“Honestly?” Judging the other woman, Margaret went for the truth. “You’re the only one who knows about our situation, and I need advice.”
Not at all offended, Cassie nodded. “Sure. You want to know if you and Stephen can get it on.”
“Oh. My. God.” She glanced around, but realized then that almost all the tech guys had earbuds in or headphones on. “Are they listening to something?”
“Most of them are, yeah. Either way, they’re too busy playing with code to listen to girl talk.”
“That’s . . . good? I guess?”
“You get used to it. C’mon, they’ll descend soon when they smell food.” Cassie leaned in, elbows on the conference table.
“How did you know about . . . the whole get it on thing?” she finished in a whisper, because really . . . how could she ignore six guys in the room with them?
“Because I’ve seen you two together before. I get the point of pretending to be dating, but let me just say from experience on the other side . . . sorry,” she added and held up her hands. “Start over, Cass. Okay, when Trey and I first hooked up—”
“You mean started dating?”
“No, I really mean hooked up.” Her smile went a little predatory, and her eyes gleamed. “We met at a club, and had what we both thought of as a one-nighter. Little did we know we’d eventually run into each other again, but this time as coach’s daughter and coach’s quarterback.” She glanced at the ring on her finger, turned it just a little, and her smile went dreamy. “It’ll make a fun story for the grandkids. Minus the one-night booty bounce, of course.”
“Of course,” Mags agreed, biting her lip to keep from laughing. “Back to topic.”
“Hmm,” Cassie hummed, then blinked. “Right. Topic. Trey and I played the we’re not dating card for several weeks. And you’re playing the we are dating card. It’s the same deception, just reversed. I get that look in your eye. The one that says you wanna jump his bones, but you aren’t sure if you should or not, because of the whole bit where he’s paying you to stay in his house and be his sober accountability partner. Is it wrong to sleep with him when he’s paying you?”
“Wow.” Margaret sat back in her chair, stunned. “You should have been a psychoanalyst or something.”
“Eh. I’m just good at reading people.” She waved that off. “The fact is, you’re being paid for the job of keeping him on track, with his health and sobriety. As long as your sleeping with him doesn’t undermine either of those things, I don’t see a problem with it. He’s not paying you for the eight hours of sleep you get each night, or for when you sit down for an hour and read a book while he’s at practice. He doesn’t own your every moment of every day. So make those ones he doesn’t own, yours. What you do with those moments—or who you do—is up to you.”
She let that sink in a moment before there was a buzz at the conference table phone.
“Food’s here, guys,” said the voice, which sounded like the assistant from the front door.
Mags looked around, noticed not one man standing up, and glanced at Cassie. Her friend rolled her eyes. “They won’t move until they have to pee, they smell food, or there’s an atomic blast. Let’s go get the bags and bring them back. Then you can see what a life-sized herd of locusts looks like, descending upon a food source.”
***
Stephen set the weights in their holders and let his head hang for a moment. Just a minute. Just one damn minute . . .
“Harrison!”
Damn it.
“What?” he said, knowing he sounded testy and not giving a crap. If he’d looked a half second sooner, he might have caught the towel flung at his face. He stepped back and grabbed it, glaring at his trainer. “What the hell’s your problem?”
“Same back at ya. You’re worth shit to me today. If you aren’t going to bring your A-game, then go home. I’ve got better things to do than waste my time.” The man, who was at least five inches shorter than Stephen and several pounds lighter, poked him in the chest with an index finger. “Look at yourself in the mirror and tell me you want to be here today.”
Stephen turned around to look at the floor-to-ceiling glass that lined one wall. In his face, he saw exactly what the trainer saw . . . nothing. For the first time since he’d started this journey to get his health—and spot on the team—back, he looked like he’d rather be anywhere else but there.
He’d rather be with Mags.
“I’ll be back here tomorrow. Same time, same place. You’ve got three days before you head to training camp. Don’t waste them.” With a disgusted snort, his trainer left.
Stephen sat on the weight bench and let his head hang for a moment in his hands. He was blowing this. One last chance, one last opportunity to get in there and do this job the right way, and he was giving it up because he couldn’t get his mind off a woman and into the game.
“You look like hell.”
He merely held up his middle finger in Trey’s general direction without looking up.
“He’s right.” Josiah sat across from him on a second bench, their knees nearly touching. “You really look like hell. Sick?”
“He’s sick, all right,” Trey answered for him. Stephen tracked his movements via sound and assumed his friend was picking up some hand weights. “Sick of living a lie.”
He froze in lifting his head up to respond. Did they know? Cassie had guessed without much provocation, but had Trey?
The light in Trey’s eye said yes. The cluelessness in Josiah’s said no.
He needed them. This shouldn’t have been a solo operation from the start, he realized. Instead of reaching out, he’d tried to bury himself in his own problems. Tried to crawl back out of them himself, too . . . and that hadn’t gone well. Mags was a first step, but he knew he needed more than her to know the full truth.
Besides, Trey was well versed in pretending when it came to romance. How many months had he and Cassie pretended they weren’t in love before they admitted it to everyone?
“I’m not sick. I’m . . . I’m just tired.” Great. He now sounded like a whiner.
“Everyone’s tired. You’re starting from scratch, my man.” Trey, not willing to give him the cop-out, walked beside him to start doing biceps curls. “Woman up and get over it.”
“Woman up?” Josiah asked with a small smile.
“Cassie keeps telling me the phrase man up is sexist and completely meaningless. Something about how ovaries are literally tougher than balls, or something. Whatever. I let her prove it in bed, and it’s all better.” A self-satisfied smile curled their friend’s lips. Stephen, who was getting no satisfaction, wanted to punch him in his weak balls.
“Anyway,” Trey went on, “being tired isn’t your main problem. Your main problem is a certain honey you’ve got living in your guest room.”
Josiah blinked. “Your girlfriend lives in your guest room? Isn’t that a bit . . . I don’t know, cold?”
“It would be, if she were actually his girlfriend.”
Stephen glanced around the weight room quickly, but realized they were alone for the moment. “Shut up.”
“What? You gave me shit about not telling Cassie the truth about my job when we were dating. And about keeping our dating a secret . . . but you at least knew. Did you think you could hide that from us for that long? The guys who know you better than anyone?”
“Seriously, what’s going on?” Josiah said with a growl, flipping his ball cap until the bill was backward. “Someone tell me what’s up.”
“Okay, so maybe you could hide it from him. But not me.” Trey puffed out a little breath as he let the weights fall lightly to their padded spot on the line. “Tell him.”
“Did Cassie say something?”
“Cassie knows?” he asked in an incredulous voice. “No, no way she knows. She’d have told me.”
“She’d have not,” Stephen said, feeling a bit smug. So the quarterback didn’t know everything after all. “She figured it out at your barbe
cue.”
“And she didn’t tell me,” his friend muttered, glaring off to the side. “She’s definitely gonna pay for that.”
“She’s marrying you; I’d say she’s already paying. Now tell me what’s going on,” Josiah demanded.
“Mags and I aren’t dating . . . exactly,” Stephen hedged. “We’re more like employer and employee.”
The running back’s eyes widened. “She’s a prostitute? Is this a Pretty Woman thing?”
Stephen’s fists balled, but Trey stepped between them and all but sat on his lap to keep him from swinging. “No, you asshole. You know Mags. She’s not a prostitute.”
“Then help me out here.” Looking frustrated and out of sorts, Josiah pulled the cap from his head and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re dating her, but you’re not. She’s living with you, but only in your guest room. She comes with you to events as your girlfriend, but she’s not. What the hell?”
“She’s my sober accountability partner.”
That caught Josiah off guard. “Seriously?”
“It was either find my own or accept whatever stranger the front office threw at me. I wasn’t really keen on having a stranger breathing down my neck, so I went with someone I could trust.”
“Except you told them—and everyone else—she’s your girlfriend,” Trey reminded him as he sat down beside him.
“Because they made it sound like someone living with me was the best option. It just . . . I don’t know. It came out weird and now I’m stuck in this hell of my own making.” He gripped his skull in his hands and squeezed a bit, but it did nothing to relieve the building tension in his head. “Stop judging. I went with what sounded right at the time, and now I’m dealing with it. You’ve been there.”
“I have, which is why I’m telling you to get out now. If you can’t admit you made a mistake, then just feign a breakup and tell people it didn’t work out, but you’re doing fine and don’t need the life coach they wanted for you.”
“That’s not gonna happen.” Josiah scowled. “With the news breaking about Coach’s divorce, and all that shit that’s hitting the fan from that, with the charities pulling away from associating with the family and all that . . .” He shook his head. “It’s rough right now. I doubt they’d like hearing there’s a new wrench in the plan.”
“I can’t lose this season.” He said it quietly, and both friends leaned closer to listen. “I . . . This is it. I feel like this is the last shot I’ve got to play.”
“What?” Josiah’s face was one of shock. “No way, dude. You’re healthier than ever.”
“Smaller than ever,” Stephen added.
“But your speed is up, your reaction time has tripled—”
“And I’m gonna get Trey killed when some son of a bitch weighing three fifty mows my scrawny ass down.” He glanced at his friend and nudged him with his shoulder. “Sorry in advance.”
“I’d say apology accepted, but I think Cass likes my face as it is. I’d prefer to not have it rearranged until after she’s bound to me by law.” When Stephen didn’t laugh at the joke, Trey slapped him on the back. “How’s Mags handling all this?”
“She’s amazing. She’s quick on her feet, and the girl knows how to keep me in line. Just the other day, she . . .” He blinked at the look his friends were giving him. “What?”
“Your smile,” Josiah said simply. “You’ve got it for the hottie sober dober.”
“First, that’s an insulting nickname. Second . . . yeah. Yeah, I do.” He leaned back until his head bumped against the bar. “I’ve got the hots for my fake girlfriend. And she thinks I’m just a job. I’m paying her, for Chrissake. I can’t make a move on someone I’m paying.”
“Back to the unfortunate Pretty Woman reference.” When Stephen glared at him, Josiah shrugged. “So tell her. Just lay it out there. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“She says no, decides she doesn’t want to live in the house anymore, moves out, leaves me alone with no hope of being with her and no accountability partner, I hit up the nearest liquor store to drown my sorrows, get cut from the team with no other organization wanting me, and tailspin into a small ball of misery?”
There was silence for a moment. Then Trey said, “Let’s not tell her just yet.”
Stephen snorted.
“First,” his friend went on, ignoring that, “let’s get through training camp. Maybe a few weeks at the dorms and away from her and this will provide you with some distance and your mind will clear. When the mind is clear, the answers will come.”
“You’ve been taking him to yoga class, haven’t you?” he asked Josiah. The other man just grinned.
“Fine. Lips are sealed.” Which would be damn hard, given he’d just spent the night in her bed—albeit platonically—and had been considering how to get her closer to a relationship.
He’d waited this long to find the right woman to break relationship ground with. He could wait a few more weeks.
Probably. Hopefully.
Chapter Fourteen
He’d avoided her for two full days. How the hell did a man that large manage to sneak around like a tiny ninja?
Mysteries of the world, Mags thought as she jammed another few handfuls of frozen berries into the blender. He was definitely doing it on purpose, though. Yesterday, she’d changed up her routine to try and catch him, and he’d actually beaten her to the punch and slipped out of the house behind her back. Infuriating man. She jabbed the blend button a little harder than necessary, catching the whole thing just before it tipped over and spilled all over the counter.
Because that would just be the cherry on her craptastic two days.
No point in wondering why they were craptastic. Nothing bad had happened, exactly. She’d gotten a lot accomplished, learned a new healthy recipe that didn’t taste too awful, and caught up on two shows in their Netflix queue.
But something had been missing.
Someone.
She’d become dependent on their routine, where he spent time with her on the couch, snuggled together, and they talked about their day. He cursed about his personal trainer, she talked about how he really needed to invest in a wet mop, they bickered about what to watch on TV, then he faked grudgingly giving in because he knew she would hate everything he watched and he could tolerate her “sissy junk.”
God, she missed him. He’d become like air in the house. His missing presence, because it was unexplained, only hurt more.
Maybe he was embarrassed. She poured the smoothie mix into two cups, screwed the lids on, and put them in the fridge before rinsing out the blender in hot water. Embarrassed that he’d had a weak moment in the night, had come to her, had needed her.
Well, not her, exactly, but someone. And she’d happened to be there.
Or maybe it was that kiss he was so worried about. That kiss . . .
Hot water scalded her hand and she dropped the blender, watching the reinforced plastic bounce at the bottom of the sink as the steaming hot water poured over it. Damn, that hurt. Flipping the handle off, she dried her hand and grabbed a bag of individual peas out of the freezer and holding them to the back of her hand.
There was nothing to be embarrassed about. They were adults. They’d kissed. It was practically nothing.
An amazing, nipple-hardening, panty-dampening, insides-crumbling nothing . . .
Okay, fine, it was something. Something to her. To him, probably not so much. He had women coming on to him all the time. One chick making out with him wouldn’t even put a blip in his world.
She heard the garage door go up, and she froze. Did he know she was there? Of course he knew she was there . . . Her car was in the driveway like always. Maybe he’d come home so they could finally talk about whatever was bothering him enough to make him avoid his own house.
Or, she realized as he came in hauling two empty suitcases from the garage, he was back to pack for training camp.
Her spirits deflated a little.
; “Hey,” he said, wheeling in the larger of the two suitcases. “How’s it going?”
How’s it going? Like he hadn’t just played hooky for two days? Feigning nonchalance, she shrugged one shoulder and leaned back against the countertop. “It’s going. You hungry? I just made a smoothie.”
“Protein?”
“Plenty of it.”
He left the suitcases by the staircase and came back to grab one cup out of the fridge. He held up the second in question, but she shook her head. The blender was still her enemy. The smoothie would wait.
She watched while he drained the entire cup in one take. Swallow after swallow moved his Adam’s apple, forcing her to grip the counter just a little harder than necessary to keep from reaching over and touching that spot with her fingertips.
She needed a distraction.
“Who is taking you to the bus in the morning? Should I plan to do it?”
“Cassie, actually. She’s driving Trey and Josiah, so they asked if I wanted a ride. It’s ungodly early, so the fewer people who have to be up that early, the better.” He set the cup in the sink and looked at her. “Should I have asked you?”
“What? No! Why?”
“You just look sort of . . . annoyed, I guess.” He seemed at ease around her again, as if he wasn’t even concerned about their kiss from before, or their night spent snuggled in bed.
Clearly, she was much more affected than he was about the entire thing. “I’m fine. It’s your life, and all that.” Too bitchy, Margaret. Pull it back. She grabbed a rag and wet it, wiping down the counter around the blender. “Last night of freedom for a while. Any plans?”
“Most of the married—or soon-to-be-married,” he added with a smirk she knew was meant for his friend Trey, “guys are staying home to snag the last few hours of time with their families. A few of the single guys are getting together for a night out, but . . .” He lifted a shoulder, and she knew what he wasn’t saying.
He wasn’t sure he could handle it.
“What’s the alcohol content like at training camp?”
Takes Two to Tackle Page 13