I tilted my head and squinted at him. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”
“I never joke about Power Rangers. Or about Amy Jo Johnson,” he said through a mouthful of enchilada.
Laughing, I shook my head and wiped my fingers on a napkin. “I’m so secondhand embarrassed for you right now.”
“Okay, fine,” he said, all affronted. “Who was your celebrity crush?”
“Dylan McKay from 90210. No contest.”
Chris broke off a piece of taco shell and popped it into his mouth. “Really, Grant? I figured that you shied away from the brooding bad boy type.”
“In reality, maybe.” I shrugged. “But in fantasy, Dylan McKay was the perfect boyfriend. He was hot and expressed his emotions and always defended Brenda.”
“Until he cheated on her with Kelly.”
“And that’s when I stopped watching the show,” I said, careful to keep my tone neutral. I didn’t want to get into my history of orbiting boyfriends who claimed to be one thing but turned out to be someone else entirely. “At least he was a better character than noble Brandon Walsh, whose biggest accomplishment was wooing women with apple pie at the Peach Pit.”
Chris raised an eyebrow. “What do you got against apple pie?”
“Nothing. I simply prefer French silk,” I said, then polished off the rest of my fajita.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He winked and turned back to the show, hollering as a guy in a gorilla suit joined the other divers for a poorly acted skit.
When we finished our meal—Chris’s plate licked clean, mine largely untouched—we split the check as promised and headed into the attractions area, drinks in hand.
“So, Hazel Grant, tell me something else about yourself aside from your dog biscuit–baking abilities and your affinity for actors with too much hair gel,” Chris said as we joined a group of people gathered around a stage hosting a magic trick routine.
“Like what?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Something most people don’t know about you.”
I hesitated, unsure of how forthcoming I should be. Past experience had taught me that opening yourself up to someone, trusting them, had a way of backfiring.
“I haven’t slept well all week, which is uncommon for me,” I said after a beat.
“What’s been keeping you up?” he asked.
“A Lalonde.” I took a sip of my daiquiri from the swirly straw, avoiding his gaze. If I looked at him, I’d crack up before I could deliver the punch line.
Chris paused with his beer bottle halfway to his lips, his Adam’s apple bobbing heavily. “Yeah?” he asked, like he knew it was too good to be true but couldn’t quite help himself.
“Yeah. I enjoyed the tasting menu at Quince the other night so much that now I’m totally in love with your twin sister, Gwen. I can’t stop thinking about her.”
Chris shook his head, his mouth quirking up in a half smile. “That’s cold, Hazel Grant. So cold.”
I grinned. “Your turn,” I said, raising my voice above the crowd clapping for the magician onstage tugging a chain of scarves out of his mouth.
“Not so fast,” he said. “I want something real first.”
Something real. Which meant something honest and personal. And I didn’t do personal, not with men I’d only recently met. And especially not with men like Chris, who had one persona they crafted and honed and fed to the public, and another they reserved for their private life. But as I stood beside him, his attention entirely focused on me, all I could see was a man who was genuinely interested, and I felt myself relax in his company.
“Okay,” I said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I took pity on you tonight because I didn’t want to go home to a quiet house, basic cable, and a pint of gelato.”
It was pathetic and humiliating, but true nonetheless. Since having dinner with my uncle, his words—Chris knows how to live life out loud, and you need someone to teach you how—had been playing on repeat in my head. My daily existence was ordered and controlled—I preferred it that way, but was my uncle right? Was I only partially living? Could I learn something from Chris’s example?
After a moment, Chris cleared his throat and said, “I came to the kennel after today’s game because it was the only place I could think of where I wasn’t going to be vilified on sight.”
There was something dangerous about his statement, something raw and open and intimate. It was easy to be closed off with people who never shared themselves, but intimacy given was intimacy invited, and Chris’s confession felt like an invitation I wanted to accept.
“Dogs are safe like that,” I murmured, my voice not quite my own, hoping he couldn’t sense there was more I wasn’t sharing. “They don’t care what you did yesterday or the day before. They only care that you show up. That you try, and try with integrity.”
He nodded. “Everyone’s so angry with me—my teammates, the fans, the front office. None of them understand that my recent actions, the drugs—I did it all for them.”
I nodded. “That’s the other great thing about shelter dogs. They always know when you’re lying, even if you’re just lying to yourself.” I softened my tone with a smile. “You didn’t swallow those pills for other people, Chris. You swallowed them for yourself. The question is why?”
Chris polished off his beer, grabbed my empty mocktail cup, and tossed both into the trash can, nearly hitting the strolling mariachi band passing by. We moved into the main arcade area, where he purchased enough Skee-Ball tokens to host a tournament.
“All right, Hazel Grant, I hereby challenge you to a duel,” he said, hefting three of the wooden balls in the air and juggling them.
“Show-off,” I said, suppressing my grin. Was there anything Chris couldn’t do?
“I’m so glad you noticed,” he said. “It’s all part of the FIGJAM experience.”
My heart tripped in my chest at the playful dip in his voice, but I tried not to show just how much he was affecting me. “What are the stakes?”
“Every time I hit the fifty slot, you have to answer a question.”
“And each time I hit the slot?”
“I love how optimistic you are about your Skee-Ball skills. Same rules,” he said, letting the balls fall into his open palms before giving one to me. “Ladies first.”
Wiping my hands on my jeans, I wound up and rolled the ball down the alley, watching as it landed in the fifty slot.
“What? No way. Do it again,” he demanded.
“Suit yourself,” I said, sinking another ball in the fifty slot with an effortless toss. “Must be beginner’s luck.” I shrugged, collecting the tickets feeding out from the machine. Poor guy had no idea I’d devoted an entire misspent youth to mastering Skee-Ball and Pac-Man. “And you never answered my question from earlier.”
Chris scratched his jaw, and my fingers twitched to touch him there, my mind conjuring how good the roughness of his five o’clock shadow would feel against my neck, across my stomach, between my thighs.
“Fair enough,” he said. “Do you know why you never hear about the almost-successes?”
“No.”
“Because almost-successes are forgettable, and that’s not something I can ever afford to be. So I took the pills.”
I frowned, not following his logic. “But the Blizzards just won a Super Bowl. You’re nowhere near close to an almost-success.”
“Yeah, but at this rate, I’ll never do it again. Not with the Blizzards’ record this season.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “But you’ve still done something a sliver of the population could only dream of. Is that not enough?”
“Not for me,” he said, his voice sad. “You have to understand, Hazel, that I grew up with a father who sacrificed everything—his marriage, his health, his dignity—to chase a dream that ultimately destroyed him. He tried over and over again to open his own restaurant, become the chef my sister actually is, and for what? You don’t know what it’s like to look up to som
eone, to rely on them, to believe in them, and time and again they disappoint you. And now here I am, the one people are looking up to, and I don’t have it in me to fail them the way my father did my family. I just don’t.” Chris sighed, his shoulders sagging. “Football is all I have. All I am. I have to deliver.”
“Are you kidding? You are so much more than football, Chris.” I threw my hands up in frustration, because how did he not recognize that?
“You’d be the only one who thinks so.” He said it so earnestly it actually hurt me to realize he bought into his own lie.
I shook my head. “You seem hell-bent on ensuring you don’t become your father—a person who is little more than a shell of unrealized dreams and broken promises—but by pursuing this one thing, by making your entire identity about football, you’re ensuring you end up just like him.”
“Ouch, way to aim below the belt, Grant,” he said.
“Fine, if that’s not enough to convince you, then consider what you’ve done with Olive,” I said, slapping the back of my hand against his broad chest, hoping to knock some sense into him.
His gaze remained fixed on mine, and the intensity in his expression sent a hum of electricity running through me. But then, as if a spell had been broken, Chris cracked a smile, shedding his insecurity and slipping easily into the confidence I was beginning to recognize as a crutch, and said, “Not bad for a guy who doesn’t gel with the animals, huh? What can I say? The bitches love me.”
I rolled my eyes. “And here I expected to only gag over Casa Bonita’s food.”
Stepping up for his turn, Chris cocked his neck from side to side, loosening his shoulders, and sailed a ball down the alley and into the fifty slot. Dang, he was better at this game than I initially gave him credit for.
He turned to face me. “I want to know how a girl like you ended up running a shelter. And one that focuses on rehabilitation at that.”
“A girl like me?” I asked.
“Yeah. Tenacious, passionate, someone who doesn’t accept shit from anyone. You could do anything, Hazel, but you chose this profession. How come?” He picked up my hand and deposited another ball in my palm, his fingertips lingering against my skin.
The suddenness of his touch caused every nerve and synapse in my body to fire. I willed my feet to move, to create some distance between us, but it was as if I were paralyzed. Mercifully, Chris dropped my arm, and without his nearness, the haze in my head evaporated.
I cleared my throat. “My first dog was an enormous Rottweiler named Rhubarb that my uncle gave me. And in so many ways, she saved my life. I always wanted to return the favor, so that’s why I established the shelter.”
His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Bold statement. Care to follow up?”
“I guess you could say I know a thing or two about people disappointing you. I didn’t have a stable childhood. My father was verbally, emotionally, and sometimes physically abusive to my mother, but I’d prefer not to talk about him. And my mother, well . . . she did the best she could to protect me from all of that.” I bit my lip. “When I was eleven, she and I went to live with my uncle. Shortly after that, he bought Rhubarb from a local breeder—he’d heard Rottweilers were good with children.”
“And protective,” Chris said, appraising me as though my entire past was written on my face.
I nodded, forcing myself not to fidget under his scrutiny. “I was a scared kid who’d been ripped from my bed in the middle of the night with absolutely nothing but the clothes on my back. Rhubarb made that okay. She helped me cope and adjust to a new normal.”
While my uncle’s mansion had always acted as a safe haven for me, it hadn’t been until Rhubarb entered my life that I had my first brush with unflinching loyalty. As natural herding dogs, Rottweilers got a bad wrap, but Rhubarb had taken “guarding her flock” to extremes—following me to the bus stop and waiting for me when I returned, sleeping beside my bed after I’d liberated her from her designated place in the laundry room, lying across my feet while I ate dinner at the dining room table. She’d been my sentinel, my shadow, and my first best friend.
“So, anyway, I’ve experienced how a dog can heal and calm and change a person,” I continued. “And even though it’s not always easy and finances are always tight, I have a debt to pay, and the only way I know how is to give back to the animal that has given so much to me.” I spun toward the Skee-Ball machine, refusing to look at his face, scared of what I’d see reflected back at me. I played my turn, but the ball bounced off the rim and sank into the ten slot. Damn.
“So, she isn’t perfect,” Chris muttered. “Thank god. I was worried I was getting hustled, and my ego wouldn’t survive that.”
I snorted. “Please. A demolition crew loaded with TNT couldn’t put a dent in your ego.”
“You could, which gives you an awful lot of power, Hazel Grant,” he said. “Don’t be reckless with it.”
“No, that’s your specialty.”
Chris stepped close to me again, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating off his body and smell his scent—a mixture of soap and laundry detergent and something spicy. “Tell you what, I’ll agree to be a bit more cautious if you agree to step outside your comfort zone and do one wild, reckless thing.”
“Just one?” I kept my tone neutral, determined not to reveal how exposed he made me feel.
“For now,” he said, still studying me with those piercing brown eyes that touched the deepest part of me. Compared to the women who usually played planet to Chris’s sun, I was plain and easily overlooked. And yet there he stood, staring at me as if I were the sun.
“So what do you say, Hazel? Want to get a little reckless and let me do the one thing we’ve both been thinking about all night?” His voice, deep and low and enticing, vibrated across my skin.
I nodded as if compelled, and before I could process what was happening, Chris threaded his fingers into my hair and tugged me flush against him, kissing me until all of Casa Bonita faded away and the only bells and whistles going off were in my own head. My heart pounded in my ears as I clutched the soft material of his shirt, and the way his lips moved over mine, slow and unyielding and so alive, ignited a riot of sensations that slipped down my spine and settled like molten pleasure in the pit of my stomach.
And then too soon, Chris broke away. My chest rose and fell in an unsteady rhythm. I tried to catch my breath but couldn’t. Not with him still holding on to me. Not with the spell he’d just cast over me.
“Only you, Hazel Grant, could tempt a man to caution,” he whispered, skimming his nose along my cheek.
And tempt me off a cliff if I didn’t watch myself, I thought, wondering just how close to the edge I was already.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Chris
Multicolored searchlights cut across the night sky as I pulled up to the Ellie Caulkins Opera House at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. The organizers of the annual Blizzards’ Wish Upon a Star charity gala benefiting local at-risk youth programs had truly outdone themselves this year with its Great Gatsby theme.
Black-and-gold hanging glass orbs, string lights, and large art deco prints embellished the building’s entrance. Partygoers dressed in Roaring Twenties formal attire walked the red carpet, jazz music competing with the clamoring of the press line.
Cameras flashed as I exited my convertible, bright enough to blind but not strong enough to cut through my confidence as I pushed to the front of the crowd. I rolled my shoulders beneath my tux, glued on my signature winning grin, and stepped onto the red carpet, the sound of my name bombarding me from all around.
“Chris! Flying solo on this Saturday night?”
“Chris, which designer are you wearing?”
“Chris, how much do you intend to donate?”
“Chris, I hear Kent McDougall put you in the doghouse!” shouted Darryl Dixon, an ESPN writer.
I paused, uncertain what he was referring to. Then it clicked. “I’m assuming you’re referring to m
e volunteering at a local dog shelter?”
He nodded. “Seems like an odd choice for a guy who usually spends his time on more visible causes.”
“As you know, the Blizzards have always been pro community outreach—I just happen to be shaking paws instead of shaking hands,” I replied. “And who doesn’t love a dog?”
Kent might have sent me to Rescue Granted as a punishment, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t use the opportunity to my advantage. If me being seen holding every discarded, mangy, flea-bitten charity case I could find looked positive to the press and put me back into the fans’ good graces, so be it. And besides, Kent had practically instructed me to do just that. I was merely following orders.
“I imagine a number of your ex-girlfriends!” Darryl yelled back with a laugh. He held out a microphone and shifted to the side slightly so the cameras behind him could capture my angry expression they’d hoped would be induced by such a rude comment. For once I was happy to disappoint.
I squared off my posture, my smile growing wider despite the annoyance swirling in my stomach. “True story, Darryl. But spending time at Rescue Granted has been a good reprieve for me. The dogs are enthusiastic and undemanding, and that’s a mind-set I can appreciate.”
Then before Darryl could inquire about my shitty playing as of late and the doping allegations, I continued moving down the red carpet, posing for photographs and ignoring questions.
Ordinarily I liked attending charity functions—they guaranteed great exposure, free booze, and ample opportunities to schmooze and be schmoozed—but I wanted the hell away from here. This sort of red carpet publicity was enjoyable only when people loved you, and right now I was still considered enemy number one in the eyes of both Colorado fans and the media. Short of showing up with a cancer patient as my date and a rehabilitated Yorkie in my pocket, nothing I did tonight was going to improve my image. So, yeah, though I normally savored the limelight, tonight I’d rather be shoveling dog shit.
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