Luke Pierson stood behind his center, glanced left and right, then spouted off some gibberish, which set the running back in motion behind him. Matthew visibly dug his cleats in, shifting his body just slightly to the right. I narrowed my eyes, fascinated to be able to watch him play this unabashedly, this close up. Underneath his helmet, I couldn't see his eyes, only the black line of paint covering his cheekbones and the determined tilt to his head.
"Set, hut," Luke bellowed, and Gomez snapped him the ball, dropping his massive weight to stop the surge of the defensive line. Luke stretched his hand out, faking a handoff to the running back, who tucked his arms like he was cradling the ball and darted out to the left. The two defensive players bought it but not Matthew.
He spun around the left tackle just in time to reach a huge, sweaty, muscle-popping arm out, knock the ball from Luke's hands, and scoop it up from the turf when Luke didn't recover it. Matthew ran with the ball clutched against his side, a roar of victory echoing in the air as the fans cheered. Luke was watching him with his hands propped on his hips, helmet shaking back and forth, but I could see a smile on his face.
As if he could really be mad.
What Matthew just did was precisely why Washington forked over millions, maxed our salary cap, and took a chance on a player who had already announced his retirement. Because he was the best.
Watching him run, spin, and tackle—all the things he'd honed his body to be able to do—was incredible. Even if I'd never kissed him, I was fairly sure I'd be halfway in love with him just watching him play the game.
Lucky for me, I did get to kiss him, so it was a moot point. Getting paid to watch him play was just a super, duper Ava's life is awesome bonus.
This was what I had to remember in the grand scheme of things. The drama awaiting me in just three days’ time was a blip. An anomaly. Aberration. Whatever word my little desktop thesaurus could come up with.
The defensive players ran to Matthew in the end zone, smacking his helmet, smacking his ass, and whooping obnoxiously as he spiked the football. Even Logan made his way over and tapped his knuckles against Matthew's, which made me grin like a fool.
Look! He's making friends! I wanted to yell.
"Is it time for me to meet him?" Charlotte asked, tugging on the hem of my white linen blazer. The watch on my wrist said that practice was just about wrapped up, which meant time for the meet and greets, then giving autographs to the fans, but the coaches were still huddled up with the players, analyzing what had just happened on the field.
"Let's give them about five more minutes, okay?"
She nodded, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Her mom laughed, and I stepped back a touch so I could chat with her. "She's so excited about this. I could barely get her to go to bed last night."
"It's one of my favorite parts of my job," I confessed. "The looks on their faces when they get to meet the person they've admired for so long."
Just like the look on Charlotte's face now. She was gripping the field passes looped around her neck with a black Wolves lanyard in her tiny little hand like they were made of gold. When Matthew glanced over at me, I motioned to the girl by my side, and he nodded. His hair was matted and sweaty now that he'd taken off his helmet, the sun beating down on us with a pleasant heat. Before he jogged over, he grabbed a towel from an assistant and tried to clean himself as much as possible.
Mmm. I wish he hadn't. I wish I could take him in the closest hallway and lick the sweat off his neck.
"Ava?" he asked, eyes gleaming.
"Yes, right." I cleared my throat. "Matthew, I would love to introduce you to Charlotte Kuyper and her mother, Diane. She was the contest winner with your foundation."
He bent down and held his hand out. Suddenly, Charlotte was shy, turning into her mom’s legs with bright red cheeks.
Matthew smiled at her, and I wanted to die because of how much kindness was in that smile. "I heard about your Gatorade stand, Charlotte." He tsked, shaking his head slowly. "I wish I'd thought of something like that when I was your age. You're a very clever kid."
From behind her mom's jeans, her big brown eyes appeared fully. "I told the gym owner he could have a percentage of the earnings if he let me stay there after the busiest classes."
Matthew tipped his head back, and the surrounding area boomed with his deep-chested laughter. I was still grinning about it when one of our staff writers jogged up to us with his camera in hand.
"Sorry I'm late," he said, chest heaving.
"No problem. Just make sure to get some footage of them together—candid and staged. Ask Charlotte about her contest and try for some soundbites about Matthew's foundation. I've already got pictures from her mom of the stand outside the gym. We'll send it all down to A/V, and they can piece something together for Fan Friday on Facebook and Instagram."
"You got it."
Nonchalantly, I looked over my shoulder at Matthew, who was listening to Charlotte's excited chatter with a heart-achingly earnest expression on his chiseled, handsome face. Briefly, he glanced up at me. I motioned that I was going to leave and gave him a tiny wink. The only indication he saw it was a brief appearance of the dimple on the left side of his mouth.
Le sigh.
Players were gathered haphazardly on the sidelines, posing for selfies, and I saw one of our favorite retired players from a few years ago giving advice to a rookie running back.
I was too busy smiling at all the preseason football happiness that I almost ran straight into Logan. He held out his hands, steadying my elbows before I bit it on the grass.
"Holy crap, Ward, do you make any noise when you walk?" I pushed my hair out of my face, unsuccessfully trying to free some strands where they'd gotten tangled in the sunglasses I’d had perched on my head.
When I was standing straight, he pulled his hands off my arms, a considering look on his sweaty face.
"What?" I said, just a hair over the line of defensive. See, this was what happened when someone you did not know at all had witnessed one of your greatest deep-seated insecurities. You snapped at them for no reason when all they were doing was standing there staring at you.
With the edges of his taped, dirty fingers, Logan scratched the side of his face and continued to study me.
"Ohhhhhkay then, good chatting with you." I went to move past him, and he reached out like he was going to stop me, but his hands didn't land on my skin.
"You okay?" he asked, glancing around, but no one was within earshot. Just standing here made me twitchy. As if I had a blinking neon sign over my head—with sound effects— that proclaimed I introduced Logan as my boyfriend, and it was stupid, and I wish I'd never done it, but there's nothin' I can do about it now.
"Why wouldn't I be?" I sighed, crossing my arms and punching a hip out to the side. Like attitude would help me escape this.
"Well, isn't that ... thing ... this weekend?"
I deflated. Well, if he was going to be nice about it, I guess I could put the hip away. "Yeah." I waved a hand. "It's fine. It'll suck, and I'll want to drink to survive it, which is a horrible idea because I am not a good drunk in emotional situations that stress me out, but survive it, I will."
Logan nodded, his eyes staying steady on my face. Did he blink? Ever? The sun was so bright that for the first time in years, under the intense Logan Ward scrutiny I was being subjected to, I noticed that his eyes weren't brown as I'd always thought. They were streaked with green. I blinked away when I saw Matthew straighten after taking some pictures with Charlotte. He'd be done soon, and we already agreed on leaving at the same time so we could have dinner together in a tiny hole in the wall place on the way home. Somewhere no one would recognize him.
"Doesn't sound healthy," Logan said.
If he only freaking knew.
I laughed. Then I laughed some more. His face softened slightly as I gave him a look of amusement. "No, nothing about that entire situation is healthy, trust me. Drinking to cope is the least of my worries."
> Matthew started toward us, and I looked away, pulling my cell out of my jacket pocket. "Logan, I've got to go. But ... thanks for checking in."
He must have heard the sincerity in my voice because he gave my face an appraising look before he nodded slowly. "You're welcome."
Logan turned away just before Matthew reached us. They nodded at each other in greeting.
"Good practice, slick," I told him as we started walking toward the building.
"Felt good." He hitched a thumb over his shoulder. "Charlotte was great, huh?"
I wanted to wrap my arm around his waist as we walked and feel the weight of his arm on my shoulders, but I settled for nudging him with my elbow. "You're such a big ole teddy bear."
Matthew mock-growled, leaning in to whisper in my ear. "Yeah? I'll show you how not true that is later, Slim."
Yup. One aberration aside, nothing about this day or my life sucked. I held on to that thought like it was made of solid gold.
Chapter Twenty-One
Matthew
"Ava ..."
She didn't hear me. Standing in front of her absolutely wrecked closet, my girl was gnawing on her bottom lip like it was made of her favorite wine.
"The green," she said, ripping something off the hanger and holding it up in front of her while she looked at her reflection in the large standing mirror she had in the corner of her bedroom. "No, not the green. I can't wear underwear with it."
"Well hey now," I muttered, leaning over to pick it up when she tossed it on the pile of seventeen other outfits that had been found lacking. All the clothes were bright, solid colors, something I'd realized was all she wore, with the exception of a few black or white pieces. "I like dresses like that."
But she didn't hear me. Ava shoved shaking hands through her hair and stared blankly at her closet. The suitcase at her feet didn't have much in it because she'd already unloaded her entire makeup collection into a separate bag.
"Slim," I said more firmly this time.
"Do you know that before you showed up, I was the unflappable one. Nothing ruffled me, ever." Her voice had a strange faraway quality, and she kept her hands speared in her hair. "I was like ... like, Teflon."
I tried not to be hurt by what she said, but it was still there. Just a tiny sharp sting, like the pinch of a needle you weren't expecting even though I'd thought of her in exactly the same way so many weeks ago. So I took a deep breath, and the feeling faded.
"Were you?" I asked.
Maybe the pinch wasn't as gone as I thought because a gust of air left her body, and she turned to me with a miserable expression on her beautiful, stressed-the-hell-out face. "Oh, that sounded awful. I'm sorry." Ava pinched her eyes shut. "I mean, it's like I opened myself up to all these feelings the moment I saw you again, and once I did that, everything I was keeping in just came pouring out." She mimicked a puking motion, and I smiled.
"I get it."
She paced at the foot of the bed where I sat, still clutching the green dress in my hands.
"Every day this week, I kept repeating what we'd said, you know? It's one day, it's just one day, but now that it's here, I realize how much I was fooling myself." She deflated right in front of me. When she looked, her eyes were glassy with unshed tears, and it made them glow like emeralds on her face. "I want them to prove me wrong this weekend. I want them to revert to their old selves because it makes all this so much easier, and I know you're worried for me. I know," she said, laying a hand on her chest.
"Come here." I stood and held my arms out, and she walked straight into them, hugging me so hard that I was actually knocked back a step.
"Maybe I'll just not go," she said into my chest, and I chuckled.
"You're going."
She whined and pulled back, pouting up at me. "No, I think this is a good plan. I'll text Ashley and tell her I came down with like, umm, H1N1 or something. Ooh, or the West Nile virus!"
I held her eyes, and she sighed.
"I knowwwww."
"You know why you're going to go?" I told her. "Because you're going to be the bigger person. Even if they prove themselves awful, or if they don't, you're going to show up regardless. You're going to look beautiful no matter what you wear, and you're going to congratulate them on nine years of wedded bliss." My words were heavy with sarcasm, and it made her smile. "You'll drink the champagne your parents paid a fortune for, wake up to beautiful views of the sound, and then come back here where I'll be waiting."
She nodded. "I thought about that."
"What?"
"That since you kissed me, this will be the farthest apart we've ever been. We work in the same building, and we're together every night. And after camp tomorrow, I don't get to go home with you. I need to take this stupid suitcase filled with too many clothes when I already bought a dress for this thing and get on that stupid ferry, and you won't be on it with me." She smoothed her hands up my chest, and I felt the familiar stirrings, the delicious ache that always came with her touching me. "It'll be weird to be in bed without you. I don't like thinking about it."
"I know," I muttered, leaning my head down toward her face as my hands slid up and down her back, lower with each pass until her ass was cupped firmly in my hands.
Ava breathed out shakily, her fingers curling into my skin until I could feel the sting of her fingernails through my shirt. Her face came up as mine went down, and I slanted my mouth over hers as desperation rose like a swift, hot tide in my blood.
Finally, she was talking to me about this stuff.
Tonight, she was with me.
Tonight, I was the one who was there.
I'd be that one forever if she let me.
My hands were shaking from the intensity of my thoughts as I tore my mouth away from hers and ripped her shirt over her head.
She’d given me some, but I wanted more. I wanted all of it. All of her.
I filled my hands with her breasts, and she all but climbed up me, using her arms around my neck to lock her legs like clamps on my waist.
Awkwardly, I fell backward, but we only took breaks from the deep, endless kisses to rip at each other's clothes with greedy hands. If Ava was feeling half of what I was right now, we wouldn't last two minutes once I was buried deep in her.
Something knit together inside me, stitch by stitch, row by row until my entire body was a solid mass of want and need and desire to claim her as mine for the entire world to see.
"After you get back," I panted against her mouth when she shoved her hand inside the front of my boxer briefs. Her tight grip made me hiss.
"What?" she whispered.
"No more hiding." I bit her bottom lip and tugged. "No more secrecy."
She whimpered when I soothed the spot with my tongue, teasing her with a kiss that I didn't deliver.
I flipped us, leaning up long enough to pull the last piece of clothing off her. Naked before me, Ava was almost blindingly beautiful. Her face was flushed from my words, her body quivering from my touch.
"When you get back," I said gruffly, pressing her knee up toward her chest and looming over her until she was arching her neck for a kiss, "everyone will know you're mine."
Under me, she was mindless, and that was before I snapped my hips forward.
Instantly, violently, with my name on her lips, she exploded.
But I didn't stop. I chased the rolling, coiling, churning sense of furious desire until my body was sweaty, until my legs were burning and my teeth were gritted, until Ava was practically in tears from release after release.
It wasn't enough.
Earlier, I thought we wouldn't last two minutes. But now, I felt the roaring flame so bright and so hot inside me, so primitive, that I wanted to last all night. I wanted to torture myself for hours, withhold my pleasure if it simply meant that she'd be mine.
If I embedded myself deeply enough—gripped her skin under my hands, kissed her lips, sucked her tongue, and made sure that every second of this was a clear enough definition of
what I felt for her—then maybe I'd be able to ensure this feeling forever. For both of us.
I knew I loved her. Could she sense it?
She clutched at my neck, begging for kisses that I was powerless to withhold, and when she sobbed against my lips that she couldn't take anymore, I pressed my forehead to hers and bared my teeth in a low growl while I finally allowed the threshold of pleasure to swamp me.
I fell against her, heedless of my weight over top of her slender body. Apparently, she didn't care because she wrapped shaking arms around my back and held me to her just as tightly as I'd just held her.
"I think …" She gasped, placing an open-mouth kiss on my sweat-soaked shoulder. "I think I'm dead."
Chuckling, I moved off her but kept my arm slung over her waist. Her face was flushed, and her eyes started fluttering closed. So what if my legs couldn't move. If it put that look on her face, I'd risk paralysis every damn night. "That good, huh?"
She smacked my back. "Don't fish for compliments. It's not cute."
"Okay." But I grinned unrepentantly anyway.
Ava gave me an adoring look and slid out from under my arm so she could go clean up. By the time she crawled back under the covers, clad in my massive T-shirt, I was already dozing. She snuggled up to my side and whispered good night. I kissed her forehead and did the same.
But sleep didn't come.
I watched her as her breathing deepened, as her hands started twitching slightly when she started to dream. As she always did, Ava moved to her back and then flipped to her other side. I played with the ends of her hair, which looked black in the darkened room, and I thought about what she'd said. What she'd rambled about.
Memories of how callous they used to act toward her crowded my head, cuts and snippets of pictures of my relationship with Ashley. How she spoke to me at the end. How she spoke to Ava. The guys giving me shit for getting cheated on, especially with a slimy frat boy. Visions of Ava lying on a big, dark bed by herself, wishing she was somewhere else with people who understood her, who supported her, and who loved her in the way she deserved to be loved.
The Ex Effect Page 17