered, but I was smiling, too. “You think the driver is still waiting for us?”

  Graham took my hand in his and started to lead me back toward the front office. “He didn’t look like he wanted us to get out of the car here so I’m sure he is.”

  We turned in our keys at the front office to a young man who was not surprised that we did. I explained about the smell and the stain, but he looked bored with the topic before I even finished.

  Graham leaned in. “We’re going on The Greatest Manatee Tour tomorrow. Have you heard of it?”

  The young man’s attention perked up. “With Captain Sid?”

  Graham frowned. “I think so. It meets a few buildings down from here.”

  The man laughed like he was in on a private joke he wasn’t prepared to share. Then he sobered slightly and said, “Don’t do everything he says. We have strict laws about not disturbing the manatees. People get in trouble for it. Look, don’t touch and you’ll be fine.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Graham said and guided me away. Once in the car again, he asked the driver for the best local hotel. After seeing the area’s potential, I didn’t argue with that.

  After checking in to an upscale chain hotel, we had dinner and listened to a live band in the downstairs bar. Neither of us drank. We laughed. Conversation was light and easy. There were things we still needed to work out, but we also needed this reprieve.

  And it felt good—so good.

  Until he walked me to my door and I clung to the door handle like a lifeline. My body hummed for his and he appeared equally affected by me. It would have been so easy to ask him in. “Good night, Graham,” I said as I opened the door behind me.

  He leaned closer. “Lauren—”

  I heard the hunger in his voice and it seared through me. I countered it with a memory of me yelling obscenities to his voicemail. I never wanted to be that person again. “Good night,” I said quickly and shut the door in his face.

  Right in his face.

  Yep, real mature.

  I leaned back against the closed door and imagined him still there, waiting for me to open it. In reality he’d probably walked away, but I stayed there for a long time, fighting the desire to open the door and check.

  There or not, I needed to stay the course I’d chosen. We’d tried fast and free and it didn’t work for us. Graham wasn’t proclaiming a love for me. He wanted me back in his life. Part of me rejoiced at the knowledge that I was indeed important to him, but I forced myself to face that he wasn’t defining our relationship. Friends? Lovers? Did he even know what he wanted?

  I wasn’t sure I did anymore. Being with him was wonderful and painful at the same time. Was this our new normal? Pretending we could go back to how things were before? I didn’t know how long I could sustain that.

  CHAPTER 27

  Lauren

  Dressed in bathing suits beneath our clothing, we headed out early the next morning. Captain Sid met us at his office and explained that we would be snorkeling off the side of his houseboat near where he had exclusive knowledge of where many manatees gathered this season. Each time he bragged, he flashed us a sparsely-toothed smile. I told myself that his personal hygiene habits did not necessarily predict his ability to safely guide us along the river.

  Graham and I exchanged a look just before we boarded his houseboat. He was adorably uncertain and my doubts fell away. Unlike the first hotel room, I would love this tour—regardless of how it went because Graham was with me and doing this solely for me.

  The water around the boat was covered with a plant I didn’t recognize but that reminded me of ocean seaweed. The idea of swimming in it wasn’t appealing, but I would do it. “Is the plant covering the surface native?” I asked. I remembered once hearing that Florida, like many places in the United States, was constantly battling invasive species.

  Captain Sid looked from me to the plants. “It’s harmless.” He picked up a piece and stuffed it in his mouth. “Don’t know if it’s invasive, but it won’t kill you.”

  Graham and I exchanged another look and I burst out laughing. “Good to know.”

  Graham put his arm around me. When Captain Sid walked away to navigate the boat away from the dock, Graham said, “Go ahead. Say it. I should have read up on him as well.”

  I tucked myself into his side. “What kind of adventure would it have been then? This is perfect. I have no idea if we’re going to swim with or be fed to the manatees by this guy. It’s kind of exciting.”

  He hugged me closer. “Manatees don’t bite.”

  “They’re mammals. There are documented cases of them attacking people.”

  He tensed beside me. “What the fuck?”

  “But it’s rare.”

  He grumbled. “That would be my luck to be injured this way before the season starts. I can just imagine trying to explain that one. Taken out by a fucking sea cow. If you’re going to feed me to something can it at least be something cool like a shark or a gator?”

  “There must be gators in here, too.”

  “You’re serious.”

  I waved a hand at our captain. “I’m sure Sid would never take us anywhere dangerous.”

  Graham chuckled, then laughed louder. “We’re so fucked.”

  The tour surprised both of us by being both informative and fun. We saw a good portion of river coastline and heard all about Sid’s life t
here. What he lacked in teeth he made up for with his storytelling abilities and number of local family.

  We snorkeled several times. I tried to keep my focus each time off how Graham’s body looked incredible in and out of the water. Most of the time we watched manatee from a distance but during one swim a cow approached us with her baby. The mother stayed a distance away, but the baby was curious and swam under us several times. It was so close I could have reached out and touched it, but I remembered what the man at the shady hotel had said and didn’t.

  The mother seemed to approve of our restraint because she allowed her baby to stay and interact with us for a significant amount of time. I was impressed by how well Graham handled being around them—at least until one large manatee swam up in front of him and looked as if he wanted to dance with Graham.

  I couldn’t blame Graham for motioning that it was time to return to the boat. Captain Sid was shocked when we told him what had happened. He said some people waited their whole lives for a manatee to engage with them that way and that Graham had missed a real opportunity.

  Neither of us asked him what that meant.

  We ended the tour by swimming in a cold, but crystal clear spring that was truly beautiful. Sid aside, we were alone and dove repeatedly to explore. It was perfection.

  Too soon Sid announced it was time to return to the boat. I swam up to Graham. “Tell your doorman’s aunt’s neighbor’s dentist that he sure knows how to pick a tour. This was perfect.”

  Graham pulled me closer and my body slid along the length of his. “I’m glad you liked it.”

  Oh, I liked it and the feel of him against me, but I pushed off slightly. The only way this would work was if we were physically careful. It was a bit like juggling dynamite. One false move and we’d be right back where we were in Aspen.

  That possibility was as exciting as it was frightening. It reminded me that neither of us was who we’d been before Aspen and all the pretending in the world couldn’t change that. Eventually we’d have to face it.

  But not that day.

  Graham had promised me manatees, Disney, and a tandem bike ride. I needed to finish the list with him even though I wouldn’t have been able to explain to Kelley why. Rationally it didn’t make sense, but being with Graham wasn’t a decision I was making based on logic and facts.

  With a few inches of cold water between us, I looked into his eyes and saw a similar confusion. Even before he spoke, my heart began to pound wildly.

  “We’re going back tonight,” he growled.

  “Back?”

  “To Denver.”

  My heart sunk. No Disney. “Okay.”

  “Don’t look at me that way.”

  “I’m fine. If you want to go back tonight, we’ll go back tonight,” I said, irritation rising within me. “It’s better than you just disappearing the first time I look away.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  I started to swim away. “Now that is something we agree on.”

  He grabbed my arm to stop me, but wet as I was I slid out of his grasp easily. “Could you try to appreciate that I’m trying to do the right thing, Lauren? I could just haul you off to my bed and do what both of us can’t stop thinking about.”

  I pulled myself up the ladder of the houseboat, snapping at him over my shoulder, “No you couldn’t because I told you we’re not going there—not again—not until we figure out what we’re doing.”

  He was standing behind me, around me, on the ladder. “What we’re doing is driving each other insane. I thought—I hoped—”

  Captain Sid wisely retreated to the other side of the houseboat.

  “We can’t, Graham. We can’t go back.” There, I’d said it. I picked up a towel, wrapped it around myself and sat down on one of the benches.

  Graham, all two hundred twenty-five pounds of him, hauled himself onto the boat, began to towel himself off as well and sat across from me.

  He glared at me.

  I glared at him.

  “Then I don’t know where we go,” he said and a piece of me cried for him. “All I know is that I never meant to hurt you and I don’t want it to happen again.”

  Some of my anger dissolved. I’d wanted honesty and he’d given it to me. I could hold his feet to the fire over it, or I could appreciate that he cared enough to want to protect me. “Let’s go home, Graham. Disney can wait. Or I can go on my own.”

  “I’ll take you to Disney, Peanut. Just not tomorrow.”

  “It’ll be okay. Either way, we’ll be okay.” It wasn’t the conversation a woman yearns to hear from the man she loves, but it was the best either of us could do in that moment.

  We separated after the tour, showered, changed and headed back to the airport. The jovial mood of the day before was gone. I was tense. Graham was tense. I didn’t want to say anything that would make things worse and Graham seemed to feel the same way.

  Several hours later he dropped me off at my house and spent a few minutes talking to my dad before telling me he’d call me soon and leaving. My father gave me a long searching look then asked how I was.

  I shook my head sadly and let my father rock me against his chest. Soon I’d be in Washington proving to people twice my age that I was capable of comprehending any project they assigned me. Then convince them that I could return to Denver and advance that project forward. They’d test me intensively but I was confident that I could impress them. In the safety of my father’s arms, however, I let myself admit that there were still a great many things I didn’t understand.

  Like life.

  And love.

  Or how to be strong enough to let go of Graham if that ended up being what was best for both of us.

  CHAPTER 28

  Graham

  I was as healthy as a stallion in his prime.

  At least, that’s the way I preferred to view the results of my Wildcats physical. It was a hell of a lot better than the doctor who examined me put it when he’d proclaimed me to be “as healthy as a horse.”

  Ty and I had spent the morning getting our paperwork in for our check-ups, and the last several days had been spent trying to iron out my contract.

  We had a few months until training camp, but there was a hell of a lot of things to do to get ready for intensive training. And it all had to be done before every day was taken up by working my ass off physically, trying to live up to the millions of dollars given to me in my contract.

  Truthfully, I still wasn’t used to having money. Ty and I still ate the way we did in college. But I tried to keep my options healthy, even if my wide receiver loved mom-and-pop, greasy spoon restaurants.

  “Best burger in Denver,” Ty said after he’d chewed through more than half of a triple burger at one of our local meeting places.

  I smirked at him as I plowed through a huge omelet with veggies and steak. No way was I wasting calories on a burger with processed cheese and crappy buns. I ate plenty of healthy carbs and protein, and I was going to have to ramp up my calorie intake in preparation for more intense off-season workouts, but no way in hell was I going to eat as poorly as I did in college. Even if the restaurant we were in reminded me of the cheap places I’d haunted in college.

  “I wouldn’t know,” I rumbled as I devoured the rest of the veggies and eggs on my plate.

  “Dude, you have to live a little,” Ty said, and then proceeded to consume every fry on his plate.

  “I live just fine,” I informed him as I dropped my fork on my empty plate.

  Ty and I had developed a relationship I appreciated. Not only was he an amazing football player, he was a pretty decent guy.

  Every time we met up for off-season practice, I felt more and more comfortable with him, and surprisingly, I no longer thought about my words when we were talking. He’d told me enough about his own failures and mistakes that I didn
’t mind revealing my own.

  “I know you like food,” he mused. “So it isn’t that you don’t like to eat.”

  I leaned back against the worn leather of our booth. “I’m a professional athlete. Most of the time, I prefer to eat healthy.”

  “You eat every few hours,” he observed.

  “It keeps me from having energy spikes,” I explained.

  “Does it help?” he asked curiously.

  I had to remind myself that Ty was a rookie, and was just out of college ball. Most college guys weren’t as picky about their diet. I knew I hadn’t been. “It helps. It’s not that I don’t want to eat stuff that isn’t exactly part of my diet, but I’m saving it for restaurants with better food.”

  I was hoping that Lauren would go try out some of the best restaurants in the city with me, but we hadn’t gotten the time to do it yet.

  She’d been gone to DC for seven days, three hours, and a handful of minutes. And I felt every damn moment of her absence since the day I’d dropped her off at the airport.

  “Now that you’re making the big bucks?” Ty joked.

  “I got a good contract,” I confirmed. “And yours is a hell of a lot better than I got in my rookie year.”

  “I need to get this right,” Ty confessed. “I’m out to prove myself. Show the Cats that they didn’t make a mistake.”

  He was nervous. I already knew he was sweating the start of the season as much as I was. “I’m with you,” I said. “I have a lot to prove for the money they gave me, and I want to earn my bonuses.”

  “It’s not just the Cats,” he admitted. “Some of it is personal.”

  I wanted to ask him why, but I sensed from his expression that he didn’t want to talk about it, so I didn’t pry. “Just go out there and do what you do in practice, and you’ll be fine. You’re the best receiver I’ve ever had.”

  Ty was lightning fast, and he could pull a ball in even if the throw wasn’t completely accurate. He adjusted instinctively, and that wasn’t a talent a guy could really learn. A receiver had it or they didn’t.