Lexington and 42nd (The Off Field Series #1)

by Kim Carmody

  Buck’s eyes bulged in shock. “Are you kidding? How could you not know, the guy was a drooling puppy over you for months.”

  “Drooling puppies lose interest pretty quickly. Especially when they have shiny new things paraded in front of them.”

  Shiny new things like Elena.

  Rubbing his hands over his face, Buck pulled the skin around his hairline taught and glared at me. “Please don’t tell me you think he’s like that.”

  I shook my head, concentrating on chipping the nail polish off my thumb. “I don’t know what to think. All I know is I’m not prepared to throw away my career or risk the livelihood of so many people I care about because of my own selfishness.”

  And I’m left even more heartbroken than I am now, I didn’t say.

  “You’ve surprised me, Aussie. I thought you were better than that.”

  “Buck, I—”

  “You realize you’re putting Will through exactly what you were trying to avoid yourself by ending it with him. Have you ever thought about trusting him? You’re so scared about what he might do in the future that you’ve thrown the whole thing away to protect yourself. The poor guy’s a fucking mess all because he thinks you don’t give enough of a shit about him to put him before your work.”

  I gaped at him, so furious I felt tears stinging my eyes.

  “That’s bullshit. Didn’t you hear what I just told you? The last thing I wanted to do was end it. I. Had. No. Choice.”

  “Huh.” Buck stood, leaning over me with both arms trapping me against the lounge. “Well Aussie, you have a choice now, because coach trumps president when it comes to the players. Rattray wants this shit sorted out so he can get his QB back, so don’t bother hiding behind that little excuse anymore.”

  He pushed away to stand, sighing in resignation. “If you’re not going to trust him, then at least tell him the truth. He deserves that.”

  With that, Buck turned and pulled open the door, yelling thanks for dinner on his way out.

  When the door swung shut I slumped back, feeling a bit like I’d been slapped. Was it really that easy? What coach says goes and the whole ugly problem could just disappear? I shuddered at the memory of sitting in Mark’s office, being berated and threatened by Hayes. I felt my heart rate pick up just thinking of how badly things could end, how I could single-handedly take away so many people’s livelihood, not to mention my own career.

  But then I thought of Will, and the knowledge that I had been the one to cause his pain cut deep; that by doing the right thing for everyone else, I’d been doing wrong to the person I cared about most. And while I’d been too caught up in my grief to realize it at the time, I knew that to some extent Buck was right. A part of me was afraid to trust Will and let things go further between us. Maybe the situation with Hayes had been a convenient distraction, something I could fall back on so I didn’t have to admit that I was scared shitless.

  It wasn’t until that moment that I finally allowed myself to realize how completely and utterly head over heels in love I was with Will. He was right, I couldn’t care less if he was the New York Warriors quarterback or not. I had fallen for the man inside the jersey, the one who had me laughing one minute and in a pool of want the next. The guy who singled me out in a crowded room with just a look, and shared his stories with me because he knew I’d keep them safe. The man who rushed to my side when I needed him and looked at me like I was the most precious thing on earth. The realization was frightening, terrifying even, but with it came a sense of calm that I hadn’t felt in a long time.

  “Buck!”

  I jumped off the lounge, launching myself at the window and wrenching it up.

  “Buck! Up here!”

  He turned, inclining his head to get a better look at me.

  “Do you know where Will is?” I yelled.

  His arms spread wide, almost as wide as the grin on his face. “Pretty sure he’s at home. You need a lift?”

  “Nah, thanks though!” I waved before ducking back inside and shutting the window. Snatching my keys from the coffee table, I sprinted out the door.

  I didn’t stop running once I made it out onto the street, the wall of heat not bothering me in the slightest. My only thoughts were of Will, of getting to him and, well, I wasn’t sure what but I’d figure it out.

  About halfway to his place, my chest heaving for air, the skies suddenly opened up, fat raindrops falling thick and fast. It was so hot out that the sun shower almost had a monsoonal effect, hot steam rising off the sidewalk, heightening the somewhat unappealing smells that I’d quickly discovered came with a New York summer.

  Ten minutes later I arrived at his building soaked through, my gray cotton dress now dark and clinging to my body, sending trails of water down my legs. I pushed his buzzer and almost immediately he answered, his warm, carefree voice making me want to melt into the puddle at my feet.

  “Come on up.”

  I pushed through the door, thinking how strange it was that he’d so casually invited me up when he didn’t even know who it was.

  The lift doors opened and I stepped out, my adrenalin waning for the first time since I’d leapt off the couch as I took in the familiar surroundings of Will’s apartment.

  “What’s up, Buck?”

  My head snapped to the direction of his voice. “It’s, um, it’s not Buck.”

  Standing with his back to me in the kitchen, he turned quicker than I would have thought possible, his eyes wide with surprise.

  “Emma.” The words came out like air with noise attached instead of the other way around.

  His face creased as he took in my appearance, hair plastered across my face, a soaking dress clinging to me and more than likely streaks of mascara running down my cheeks.

  “Sorry, sorry, I’m…” I looked down at my feet and back up to him. “Dripping. I’m dripping all over your floor.”

  He still said nothing, staring at me as if an alien had just walked into his apartment. It was only then, as my breathing slowed to semi-normal that I took in the complete silence of the room. No TV, no radio, nothing bubbling on the stove, just complete and utter silence. In fact it was so quiet I was pretty sure I could make out the drip, drip, drip of water from my hair hitting the floor.

  Shifting from foot to foot, I clasped my hands together, twisting my interlocked fingers with the awkwardness of it all. I couldn’t even approach him for fear of taking my own little sun shower any farther into his apartment. The sheer stupidity of just racing to his place with no thought of what I would do when I actually arrived weighed down on me. I felt the lick of butterflies start to build in my stomach, rising to panic as they reached my chest.

  “I should have called. I’m sorry.” Hitching a thumb over my shoulder I said, “I’ll go.”

  I swivelled, reaching for the lift button when he spoke.

  “Wait.”

  When he didn’t say anything else I turned, meeting his eyes as he moved around the kitchen towards me. But instead of stopping he kept walking, past the lift and into the guest bedroom. He came out a few seconds later with towels in his hand and putting one under his arm he shook out the other, swinging it over my shoulders. The simple act was both nothing and everything, the gesture so intuitively caring that my eyes closed as the soft cotton settled around me. He stepped away quickly though, holding out the second towel with an extended arm.

  “Thanks.” I quickly wiped my face and arms before wringing my hair into it.

  He drew a breath as if to speak before changing his mind, stepping the few paces backwards to lean against the kitchen counter.

  “Um, I hear you’ve been training pretty hard.”

  Will shrugged. “Time of year.”

  “Oh.” My chest squeezed at how withdrawn he was. I’d seen so many sides to Will, but never this. I’d never felt the blatant cold of his stare, the totality of his detachment.

  “Buck said you might have been training a bit too hard.”

  Will scowled at
me, shaking his head. “What are you doing here, Em? I don’t need anyone else having an opinion on how I’m training.”

  “No! No, I didn’t mean it like that.” I bounced on my heels, struggling to find the words to say what I needed to.

  “I wanted to talk to you, but now that I’m here I don’t really know where to start.” I stared at the rich fluffy fabric of the towel before looking back up to his face. “I miss you.”

  I saw rather than heard his breath catch, the way his chest froze for just a millisecond before continuing its steady rise and fall. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to give me the courage to walk towards him. I stopped when we were an arms-length apart, close enough that if I wanted to, I could reach out and touch him.

  “Can I sit?” I gestured to the bar stool at his side.

  He nodded, shifting his body to face me as he crossed his arms over his chest.

  I sucked in a deep breath, realizing that if I wanted him to truly understand my behavior, he needed to hear everything.

  “Two years ago, the club back home brought into a chain of pubs and restaurants as a means of finding new revenue streams. It was a big investment and the financial risk was massive, but the possible rewards were just too great. At least that’s how it was sold to us, but things started to go sour around the six month mark.” I glanced up from where I’d been fidgeting with the towel in my lap to look at Will. His face was a mask, giving nothing away. “It turned out that a couple members of the board of directors had accepted bribes to push the deal through. It wasn’t nearly as good a partnership as it looked on paper and as soon as the media got a hold of the story, the whole thing crashed. The club has been on the brink of bankruptcy for the last twelve months.”

  When Will’s face still didn’t alter, I felt the edges of panic take hold. Maybe Buck had it all wrong and I was standing in his apartment about to confess my undying love and completely humiliate myself.

  “Could I maybe have a glass of water please?” I reached up to rub across my chest, trying to relieve some of the tightness there.

  Will pushed away from the counter, walking around the other side to grab a glass from the shelf and fill it in the sink.

  The silence was just deafening.

  “Thank you.” I gulped it down before setting it in front of me with shaking hands.

  “This partnership,” I waved my hand in the space between us, “between our two clubs, is the only thing keeping my club afloat right now. If it wasn’t for this, we would have folded and probably merged with another team. Can you imagine if the Warriors folded? Just ceased to exist?”

  Will gave a small nod, basically the only form of acknowledgement I’d had since I started pouring out my story over his kitchen counter. I took another deep breath bracing myself to reveal what I’d kept from him the past month.

  “Hayes threatened to fire me, send me home and cancel the whole partnership if I didn’t end things. And he meant it. I had no choice but to do what he said. If I didn’t, I would have been completely responsible for the demise of the club. Over a hundred years of history and the livelihood of so many ruined because of my selfishness. And before you ask,” although to be honest, Will hadn’t once looked like he was going to attempt to join in this one-sided conversation. “He made it clear that if I went to you to sort it out, he’d pull the whole arrangement between our two clubs and ruin my career not just here, but at home too.”

  I placed a hand over Will’s bicep to get him to look up from where his eyes had been focused on the wooden floor, imploring him to understand my actions. “I lied about why I wanted to stop seeing you.” As hard as it was, I didn’t let myself look away from him. “I didn’t really have a choice, or at least I didn’t think I did.”

  Apart from the slight tic in his jaw, his features remained unreadable. And really, who could blame him for being angry. Hell, I’d be furious if I’d found out someone who had no right had been meddling in my private life.

  “That’s, that’s kind of it. That’s what I wanted to tell you. I thought you should know.”

  Will nodded once as he studied my face. “Is that all you came to say?”

  “Yeah, that was pretty much it.” I spoke the words slowly, like I was hoping I might understand the meaning of his question by the time I’d answered him. Because really, wasn’t that enough? Now he knew. He knew I didn’t want things to end, that I’d been forced to end them. He didn’t have to think it was because I didn’t care for him anymore.

  “There was nothing else you wanted to say?”

  Says the guy who’d spoken in monosyllabic words since I’d arrived.

  “Not that I can think of.” Again, I spoke the words slowly watching as his jaw continued to tic. “Is there…do you, I mean, don’t you have anything to say?” I blurted the words out in frustration, mystified as to why he hadn’t said something, anything in response.

  Will shrugged, staring at me now with complete detachment. I’d never felt more unwelcome in someone else’s space than I did right now. “What’s there to say? It’s all done with now.”

  I felt the finality of his words down to my toes, the cold hard truth that I’d feared all along settling in like a steel pit in the base of my stomach. Will wasn’t heartbroken, he didn’t even really care that much.

  “You’re right, of course. I just thought you should know the truth.”

  I was already retreating back toward the lift, my arms flailing in movements that were meant to portray an it’s-no-big-deal-attitude to what had just happened when nothing could be further from the truth.

  “I better go…it was, um, nice to see you.”

  Nice to see you? That was about as nice as a trip to the dentist.

  Will’s head lifted in lazy recognition to my farewell. No wave, no spoken words, just the slightest effort required to incline his head backward and forward in quick succession. Like the last nail in the coffin.

  My finger jabbed blindly at the lift button, hitting it on the third go when all the while Will stayed put, resting casually against the kitchen counter as he stared at me with a look I could only assume was meant to get me the hell out of there as quickly as possible. Which I was absolutely trying to do.

  The bell dinged to signal the arrival of the lift and when the doors opened I didn’t even bother turning around to say one last goodbye, preferring to stare at the back wall as the lift swallowed me up.

  As I walked back outside into the pouring rain, I waited for the shock to wear off and tears to come in its place but instead, the further I walked the angrier I got until I was so furious I had to dig my nails into my skin to stop from screaming.

  How.

  Fucking.

  Dare.

  He.

  Rude asshole. It was staggering the difference between the old Will, the Will who had been playful and flirty and tender and sweet, and this stranger who’d stared at me like I’d invented the plague. He might be over whatever went on between us but that didn’t mean he had to treat me like a total stranger. Before I knew it, my anger had led me all the way home, where I promptly headed back upstairs to polish off the rest of my bottle of red, before falling into a restless, rage-filled sleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  My rage hadn’t subsided when I woke early the next morning to the shrill ringing of my phone.

  “Emma? It’s Liv.”

  “Oh, hey Liv.” Clearing my throat I rolled over to see it was only 7 a.m.

  “Sorry to call you so early. I’m just really stuck and I need a favor.”

  I rolled my eyes. This surely couldn’t be good.

  “You see, my pain in the ass boss has just moved up the date for story submissions for the new documentary series the network is producing—you know the one?”

  In true Liv style, she barrelled on, not waiting for me to respond.

  “So now I need to pull together the whole proposal in only two days and it’s impossible! God, sometimes I really hate Harry.”

&nbs
p; I sighed, sitting up further in bed. “Let me guess, you want me to meet you out at the stadium to scout for shoot locations.”

  “Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! That would be amazing, Em. Thank you so much.”

  “Hang on, I haven’t said yes yet.”

  “Oh but you will, because you’re wonderful and my favorite and you’ve never let me down.”

  I couldn’t help but giggle—Liv had that effect on people—at the total positivity in her voice. I think that’s what made her such a great reporter…she was fierce, but not in an overbearing way. Even while she was hounding you for things you just didn’t want to give her, when her determination was showing like a badge on her chest, she was just so likeable.

  “I’m sorry, I really don’t think I can. I just don’t have time in my schedule today.”

  Or in other words…my schedule’s totally clear, I just don’t want to chance running into Will until I can trust myself not to kick him in the balls.

  “Oh come on Em, you have to. Please? I’ll be so quick, one hour of your time—two at the max. I wouldn’t ask, but this is so important to me.”

  If it wasn’t for the fact that she’d had my back all those weeks ago and that her story pitch was so important to her I more than likely would have said no. But knowing how desperate she was to produce this documentary concept she’d been working on for months, I couldn’t let it all fall apart at the last minute just because a certain quarterback had been a douche.

  Olivia was a rare find in the sports journalism world, determined to make it to the top in an industry dominated by males. She knew the NFL inside out and was a diligent reporter who worked tirelessly, but never tried to be one of the boys on camera or off. And while she was quite beautiful, striking in fact, I’d also never seen her use anything more than her trademark megawatt smile or the odd sassy comment to get what she wanted. If there was any way that girl was making it to the top, it was through talent and hard work alone.

  I made this weird whimper of frustration into the phone and she knew she had me.

  “Oh, thank you so much Em. I owe you big time. Can you meet me there in an hour?”