The Ex Effect

by Karla Sorensen

  My stomach, tangled and loopy as it was earlier, went weightless in an instant, just from the force of that smile. I smiled back.

  "Matthew," Allie said, and the connection snapped. She held out her hand, and his smile changed into something more professional. Less personal, but no less potent. "It's such a pleasure to meet you. I'm Allie."

  He shook her hand. "Believe me, the pleasure is all mine. It's an honor to be here."

  While his attention was focused on her, I took a deep, calming breath and channeled the girl who could walk through a locker room of naked athletes and face a room of rabid journalists without breaking a sweat.

  Allie glanced back at me and gave me a reassuring smile. "I'd love to stay and chat, but something’s waiting for me in my office that can't be put off."

  My ass. What a little liar. Oh, how I loved her.

  With a flip of her perfectly tousled blond hair and bright pink dress, Allie was gone.

  Matthew had moved to the side to let her leave the office, and when he stepped through the door, the space seemed instantly smaller.

  His smile returned. So did mine.

  He looked so good.

  So. Good.

  The dark blond, almost brown hair on his head used to be longer, but now the sides were cropped short. The scruff on his face along the sharp angle of his jaw was just shy of a full beard.

  The version of this demigod standing before me that I'd seen ten years ago was almost-a-man Matthew. He'd been big but not this defined. His face was leaner and harder now with lines that showed life and some laughter.

  This was Man Matthew.

  "I can't believe it's you," he said, propping his hands on slim hips and giving me a thorough study that I felt over every single inch of my twenty-eight-year-old body. He shook his head in disbelief.

  "Hi, Matthew," I managed. Oh, look! I sounded semi-normal. Yay.

  In my head, I counted four intense, agonizing seconds of quiet while we just looked. Ten years were gone, poof, nothing in those four seconds. Maybe I felt eighteen again standing in front of him, but holy shit, I'd missed this guy.

  He held his arms out; his voice a deep rumble when he spoke. "Get over here."

  I exhaled a laugh and walked to him, wrapping my arms around his waist, sighing shakily when his thick, muscular arms folded around me.

  Engulfed. I felt engulfed by the sheer size and heat of him.

  Matthew set his chin on the top of my head and laughed like he couldn't believe this was happening. Join the club, man. I closed my eyes and allowed myself one deep inhale. If this was my window to be wildly unprofessional and smell one of the players, then I was taking my moment, damn it.

  He smelled like woods and soap and clean man. Holy balls, Matthew Hawkins smelled good. And he felt good. Strong and solid and hot and hard. And he was hugging me like he meant it. Probably because he did.

  "I've missed you," I said into his chest, letting the work-shield down for just a second, just a tiny crack, just to say the words, even if they were so quiet that I hoped he didn't hear me.

  But he did.

  "Missed you too, Slim," he said back.

  I was so officially off-the-charts screwed.

  Chapter Four

  Matthew

  I eased my hands up to Ava's shoulders and set her back so I could look at her again.

  "Damn," I said out loud. She blushed, slugging me in the shoulder, which made me laugh. "Slim, you grew up."

  Ava rolled her eyes and gestured to a pair of wide gray chairs across from her desk. It was clear that she was used to sitting opposite football players because those chairs would accommodate even the largest tackle.

  It was definitely unprofessional to stare at a member of the front office of my new team, so I stole another quick glance as she sat behind her desk and crossed her legs.

  Damn was right.

  There was nothing gangly about Ava. Nothing that she needed to grow into anymore. Those bright green eyes, cat-like and unerringly astute, sat over high cheekbones and heart-shaped pink lips. Her hair was curled and long, and the dark shade of brown reminded me cinnamon and caramel.

  In a word, beautiful.

  Ava Baker was a very beautiful woman.

  "Matthew Hawkins," she said with a slow shake of her head, all confidence now that a neatly decorated desk separated us. "You grew up too."

  My head tipped back as I laughed again. Her smile was sly and small, so very Ava.

  “Do you still suck at poker?” I asked her with a grin.

  Her eyes narrowed playfully. “I was sixteen, and I’d never played before. How good was I supposed to be?”

  One weekend during the off-season, I’d been at the Baker house, and Ava saw me shuffling a deck of cards. When I asked her if she wanted to learn how to play, she’d scrambled to the table so fast, she almost tripped.

  She was terrible. Her face, at least back then, gave everything away.

  Not anymore.

  “You picked it up quickly enough. Didn’t you hustle me and three other guys for like a hundred bucks once?”

  “A hundred and fifty,” she corrected and tucked that sly smile even farther up her cheeks.

  I hummed, fighting the urge to laugh. “That’s right.”

  "I was surprised to hear your name yesterday," she admitted. Her head tilted to the side as she regarded me seriously. "Didn't you ride off into the sunset already? Last I heard, they erected a statue of you in some town square down on the bayou."

  Narrowing my eyes at the Southern twang she infused into those last few words, I used the pause to untie my suddenly clumsy tongue. Her smile grew because she damn well knew she'd unsettled me with this grown-up version of her. There were no shallow niceties. We just jumped headfirst into this new reality.

  Suddenly, I had a deep appreciation for her because revisiting that past would be no fun for either of us.

  I shrugged lightly. "I think it's a pretty good likeness. They gave me the key to the city and everything."

  She rolled her lips between her teeth so she didn't laugh. "Yet here you are."

  I nodded. "Here I am."

  The jokes were done because her face smoothed out. "Not that I'm complaining, because it is good to see you, and you're about to make my job really easy with this story. But I am surprised. Don't you deserve to finally relax?"

  Relax? I thought. Give a guy like me time to relax, and I didn't do well. There was always work to be done. Something that I could make better. Be better. Some part of myself that I could improve. Some cause that I could throw myself into. I got bored when I tried to read. Movies were predictable, and TV was even worse.

  Inactivity made me uncomfortable in my own skin. Some form of the old saying, idle hands were the devil's playground.

  This time, my smile was wry, a scraping discomfort at the core of what she was asking for. "You been paying attention, Slim?"

  Ava held up her hands and started ticking things off on her long, thin fingers, free of any jewelry. No wedding ring.

  "Five division championships. Three-time MVP. Four-time defensive player of the year. Man of the year. Most tackles in a single season of any player in NFL history."

  The chair creaked when I shifted my weight. She didn't continue, but the fact that she had been paying attention was a slide of warmth under my skin, something comfortable and sweet.

  "Two things you can't list," I said quietly.

  She nodded slowly. "Conference champion, Super Bowl champion."

  Briefly, I lifted my brows in concession. Most new players wouldn't have this kind of meeting with PR. They'd be going over talking points for the interviews already set up for them. I was getting a counseling session from the little sister of the first woman to create a chink in the armor.

  The girl I watched football with during bye weeks.

  The girl I taught to play poker and how to throw the perfect spiral.

  "Those are the two you can’t list," I agreed easily, trying to keep a
smile on my face, my attention on her and the subject at hand.

  The truth was that I could spend my entire life in the weight room, the film room, the practice field, and one play, one player could still step in and rip away the one thing I wanted most.

  To prove I was the best.

  Every pundit would argue that all the individual things I'd achieved meant nothing without the ring. It was hard to drown out the voices that said with every injury and surgery I would have an even more impossible path to prove them wrong.

  And I wanted, more than anything I'd ever wanted, to prove them wrong.

  Like I'd spoken those words out loud, Ava nodded.

  "Good," she said decisively.

  "Good?"

  She leaned back in her chair and twirled a piece of that maple syrup brown hair in her fingers, watching my face carefully. "Yeah. Whatever was going through your head just now? I want you to keep it there for every question, every answer, every snap of every picture for the next week."

  I crossed my arms over my chest and saw her grass green eyes flick down, then back up again. "Why?" I asked her.

  Ava leaned forward and tapped her brightly manicured nails on the lacquered top of her desk, the click-clack almost musical. "Because I want them to see that fire in your eyes. I want everyone to see that the reason you're here, with this team over any other, is because we're the ones who will win." She pointed at my face. "That. That's it. I want every single one of them to sit up and pay attention to the Washington Wolves. Because of you."

  When I could take a full breath, I lifted my chin and gave her an appreciative smile. "Holy shit, Ava."

  She blinked. "What?"

  I braced my forearms on my spread knees and leaned forward like she was. "You're really, really good at your job, aren't you?"

  She laughed under her breath and held my eyes. "Yeah, I am."

  No shame and no artifice. No false humility or brushing off my compliment. If her family was anything like they used to be, Ava wasn't used to getting compliments, and I'd always hated that. And here she was, in a high-pressure job with a lot of money at stake and a level of competitiveness that would never abate, totally comfortable in her own skills.

  The skill of selling the exact story she needed to.

  "And you're going to shove me right in the middle of the media circus because of it."

  "You're damn right." Ava licked her lips, visibly gearing up for a battle by squaring her shoulders. "Will that be a problem?"

  "You know it won't be," I muttered, trying to swallow my smile. "But I like seeing you ready to fight me about it. You’re feistier than you used to be, Slim."

  There was that blush again. Just a sweep of pink over the tops of her cheekbones. "I wouldn't have fought you."

  One eyebrow lifted up.

  She lifted one right back. "Because it wouldn't have been a fight at all. In my years here, I can count on one hand the number of players who didn't do every single piece of media that I asked of them."

  I took a deep breath and thought through the roster, things I'd heard and seen over my years in the league. I could toss out a few names and guess. Luke Pierson, prior to his relationship with Allie Sutton, was known for not wanting to deal with the media, as was one of the defensive captains, Logan Ward. Ward was a longtime safety, one of the leaders of the team, but he was notorious for giving almost comically awkward interviews in the locker room because he refused to answer so many questions.

  He'd been made into memes and gifs that had been passed around my former locker room because, half the time, we wished we could do the same thing to nosy journalists.

  I never would, though. I'd learned early on that the media could be as much of a tool as watching film. Keep them on your good side, and they'd send almost any message you wanted. Ava knew that too.

  In my silence, she let out a slow and even exhale. "Listen, I love my job. I love this team, from the players to the coaches to the front office. I've been here since college, and I've never wanted to do anything else. Regardless of how we knew each other before, it's irrelevant to what I think you can help us achieve on the field. It's a non-issue for me, and I hope it is for you too."

  There was her version of dipping her toe in without actually having to say the words out loud. My eyes drifted around her office, and I was not surprised when I found no pictures of her family adorning the walls. No smiling sister selfies in cute little frames. No trace of them at all.

  And it was unsurprising because people like the Bakers didn't really change. Most people who couldn't be honest with themselves were the same. It was certainly the case with my parents. They'd never change how they defined the other person unless they learned how to admit their own shortcomings.

  "Ava," I said carefully, "I hope you're not taking my silence as me not being cooperative."

  Now it was her turn to shift in her seat. "Well, I'm not sure how I should take it." She blinked slowly, her eyes searching mine. "I don't really know this Matthew, do I? There might have been a time when I could guess at your reactions, such as when you were the guy teaching me cards and forcing me to watch Rudy, but ... it's been ten years since I've seen you. We've both been through a lot in that time."

  My laughter had a cynical edge to it, even to my ears, and judging by the look in her eyes, she heard it as well. I wanted to ask her if she'd been married and divorced too, but I bit the tip of my tongue because it was none of my business. Ava seemed too beautiful to be single, but in this industry, physical beauty was commonplace. The average.

  "No, I suppose you don't know this version of me." I blew out a breath, struggling to get out of my own head and stay present in the conversation. She deserved my attention, even if she'd been a stranger before walking into this office. "In truth, coming here has been a harder transition than I expected. Mentally," I clarified. "Once I really get down to work, I think it'll feel more natural, but this holding place ... this in-between, where I'm not quite part of the team yet, it's taking some getting used to."

  She gave me a sympathetic smile. "Have you been able to explore Seattle at all?"

  I shrugged. "Not really. I've been unpacking the past couple of days. My furniture finally showed up, so I'm not sleeping on a mattress on the floor anymore."

  Her laugh was bright and easy, her smile broad and unaffected. "Well, if you want a tour guide ..."

  The words trailed off, and I found myself relaxing again. "You can recommend one?"

  Ava rolled her eyes and pulled something from her desk drawer before handing it to me. Her business card. "There’s my number."

  One eyebrow lifted slowly while I waited for her to clarify. She narrowed her eyes again, just playful slits of green showing between long eyelashes that I probably shouldn’t have even noticed.

  "In case you want me to show you around Seattle," she said after a prolonged pulse of quiet.

  Grinning, I tucked the card in the pocket of my pants. "You offer that to all the new players?"

  After a deep, tortured sigh, she pulled her chair flush against her desk. "Shut up. Now, let’s get to work."

  "Yes, ma’am," I said with a salute that earned me another blush and a shake of her head. After I settled back in my seat, I laughed and lifted my chin at the massive bowl on the corner of her desk. "Still keep chocolate within arm’s reach at all times?"

  "As do all intelligent people who enjoy being happy."

  I grinned.

  Suddenly, Washington seemed like a much more enjoyable place than it had when I woke that morning.

  "Okay," she said, switching back into business mode. "Let's start with ESPN."

  Chapter Five

  Ava

  In the harsh light of day—aka outside my office and the potent Matthew Hawkins bubble that seemed to mute reality—I groaned every single time I thought about how I'd slid my card across my desk.

  There's my number, I’d said like a complete tool.

  Groan.

  Ten minutes in his presen
ce reduced me to a bumbling teenager all over again. Ten minutes of Matthew Hawkins—full name required because his body and aura were so big and overwhelming that I couldn't possibly think of him with only one name—and I was one heartbeat away from giggling and twirling my hair.

  I'd slipped into work mode before that could happen because it was the only conceivable way I could save myself at that point. The dude was a pro at handling the media, so his first two interviews went flawlessly. Naturally, that eased a little bit of my anxiety over whether I made a complete fool out of myself.

  Until I got his text.

  Unknown number: Your offer still on the table? I need something to do.

  My smile was as quick and big as a lightning bolt, but I killed that mofo real fast. Professional mode.

  Me: May I ask who this is? Because that text could be construed in a lot of ways that I don't want to contemplate.

  Unknown number: Fair enough, Slim. Is your offer to show me Seattle still on the table?

  Unknown number: Take pity on me, please. I'm completely unpacked, and if I sit here any longer, I might start reorganizing my kitchen cabinets. Alphabetize my spice rack or something.

  Very carefully, like it might explode if I touched it wrong, I set my phone down and took a deep, steadying breath. Matthew Hawkins was not asking me out on a date, I reminded myself firmly. He was new in town. We knew each other from before. There was less than one percent reason for my heart to be thrashing inside my chest the way it was.

  But that less than one percent was loud. He was getting to know the other players even though it was the off-season. Surely, he knew one of them well enough to ask if they could do this. But he'd reached out to me.

  In the mirror hanging above my kitchen table, I caught a glimpse of myself. My cheeks were flushed, and my bottom lip was pinned between my teeth. Eyes bright and—groan—full of anticipation.