Lexington and 42nd (The Off Field Series #1)
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An hour and ten minutes later, my cab door was pulled open with a flourish as Liv leaned over, shoving a wad of cash at the driver.
“You’re the best. Seriously, a total lifesaver,” she said as she all but dragged me from the cab. “This is Justin. He’ll be my camera man when I land the series,” she said with a wink.
“Of that I have no doubts.” I laughed, taking Justin’s extended hand.
“So I basically want to see everything, but specifically we need to get a few shots from the locker room, plenty of camera angles on the field and we need to check out the weight room, recovery and medical rooms.”
I had called ahead to one of the team managers to get a sense of the training schedule for today, to see what areas were off limits and when. The coaching staff was pretty flexible, but it always paid to work around them as much as possible. That and I was prepared to do practically whatever I needed to avoid Will.
“The team’s on the field now, so let’s start indoors,” I said, leading them toward the facilities entrance.
We worked our way through the weight and training area, Liv and Justin discussing this camera angle and that until they were satisfied they had everything they needed.
After checking to make sure it was empty, we went into the locker room where Liv really hit her stride, getting worked up over all the different interview segments she wanted to capture in the gritty space where so much of the off-field action took place.
I checked my watch, shocked that we’d been there for close to forty-five minutes. “Liv, do you have everything you need here? The team’s due back any second, and we need to get out.”
“Yes, sorry. I think we’re good.” She clutched her hands together and did a little jig. “This is going to be perfect! Okay, just the medical room and then we’re done inside.”
“Fine, but be quick. We seriously need to clear out.”
I led them to the door of the small medical room, pushing it open at the same time I realized there were voices coming from inside.
“Oh, I’m sor –”
My eyes landed on Will’s face, distorted in pain before I noticed the giant, and I mean giant, needle that was being pulled from his leg.
At the sound of my voice, both he and the doctor looked up, the doctor frowning when he registered we weren’t part of the playing team.
I pulled the door shut and froze, my eyes meeting the shocked faces of both Liv and Justin.
“Opps.” Liv gave me an apologetic smile before saying to Justin. “We can do without that room, don’t you think?”
Hearing raised voices coming from the other side of the door, I cringed. “Let’s just get out of here.” I pushed both of them ahead of me, desperate to get as far away from Will as possible.
We were halfway across the locker room when I heard the door open and a second later, Will’s voice calling my name. Both Liv and Justin stopped and turned, causing me to fall into them in my rush to get out. Justin frowned at me in confusion, as if to say, why aren’t you turning around? It’s the New York Warriors’ quarterback calling your name. Whereas Liv, who was the only person outside the office who had made the connection that it was me in the TMZ photos, was looking at me with wide eyes, clearly eager to see what came next.
“Guys, I mean it, let’s get out of here.” I shoved past them, stalking toward the door.
“Emma! I said wait. Jesus, can you just hang on a minute. Aw, fuck!” I paused as I heard the pain in his voice, turning to see him hunched over his crutches.
“Jensen you’re doing damage. Would you stop moving?” The doctor latched onto his arm, pulling him upright.
Ignoring him, Will looked at me. “Emma just wait, I need to talk to you.”
I shook my head, a strangled sound coming out. “Now you need to talk to me, huh?”
“Yeah, I do.”
I marched toward him, every step bringing out the anger that had been bubbling just under the surface since last night.
“You had your opportunity to talk, Will, and you chose not to so no, you can’t talk to me right now.”
I went to walk back out but at that very moment the doors swung open, the room filling with the sound of forty or so sweaty men clamoring in with helmets and padding and booming voices. This was fast making its way up the charts as one of my all-time I-wish-I-was-anywhere-but-here moments.
“For fuck’s sake!” Will’s thundering voice and the clatter of one of his crutches hitting a wall brought the room to a standstill. He breathed heavily, his face morphing in pain as he hopped around trying to find his balance again, shoving the doctor away in frustration.
“Please, can I just talk to you, just for a minute?”
“Fine. Talk.” I crossed my arms over my chest and waited.
He looked around uncertainly at the numerous sets of eyes I knew were staring at him from over my shoulder. “Can we go in—”
“No. Say what you need to say now. I’m busy.”
Wow, I really was angry with him. The normal Emma would never have the guts to speak like that, especially with an audience of half-strangers looking on.
Will sucked in a breath, scratching the back of his neck. “Fine. If it has to be here, then so be it.” He squared his shoulders and stared down at me. “I don’t care about how the club or Hayes or anyone else feels about us. I couldn’t give a shit, in fact, but that’s all I’ve ever heard from you.” He paused before awkwardly hopping closer to me, so close that when he leaned down I felt the heat of his skin. “I want to know how you feel about us.”
I froze, suddenly wishing that I’d agreed to go somewhere more private to have this conversation. “Will…”
“Just tell me the truth.”
I shook my head, my voice barely more than a whisper. “Isn’t it obvious?”
He straightened up, shaking his head. “Not to me it isn’t. How could it be? You’ve pushed me away practically every chance you got. I never had a hope of knowing what was going on in your head the way you yo-yoed around. Hell, the first time we slept together, you practically ran from my bed the second we’d finished.”
Well this was embarrassing.
Will tore his eyes from mine. “Could everyone who is not Emma or me just get the fuck out of here?”
I heard the sound of feet shuffling mixed with the click, click, click of Liv’s shoes as Will continued to glare over my shoulder. When the room fell completely quiet, his gaze dropped to mine again.
“So?” He searched my eyes, his voice quiet. “Will you tell me how you feel?”
I stared at him for the longest time, my heart and my head filled with everything that had happened—all the good, all the bad and all the things that had forced a wedge between us. It filled up my lungs and my chest and continued rising, until I felt like I was going to drown in it.
But then Will bit his lip and I saw the vulnerability in his eyes, the way he was literally holding his breath as he waited for my response. And in that moment I realized it would be okay if he knew how I felt, in fact it would be preferable. Because even if things didn’t work out, even if I got my heart broken all over again in the process, I owed it to myself and to him to be honest.
My chin fell to my chest as all the air left my body, my voice barely a whisper. “I love you, all right? So much that sometimes it feels like I’m drowning now that it’s all over.”
Will didn’t say anything for so long I was worried he hadn’t heard me, or worse, he had and now was wishing he’d never asked.
But then his hand brushed under my chin, pulling my gaze up to his and he smiled. A soft, gentle smile that made my heart skip a beat. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Well…well what about you? I mean, how do you feel?”
His hand cupped the side of my face, warm fingers wrapping around my neck. “Do you remember that first day I took you out for lunch?” I nodded, frowning at him
. “I thought you were just about the prettiest thing I’d ever seen then.”
“Oh.”
“And do you remember me giving you a ride back from the club the next week?”
“Um, Yeah.”
“Well I pretty much adored you after your little speech about my quarterbacking skills.”
“You did?”
“Yep. And when I danced with you at the fundraiser?” He shook his head, smiling at the memory. “You’ve fucking owned me ever since then. I’ve never wanted anyone like I want you, Emma. In fact I’m pretty sure I started falling in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you.”
He reached out and wrapped a hand around my waist, pulling me to him. “I’m going to kiss you now, and this time it’ll be the last first kiss. I’ll never be in a room with you again without being able to kiss you or touch you. No more false starts, no more hiding, or lying, no more pushing me away.” He smiled and looked down at where he was leaning on his crutch. “If I keep training like this, I’ll be dead before we even get to the playoffs.”
And then he did kiss me, slowly, with the press of his teeth against my lips as the smile spread wide across his face. My hands latched onto his neck, pulling him as close to me as possible. If it weren’t for his bad knee I probably would have climbed onto him right then and there.
“Yo, Jensen!” The familiar sound of Buck’s voice echoed in the empty room.
Will pulled away from me reluctantly. “Yeah?”
“You about done sortin’ out your love life in there? Your boys need a shower.”
Will looked down at me. “You wanna get out of here?”
I grinned. “Absolutely.”
EPILOGUE
Will
We lay on our backs staring up at the ring on Emma’s finger. Pride filled my chest as I watched the way it shone down at us. “Fuck, that’s a nice ring.”
A burst of laughter came from her. “It looks ridiculous.”
“You’re right, hand it back.”
Letting the enormous piece of metal fall from her finger into the palm of my hand I said, “I’ll buy you one that fits.”
Her eyes bulged, sparkling as she punched my bicep. “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”
Pulling her up to sit on my hips I trailed my hands up and down the smooth skin of her waist. “What if I do mean it?”
The sparkle in her eyes dimmed, her teeth worrying her bottom lip as she looked at me curiously. “Don’t joke,” she whispered.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
We’d been going back and forth like this for a few weeks now, me testing the waters with various not-so-subtle comments about the future and her batting them away with her usual easy avoidance. It didn’t faze me though. I was just glad to have her finally living in my apartment—it had taken months to convince her to take that step. My eyes dipped down from her face to her breasts, where they ultimately landed any time she was topless. Those boobs brought me to my knees on a daily basis.
“Stop staring and put your damn ring on.” She wiggled her hips which did nothing to slow my growing hard on.
I did as she said, sliding the metal onto my finger, remembering as I did it the first time I put it on, the day we won the Super Bowl. Until I met Emma I would have said nothing could feel as good as holding up that trophy, but that was before she glided into my life and flipped the whole damn thing on its head. The day we finally got our shit together—a moment that had been witnessed by no less than my whole team thanks to her stubborn refusal to go somewhere private—sat side-by-side with winning the Super Bowl as the best day of my life. And that night had been even better. My eyes slid back down to her boobs. Fuck that was a good night.
Even on crutches with my knee feeling like it was on fire, my body exhausted from the endless pain numbing workouts I’d put it through to forget the pain of her, we only stopped to come up for air as the sun was rising. It was like it took my mind that long to catch up to what my body already knew, that she was right there in my bed, finally in my arms. I hadn’t wanted to sleep for fear of waking up and finding out the whole thing had been a dream. Lying in the crook of my arm, she had looked up at me, eyes not much more than tiny slits as she fought off sleep and she’d said, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m scared as all hell. I’m so happy but…” Her words had trailed off and I’d had to push her for more.
“What if Hayes still fires me?” Her eyes had grown large as she spoke the words, the panic rising as she let all her worries back in. “He would already know, wouldn’t he? Everyone must know now. It was so…public.”
I’d wanted to tease her, tell her she ought to listen to me every once in a while and should have agreed to speak in private that morning, but I valued my balls too much for that. “Baby, relax. It’s all okay, it’s sorted.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve spoken to him all ready.”
Her eyes had grown even wider. “When?”
“Right after you left my apartment the other night.”
“You did?”
Flipping us so she was under me, I had pulled her bottom lip into my mouth. “Mhhmmm. Told him he wouldn’t have a quarterback if he even thought about firing you.”
I had been reeling when Emma walked out of my apartment. Furious with Hayes, furious with her for not coming to me in the first place and furious at myself for having been clueless to it the whole time. My knuckles were white with the force of restraining myself at the counter top as I watched her get in the elevator, desperate to chase after her but knowing I needed to sort through the clusterfuck going on in my head first. I had wanted to shake her as she told me everything, not just because the whole thing could have been avoided, but because she never once referenced herself, how she felt about me during her babbling monologue. I wanted—no I needed—her to stop worrying about the outside world for once and just focus on herself.
That night, after blasting Hayes through the phone, seething about what he’d done for a few hours, then seething about Emma for a few more, I’d finally acknowledged my own misgivings in the whole situation, realizing how stupid I’d been to play along with her casual, keep-it-quiet approach. Seeing how jumpy she was about the whole thing, I had followed her lead, played by her rules, and ultimately lost her…for a painful few weeks at least.
Even knowing what I did now, how much worse her position had been than I’d ever imagined, I still knew that wasn’t the only reason she’d stayed away. She had to know on some level that if she’d told me from the get-go what was happening, I would have been able to fix it. It was like a calm had settled over me when I finally realized the real problem, that as scared as she was of what Hayes might do to her, she was more scared of trusting me. The revelation had started as a slow burn in my chest, twisting my gut in a way that nothing else over the past month had. Trust was the foundation of any successful NFL team because if you didn’t have that, nothing else mattered. But I’d never needed so much trust from someone off the field before. Emma was the first person I’d wanted everything from. I wanted her heart, her body and her mind. I wanted to own every laugh, every thought, every movement she made.
Fairly or not, she’d judged me before she really knew me—chose to see the stereotype of me instead of the real me—and the fuck up with Bobbie and then Mark had only solidified things for her. The morning after she’d come to my apartment, even with only two hours sleep, I woke completely refreshed, feeling as if the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders. That afternoon, right after practice I was going to get my girl back.
“You know you’ll have to go Roo hunting with my dad before there’s any talk of rings.” Emma grinned, wiggling her hips again to pull me from my daydream.
“So you keep saying.” My voice was thick as I tightened my hands to stop her hips. “You know I’m not sure I believe you though.”
Her eyes blazed with amusement. “Guess you’ll just have to get there and find out.”
“You excited, baby?”
She nodded vigorously. “You?”
Four weeks away from the frantic pace of New York with nothing but Emma to distract me? Hell yes. We were spending the first two weeks in Sydney and I couldn’t wait to get to know where she lived, meet her friends and figure out this Aussie Rules football code she spoke so highly of. The last two weeks would be spent at her parent’s property. You know, the one with all the snakes and spiders and shit? And then there was this Kangaroo hunting business that she kept going on about. I was pretty sure she was messing with me but still…I shuddered at the thought.
As if reading my mind she said, “Don’t be nervous, Quarterback. I’ll protect you.”
“You gonna keep bringing that up for the rest of our lives?”
She cocked her head, squinting down at me. “More than likely.”
“You might want to rethink that.” My fingers trailed up her sides, poised to tickle but she went all sex-ninja on me, sliding purposefully along the length of me.
“Mmmfp. Baby you don’t play fair.” Grunting, I bucked my hips toward her, drinking in the way it made her boobs bounce. “Put me in.”
Lifting her hips she leaned down to my mouth, kissing me once. “No.”
“Wh—? Hey, where you going?” I watched as she bounced off the bed and waltzed into the bathroom in all her naked glory.
“To shower. We’re going to be late.”
“Bullshit, we’ve got ages.”
She poked her head around the door. “Yeah, and you take ages.”