"Those assholes."
I snorted. "My contract was up. I can't blame them for wanting to focus on someone younger and healthier than I am."
"They're still assholes." She cleared her throat. "Did your father pressure you into this?"
Yup. This was what I was waiting for. "No, Mom."
"Because he never knows when to quit with you boys. He pushes too hard, and he doesn't take your feelings into account. Remember that time in Pee Wee football? I could've killed him."
I blew out a hard breath. Yeah, I remembered. Some kid jacked me in the nose, and my dad screamed in my face when I started crying. He told me to get my pansy-ass back on the field because winners didn't quit because of a little blood. Maybe my mom could've killed him, but she always wanted to kill my dad. The truth was that my dad taught me grit. He taught me to stop making excuses if I wanted to be the best. And if I wasn't aiming to be the best, then I was wasting my time.
"Mom," I interrupted when she kept ranting about him. Half of my phone calls with her included this same rant. Half of my phone calls with my dad involved something similar. The joys of an ugly divorce twenty years earlier.
"Sorry," she said. "I just ... I worry. You're all alone up there."
"I was alone in New Orleans too," I reminded her.
"Not when you were married to Lexi."
"Mom," I corrected gently, "you of all people know that you can be married and still feel alone."
She didn't argue, but I could tell she wanted to.
"But you had friends there. A life."
It didn't matter that I was in my mid-thirties. To her, I was still her firstborn, and she still worried that I didn't have friends. My smile was slow, but I held in my laughter because I knew she was serious as a heart attack.
"I'll be fine, Mom."
"I know." She sighed.
Another call beeped in, and I glanced at the screen. "Mom, I have another call. Love you."
"Love you too."
"Hello?" I said once I clicked over to the unfamiliar Seattle number.
"Matthew Hawkins?" a female voice asked. Before I could turn it off, wariness made my eyebrows bend in. Crazier things had happened than fans hunting down a player's phone number. I took a deep breath, about to ask who was calling, but she spoke immediately. "This is Alexandra Sutton."
I straightened. The owner of the Washington Wolves. "Of course. How are you, Miss Sutton?"
"Call me Allie, please," she said with a smile in her voice. "Do you have a minute?"
Lifting my eyebrows, I glanced around the empty apartment. All I had were minutes. "You're giving me a break from unpacking, so I have all the time in the world."
On the other end, she laughed. I didn't know much about her other than she had inherited the team unexpectedly after her father's death less than a year earlier. That, and she was currently engaged to the team's veteran quarterback, Luke Pierson.
"I'm sorry I missed you earlier at the office. I had to pick up my daughter from school. Cameron told me you got your contract signed."
"No need to apologize," I assured her. "Witnessing my signature is nothing all that important."
"Well, Coach Klein and Cameron assure me that's not the case. They're very excited, as am I, that you've decided to continue your incredibly impressive career here in Washington."
"Thank you," I said respectfully.
"Luke tells me that he has the distinction of never having been sacked by you."
It was my turn to laugh. "He's right about that. Maybe I'll get my chance in practice."
"Oh, you have my permission," she said with clear humor in her voice. "As long as you don't injure him, I think it'll do him a bit of good."
"Yes, ma'am," I said, a bit of southern slipping through after eleven years of living and playing in New Orleans.
"Please, if you call me that, I'll age fifteen years before I can blink."
I swiped a hand over my mouth and tried not to laugh. Allie Sutton was known as much for her looks as she was now for being a great team owner. Aging her fifteen years wouldn't hurt her in the slightest.
"Actually," she continued, "some of the guys like to call me boss lady, which has a nice ring to it. But again, Allie is just fine."
"I look forward to meeting you, Allie."
She hummed. "I'm not sure if I'll be at the office tomorrow. I've got to juggle some other meetings, but Luke and I plan to host a get-together in a week or so for some of the new players and coaching staff. Give you guys a chance to relax a bit outside of practice especially since you're joining us so late in the off-season."
That had me lifting my eyebrows in surprise. Most teams and team owners knew that late additions to the roster—whether players, coaches, or coordinators—were just part of the game. Injuries happened at any time, on the field or off, and throwing a party for those of us joining later wasn't the norm.
But I didn't really know anyone in the Wolves organization. No one I'd played with during college was here, and no one had transferred from my old team before me. For the past eleven years, I'd been one of the leaders—the guy who the new players sought out for advice, for a welcome, and for acceptance.
Now I was the newbie. The guy with the ticking clock over his head practically screaming with each tick forward, this is your last shot, don't screw it up. As if someone dropped me on an unsteady surface that tipped and turned with even the smallest movement, and I had nothing to grab on to, nothing to steady me.
The control freak in me—the one who liked the predictability of where I'd been thus far, knowing everyone and being in charge—hated this part of it. Hated the change.
So a welcome like this was unexpected but good. I sighed. "That sounds great, actually."
"Good," she said briskly. "Now, it's my turn to read my daughter her bedtime story, so maybe I'll get the chance to meet you tomorrow."
"I look forward to it." And I did. Allie was a dynamic shift from my last owner, who was exactly the kind of man her father had been. Rich in life, successful in business, and well into his seventies, both men had spent their time continually expanding their empires.
"And if I don't get there before, I know that one of the first people they want you to meet with is our senior PR person to get some press set up. Her name is Ava Baker, and I think she's expecting you."
My head snapped up. "Ava Baker?" My voice rose in shock.
Allie was quiet. "Yeah. Do you know her?"
I laughed under my breath. "I might. I used to know an Ava Baker, but she was in high school the last time I saw her."
In my head, I got a vision of gangly legs and big green eyes, a curious and sweet kid. Instantly, that was followed with a sour aftertaste in my mouth, metallic and bitter, when I thought about the other Baker sister. The one I'd been engaged to.
Maybe it wasn’t even her. "The Ava I knew would have to be"—I exhaled loudly—"in her late twenties by now, I guess."
"Hmm," Allie hummed quietly. "Without disclosing HR information,” she said in a teasing voice, “I’d say that our Ava fits in that general age bracket. But I guess you'll find out tomorrow, won't you?"
I'd always liked Ava. If it was her, then Seattle just got a bit more pleasant.
I smiled in anticipation. "I guess I will."
Chapter Three
Ava
Every woman's wardrobe held a certain number of go-to outfits. A little black dress that could pull double duty for a cocktail hour or a funeral. An interview outfit. A sexy dress for when you want your date to swallow his tongue.
But as I'd learned that morning, my wardrobe did not hold an outfit that I could quickly reach for in the event of "your sister's jilted ex-fiancé, the man you once crushed the hell on, was now your colleague and would be seeing you for the first time as a grown ass woman."
Yeah. You see what I'm saying?
After much deliberation, muttering to my exasperated reflection in the mirror, stripping off outfit after outfit and dumping each of t
hem unceremoniously onto the floor outside my closet, I settled on a winner.
The blousy champagne-colored dress tied around the waist, and with my tangerine jacket, I felt bright and summery, and my eyes popped like gemstones. It was very adult, professional badass Ava. After pairing it with my suede, open-toed bootie heels that made my average legs look longer, I was able to strut down the hallways at the office feeling like I wasn't going to vomit at the thought of seeing Matthew Hawkins for the first time in ten years.
And let's get this straight. I never, ever encountered situations at work that made me feel even close to vomiting. I was the one known for keeping my cool. I was the one who was prepared for every contingency.
The Pittsburg Steeler defense had nothing on me. Ava Baker was the real steel curtain. I kept all that stuff locked down tight.
Until today, apparently.
The last time I saw him, I'd just turned eighteen. The fight from my sister's bedroom—only occupied when she was home on the weekends from Stanford—was so loud that our neighbors had probably figured out fairly quickly that Ashley had cheated on him, then blamed him for it, then tossed the ring back in his face before telling him she could finally move on with someone who actually cared about her.
I'd actually wanted to kick her bony little ass.
"Get the hell out of my house. You're pathetic," she had hissed at him.
The sight of Matthew, so big and strong and handsome, coming from her room with a flushed face and angry, reddened eyes was something I'd never forgotten.
I thought he'd walk past without seeing me—that was what most occupants of the Baker house did—but he stopped, then crouched in front of me. My eyes watered, so I blinked them away, lest he thought I was being a ridiculous kid. Even though I was just eighteen and a senior in high school, to someone like Matthew, I was just a kid.
"She's a fucking idiot," I whispered when I finally looked at his face.
A slow, reluctant smile lifted his lips, and his eyes warmed. He set one of his huge hands on the top of my head and ruffled my hair.
"Don't let 'em keep you down, okay?" he said. Matthew glanced back down the hallway to where Ashley had slammed the door shut behind him. I knew what he meant. After being with Ashley for four years, he’d seen enough of our family to know there was a clear hierarchy of importance.
Ashley was at the top, of course. I fell somewhere at the bottom, an unwelcome afterthought in every facet, down to how I was conceived. My parents weren't mean to me, per se, but it was just very painfully obvious that I wasn't Ashley. They'd had their one perfect child. Then I came along, and even though I'd desperately tried when I was younger, I was nothing like her.
Matthew saw all of it.
"Take care of yourself, Slim," he said as he stood, using the nickname he'd given me the first time he met me as a scrawny fourteen-year-old.
Looking up at him through the haze of my tears, I remember wanting to stand and fling my arms around his huge shoulders to give him a hug and tell him my sister was awful and didn't deserve him. Yet I was so selfishly heartbroken that he wouldn't be part of my family now because he made things better just by being around. He made my life better by being funny and caring and patient and trying to get to know me.
"You too," I whispered instead, tightening my arms where they were still folded around my legs. And he was gone.
"Ava," a voice snapped, and I blinked rapidly. Hello, back to the present, and holy shit, I might have just gone into a memory-induced catatonic state because I didn't even remember unlocking my office. Allie was standing in the doorway, snapping her fingers. "Good grief, where were you just now?"
I pulled in a deep breath, tightening the reins on my emotional state with a firm grip. "Taking a little jog down memory lane, I suppose."
She hummed, narrowing her eyes at me. "Can I guess what this is about?"
When I snorted, she laughed. I leaned back in my chair and spread my arms out. "Sure. You go right ahead and try to guess."
Allie pursed her lips and looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "You're thinking about how long it's been since you've seen Matthew Hawkins and are attempting to mentally prepare yourself to see him again …" She stopped and eyed my outfit. "Which is also why you wore sex shoes to work."
My jaw was currently hanging around the level of those sex shoes. "H-how?"
She grinned. "When I called him last night to welcome him to the team, I said your name, and ooooh, he remembers you."
"What?" I hissed, standing and grabbing her forearms. "Oh my hell, what did he say? Allie, you need to tell me everything."
Yes, I'm not proud. I basically just accosted my boss's boss, and the woman who could fire me by blinking, but I also genuinely liked Allie, and we had formed an easy friendship over the past year of her owning the Wolves.
There were soooo many men around us at work. So. Many. Men. It was nice to have another woman in the same age range, especially one who wasn't mean or catty or horrible.
I'd grown up with mean, catty, and horrible, which meant I had a radar for it that could not be touched by just about anyone in the world. My mean, catty, and horrible radar was spectacular.
Allie laughed at my theatrics, a look of amazement covering her gorgeous face. "Well, I'll be damned. I believe this is the first time I've ever seen Ava Baker even slightly ruffled."
"Shut up," I muttered, then closed my office door so no one would overhear us. On the way back to my desk, I shoved my hand into the large glass bowl that held my precious Dove chocolates. Normally, I tried to limit myself to one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
Somehow, three pieces found their way into my hand.
The first one was unwrapped and in my mouth before I sat back down.
"I'm serious." She took the seat across from my desk and gave me a thorough study. "You're like, nervous right now. This is weird."
Glaring at her as I swallowed the last of my milk chocolate, I tried desperately to disagree. But I couldn't. My stomach was in tangled, loopy, swoopy knots, and my heart was clanging behind my ribs. Somewhere in this building, Matthew Hawkins was just strolling around calm as you please.
What a jerk.
"I'm not," I started, then licked my lips and held her eyes. My fingers drummed on the surface of my desk, and her eyes gentled. "Okay, fine, I'm a little nervous to see him, but it's not what you think."
Allie nodded. "How do you know him?"
A flood of words whipped through my head, pushing to get out of my mouth like it was a race they were all trying to win. About my sister and what a bitch she used to be—still was, in fact. Words about how I'd looked up to him during such formative years, words about how freaking weird it was to imagine that if things had gone any differently, Matthew Hawkins would be my brother-in-law right now.
"He and my sister dated all through college." I swallowed. "They met at Stanford freshman year. Got engaged their senior year. Because we lived so close to campus, he … he was over at our house a lot."
Her eyebrows lifted slightly, but she stayed quiet.
"It didn't end well," I said after a pause. "The last time I saw him was the day they broke up. I'd just turned eighteen."
Allie hummed sympathetically. "And he got divorced a few years ago, right?"
Oh, more words, clamoring to get out. Not that I knew all the details, but I'd trained myself to stay casually interested in Matthew over the years. So when he'd married a freaking swimsuit model during his second year in the NFL, I may have scrolled the pictures obsessively when they popped up online. And when she divorced him five years later, after the back surgery everyone thought had ended his career, I may have scrolled those articles compulsively too.
Only it hadn't ended his career because it was Matthew.
"Yup," I said. But Allie must have read between the lines because she smiled sympathetically.
"Well, as soon as I said your name, he was surprised. But I think it was a good surprise."
I
slicked my tongue over the front of my teeth and studied her. "How do you know that?"
Allie rolled her eyes. "You can just tell. It sounded like ... like he was smiling, you know?"
My heart clenched painfully. Yeah, I knew. This tiny part of me had worried Matthew wouldn't remember me; that I was too insignificant a part of his life since I was so young when he and Ashley broke up.
When Allie spoke again, her tone was careful, her face smooth. "Will this be okay?"
"Will what?" I asked.
"For you to work with him?" Ahh. She was in boss mode now.
Even as I felt of slight pinprick of defensiveness that she even felt the need to ask, I nodded decisively. "Absolutely. The press will piss themselves over this story. No one thought Matthew Hawkins would ever play for another team, and with how well we finished last season and all the work we've done to strengthen our defense, we've given him the best shot at winning a Super Bowl that he’s ever had."
Her smile was instant and real. "You're damn right. Luke is thrilled we signed him. He hasn't stopped yammering about it."
"I'll bet." Allie and Luke were so cute that I'd hate them if I didn't love them together so much.
There was a knock on my office door, and my eyes snapped to Allie's. Her grin widened.
"Holy shit," I whispered and stood, smoothing my hands down my dress.
"You look great," she assured me with a wink.
You’re a Steel Curtain. A Steel Curtain, I chanted in my head even though the words felt flimsy and inconsequential.
Allie beat me to the door, where through the small window, I could see the slope of one massive shoulder in a light blue shirt and the rounded curve of a bicep straining against the material. So much muscle. There was so much muscle in that one tiny window.
I knew he'd gotten bigger, but when Allie opened my office door, my knees almost buckled at the man I saw standing there.
Matthew Hawkins was a beast. Why, how, how in the eff was he so big? He'd knock his damn head just trying to get through the door.
He zeroed in on me instantly, a smile broadening his face, crinkling the skin around his bright hazel eyes and forming deep dimples on either side of his perfectly fine lips.
The Ex Effect Page 2