by Tijan
Really bad. Like seriously, I’m stupid—sign me up for another stint of therapy kind of bad.
I did not need to deal with anyone on a real basis. Lucas was the most I’d tried in a year, and we all know how that ended.
Reese Forster made Grandpa Newt not even a blip.
But, I was walking from the main lounge, after dinner when he fell in step beside me, and for some reason no one clued Reese Forster in on how bad of an idea he was to my senses.
“I didn’t mean to freak you out earlier,” he said.
I almost faltered in my stride, but caught myself and kept going. I needed to deal with this problem before I was put in a mental clinic.
“Tell me something gross about yourself.”
“Why?”
We were rounding one of the outdoor courts. A couple of the other players were there, shooting hoops.
I figured, why not. “Because gross helps balance things out. I need balancing out. I’m starting to like you.”
He grabbed my arm, jerking me to a stop.
His head inclined toward me. His eyes keen. “Say again.”
I rolled my eyes. “Come on. You’re a pro ball player. Women throwing themselves at you is not new. Why are you surprised by me?”
“It’s not that.” He gripped the back of his neck. “As a line, that was almost lame compared to some I’ve heard.” An easy grin fell back in place and he let go of his neck, nodding to me. “You can do better.”
This guy.
I—no words.
Then I blinked a few times, staring at him because he was right. I could do better, and that sort of thing wouldn’t even phase him.
“Okay. Fine.” I could do this.
This was weird.
I was still going with it. “Is your dick cold? Because I’ve got a warmer for it.”
He didn’t react, his face expressionless, then his smirk grew. “That’s it? We’re not at the Roxbury. Do better.” His smirk was growing cocky.
Jesus. He did not realize the stalker he was fanning here.
Some of the bouncing from the court lessened. The guys were starting to watch us. One guy broke from their group, heading over. I saw it from the corner of my eye.
I coughed. “I don’t know. How do girls usually hit on you?”
He shrugged. “Most just usually send me a nude in my messages. Or you know, practically being naked and just grabbing me.”
“That works?”
His smirk was almost rakish now. “If I have an itch and she’s got the warmer for my dick.”
That was so crude. My warmer got hotter.
“Yeah. Well. I’m trying to warn you away from me.”
He rolled his eyes. “You don’t scare me. Besides, I thought you were funny.” He relaxed, rolling his shoulders back.
“Reese,” Juan called out, halfway to us. He shot out a ball. It bounced once and Reese caught it without looking away from me.
“You think I’m less funny now that I’m being honest?”
He flexed his hands around the ball. “Maybe I’m missing the questions?”
Juan stopped just shy of joining our group and conversation. He was waiting.
And I was waiting too. No one missed my questions. I didn’t even miss my questions. I was waiting because I didn’t know how to process this conversation. I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you messing with me?”
There was another burning feeling in me, moving up, spreading over my stomach, my chest, rising all the way to my neck. It was a burning feeling that I hadn’t felt in so long. I almost didn’t recognize it.
“Is that another attempt? ’Cause that’s lame too.” He smirked. “Thought you weren’t a camp groupie?”
Well…there was always going to be a fine line with that one, especially with him, only with him.
I closed my mouth and bit down hard. Juan Cartion was listening to our conversation, and not even hiding it. The Cruskinator was coming in too, his large hands on his hips.
I focused back on him, trying to ignore the other two and now a third was coming over. “We have an audience.”
Reese’s eyebrows pulled together, skimming a look over his teammates. “So?”
“So.” I coughed, smiling and dipping my head down. My hands were almost shaking. “I should get the cage open. Excuse me.”
I wasn’t running. I honestly wasn’t.
I wasn’t hiding.
I wasn’t avoiding.
I—just—I’d hid from life while I was with Damian, then hid for another year, and Lucas had been a crash and burn attempt at jump-starting my whole living again. This, though. This, with a minor conversation with Reese Forster (yes, I had to say his last name because his first name didn’t put it into the best perspective) had me feeling things I’d almost forgotten could happen in me.
I felt normal, for a small moment.
I was a girl crushing on a guy, not a fangirl gawking over a celebrity, and it hit me hard in the chest. Right there, making that thing pumping and skipping a beat.
That was what I’d been afraid of.
I was normal again the next morning. So normal I was boring.
No fangirl. No creep or freak. Nothing. Not one iota.
Reese looked at me, and I barely reacted.
Reese asked me for a ball and I handed one over, just fine. My hands only trembled a slight bit. See. Totally freaking so-blah boring.
I could’ve put myself to sleep, I was that lame.
I was tragically normal.
That lasted until the afternoon.
Reese was in the hallway when I came out of the bathroom. He was leaning against the wall, and his head lifted as I exited the door. He pushed off from the wall and declared, “You’re being weird.”
Holy shit. He finally knew me.
I grinned, not wanting to go back to the gyms. No one else was in the hallway so I leaned back against the other wall. “Hate to break it to you, but that’s my norm.”
“No. Not like this.” He indicated me. “I can tell. You’re off from your usual weird shit.” He scowled. “I don’t like it.”
I raised an eyebrow. “My usual weird shit?”
A smile ghosted over his face. “You don’t think I didn’t know you were watching me that first night?”
Oh. I squirmed. This hallway suddenly got really hot.
“Or the next morning when I jogged past with Juan?”
I’d been a creeper both times, standing and hiding against the wall.
And really. I glanced at the back end of the hallway. Keith didn’t believe in using an air conditioner for the indoor gym, said all the windows were enough for the ventilation, but maybe we needed to add more windows.
My voice came out strained. “You knew I was there those times?”
“One of the guys heard you freaking out the first night they got here, told me about it last night after he saw us talking by the courts. Figured I needed a warning.”
I could’ve been a puddle by now.
“Oh, God.”
A slight chuckle from him. “I don’t give a shit about that. You about to start creeping outside my cabin window?”
Yes. Maybe. I mean, no.
“What cabin are you in?”
The corner of his mouth tugged upwards. “Yeah, right. I’m half-tempted to tell you. I want you back to how you were.”
“How I was what?”
“Being weird.” He raked me up and down. “You’re being normal. I don’t like it.”
I frowned a little. “You’re very vocal and demanding.”
“I know what I want.”
And apparently, he wanted me weird. Well, I could so out-weird him.
I mean—where’d that come from?
Now my eyebrows went up. “I don’t get a lot of requests to go back to being crazy.”
He grinned, but then shrugged and readjusted his leaning stance against the wall. His hands went into his pockets. “I don’t know. Just doesn’t feel right.” Then that g
rin came back. It was teasing now. “Or maybe I thought I was getting my own ball girl for a second, and before you run with that one, I mean as in someone to retrieve my balls for me so I don’t have to stop shooting hoops.”
I almost cooed at him, all the embarrassment shifting to more comfortable terrain here. “That’s cute. You want an errand girl.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” His eyes darkened.
“No, seriously. Think of it this way,” I told him. “Now you don’t have to be scared you’ll find me in your bed one night with a knife and hot wax.”
Someone walked past the hallway, then backtracked.
“Reese.” It was Aiden. He was frowning at us. “Coach wants you back.”
Reese nodded to him, and after a questioning look at me, Aiden returned to the courts.
I started to go back, but Reese caught my elbow.
I stiffened, my insides shrieking. Code Red, people! He was touching me!
Reese was saying over my internal tornado alarms, “Just tell me. Does it have to do with a guy?”
Oh.
Damian.
And just like that, the tornado alarms switched off. A whole different form of storm was tearing me up inside, one that was way too fucking real for this conversation.
I gentled my tone, but I needed to let him know I meant business. “Look.” Fuck. I sighed, biting my lip. “Yes. It’s part of the tragically stupid thing from before, but I don’t even talk to my friends about it.”
Technically, I didn’t talk to anyone about it. The therapist had been a little over six months ago.
His hand was still on my elbow. He was leaning closer.
I gave him a little bit more. “It’s taken a full year for me to get where I am now, so…”
He nodded, new understanding dawning in his eyes. He held his hands up, and I tried to ignore how I protested the loss of his touch.
He straightened away from me. “Back off?”
Something shifted.
I felt it. I saw that he felt it too, and I didn’t think it was my delusional side imagining it. I nodded. “Back off.”
“No need to say anything more.”
He meant it, bypassing me.
He was almost to the courts when I followed him back into the gym. Someone tossed him the ball, and he was dribbling for his team within seconds, calling out the play as he went.
I stopped in my tracks, though.
God.
That look. His touch. The slight concern that I was just now realizing I had heard when he questioned me in the hallway. I didn’t know how it happened, when it happened, but there was something there.
Something real.
His shirt was flapping in the wind, showcasing a good amount of skin and a tattoo running vertically under his arm, and my heart just did a backflip.
All those flutters exploded in my stomach.
My head spun. I wasn’t quite sure what had happened, but I think, just maybe, someone had understood me without me saying a word about it? Maybe? I was in trouble, very real and serious trouble.
Over the rest of the week, I fell into a routine.
One could’ve argued that everyone had a routine, but mine was up at five to open the courts. The kitchen was next for coffee, then breakfast prep with Owen and Hadley. I’d start dishes when they began piling up, and do them throughout the meal. Most of the team still left everything at the tables, but after Reese started bringing his tray to the dish window, others followed suit.
I thanked each and every one in a polite, appropriately cheerful voice and a smile in my eyes—no extra weirdness or flaking out on my part. I was quite proud of myself.
After breakfast, I’d head back to the courts and man the equipment closet.
Aiden came up a few times with things he needed for the team, and I’d do whatever he asked. I was usually desperate to leave that equipment cage. A girl could only smell hot and sweaty ball players, hear the sound of basketballs bouncing and feet running up and down the court, and stare at nothing for so long before she’s ready to combust.
The inner fan wanted to break out still. I was struggling at being completely rational. Still.
The other part of me would break out in heat whenever Reese came over and not because he was the celebrity superstar to me anymore, because he was a man. All man.
A few of the players had learned my name. I was no longer Direction Girl or Staff Member, but Reese kept to his nods. He was polite.
A polite thank you here. A polite you’re welcome there.
At times when I felt my inner craziness etch out of control, Damian would come to mind. And with the thought of him, the impending doom soon settled in, helping me bottom out all over again.
I felt like the underside of my stomach had a trap door, and the thought of him opened it. All my contents dropped to my feet, and the door would close, leaving me with nothing but a mess to clean up.
I’d operate that way until something caused a spark—usually Reese looking at me—and then I’d start feeling a little buzz inside again.
After the first time when I realized I could use the Damian trick to calm myself, he had started sneaking into my head more and more. And I could handle that, sort of, but then the nightmares started.
I’d tossed and turned, and then the last few nights I’d jerked awake screaming.
That gave me a fright all on its own.
My time off was nonexistent, but that was okay with me.
The busier I was, the better, but I was tired because of it.
Still somehow that method had gotten me all the way to here: my first time off because the team had gone to another preseason game. Keith kept us busy the first time they were gone, with random projects around the island. This time, we got a full twenty-four hours off, and I was walking back to my cabin, unsure what I wanted to do.
I’d done nothing with the book I was going to write. That only brought more Damian gloom.
“Hey.”
Oh, thank God. A distraction.
It was Grant.
“Heya back.”
Be gone, stupid queasy stomach. I don’t need to feel you. Please have work for me to do, Grant. I’ll do almost anything at this point.
Almost. Let’s not get crazy now.
He was walking toward me from the back of the main building. He slid his hands in his pockets and jerked his head back over his shoulder. “Owen and Hadley are heading into town, dinner and drinks. Want to come?”
He said dinner. I only heard drinks. “I’m down. Can we add the last D word?”
Grant laughed. “You know how those two are. Any excuse for some dancing. We can go to The Barn. They’re actually playing a DJ these days.”
“Really?”
I was impressed. The airport was small, but Fairview had a surprising number of bars and a couple nightclubs even. The Barn was in one of the smaller towns outside of Fairview. We were going even smaller.
I loved it.
Grant nodded. “It’s Thursday, so there might be college students there.”
“Just call me Mrs. Robinson.”
Instead of the grin I expected, he grew more serious. He was quiet a beat. “You okay, Charlie?”
“As okay as I can be in Candyland.” I shot him a grin, trying to up the ante here. “You know how I am with the Seattle Thunder.”
He didn’t fall for it again. I was losing my touch.
“I’m serious. I know you, remember?”
Oh God. We were going into Realityland. Nope. No way. Retreat.
My smile slipped, but I lifted a shoulder. “I’m as good as can be, I guess.”
This was Grant. I had to give him something or he’d never let up. But I knew him too, and he loved gushing about people he loved.
“Is Sophia coming?”
See? There. His fiancée would do the trick.
And she did. His eyes lit up, and he launched into a story about how not only was she coming, but we’d be lucky if her Nana and abuela didn’t s
how up themselves.
Grant filled me in on Sophia’s dancing-loving family as we headed to my cabin. He didn’t stop until we reached a fork in the path. I had to go left for my place, and he had to go right, because I assumed he had work in that part of the camp?
I gestured behind him. “Got a maintenance order or something?”
“What?” He looked. “Oh, yeah. One of the players was saying his toilet wasn’t flushing. I’m excited to see.” His chuckle was dry. “But yeah. Let’s meet at the main lodge in an hour. I’ll be sobercab too, so feel free to let loose.”
Let loose. Did he not know me?
“Sounds like a plan.”
He nodded, his eyes warming. “It’ll be nice to hang out like real friends again.”
I gave him a thumbs-up, but as soon as my back turned, my smile fell.
Friends were a commodity I hadn’t had in so long. There’d been no friends from work. I’d faded away from all my friends during the Damian era, because it was too hard to see their normal lives when mine was slipping away daily. You can only talk about what’s going on for so long. People like to say they’ll be there for you, but there’s a time stamp on that offer. What they really mean is that they’re there for you over the next three days. If it takes longer than that, you’re out of luck. You need to move forward, find new friends to confide in.
No one understood unless they were on the “outside” alongside me, because everyone on the “inside” was busy being normal and living a normal life.
So after it ended with Damian, it’d been just Lucas, and yeah, the rest is history from there. So, no friends for me. And now here I was, back where I had friends around me I’d considered family at one point.
Working was easy. I could do that without talking. Jokes? Cheesy lines? I was the queen of those things. Want a random question? My need had simmered down, but I could pull one out if I needed.
But time outside of work, over food and with booze—that meant talking.
Normally, people love talking about themselves, so it’s easy to distract them. But not these guys. Not Hadley, Owen, or Grant. And they knew my tricks.