The typical warmth in her brown eyes had faded. She stared at him for a moment, and shook her head, sharply.
“Why is that, Cameron? Do you avoid seeing them?”
She glanced away from him again. She seemed to shrink into herself, too. “Maybe we should talk about something else for a while.”
He felt an icy fist squeezing his gut. She was willing to share her body with him, but she wasn’t letting him inside her head. Most guys might be relieved to have a woman who wouldn’t talk, talk, talk about the things she thought about. Not him. They’d spent three days together ten years ago, but the best part of Cameron’s enforced presence in his world the last couple of weeks was the fact he was getting to know her. He’d like to know more.
Their lives were as different as they could possibly be, and it was more than financial worth. He had money, too, but his resources were nowhere near her family’s. She didn’t think about how much things cost, because she never had to. The money was always there. It wasn’t even a consideration for her. He and his family knew what it was like to wonder where their next meal was coming from or whether they’d have to choose to pay the light bill or the water bill, so it never quite went away.
Even more than the money, Cameron was the poorest rich girl he’d ever met. No matter what happened with his career, there were five people waiting at home who loved him for himself, not because he had elite athletic ability. If he got cut from the Sharks tomorrow, he had sufficient money now to take a job coaching high school football and live a relatively normal life. He also knew his sisters and grandma would be happy with the simple life he could provide. His sisters would find husbands and settle down, but their adult lives would be vastly different from their beginnings.
He couldn’t imagine an evening spent with Cameron’s family. She’d told him before that she grew up with nannies and that she and Paige went to boarding school. Did the Ondine family ever make popcorn and watch TV together? Did they do yard work or have any hobbies in common? Did they have pets? Did they share themselves with each other at all?
“Well, then, how about this: Have you ever lived anywhere else but New York City?” he said.
“Besides living in Connecticut while I was in prep school, not really. We spend the summers at the Hamptons, but that’s a short trip. PSN’s studios are in New York, so moving anywhere else might be a challenge.”
He felt that. Her words stung like a lash. They were done before they even started, and she wasn’t willing to negotiate.
“In other words, if things worked out between us, we’ll have a pretty big geographical problem.”
She thought about that for a few seconds. “Not really. That’s what planes are for.”
“How many days a week would we be able to spend together, then? We both work every weekend six months a year. You’re probably working on pre-production a couple more days a week, too. I’m here at practice, and Tuesday is typically my only day off during the season. Would we meet halfway, then? How do you see this moving forward?”
She got to her feet.
“I’m sure we could work something out.” She went into the bathroom and shut the door. Seconds later, he heard the shower come on.
This was even worse than he’d envisioned. He’d thought the conversation about the problems that they faced would be uncomfortable and might cause an argument. He never imagined she’d refuse to talk with him at all. He wondered if it was worth trying to restart the conversation elsewhere.
He glanced over at the rumpled bed. Their first mistake had been getting out of it. They seemed to communicate just fine when they were both nude. He got to his feet and strode over to the bathroom. She hadn’t locked the bathroom door. He swung it open, dropped his robe on the floor, and reached out for the shower door.
She let out a shriek. “What are you doing?”
“We can’t fight when we’re naked.” He stepped inside the shower stall, pulling the door shut behind him. He picked up the small bottle of organic shampoo. “Let me wash your hair.”
“I can do it.” She wrapped her arms around herself again.
He reached out to stroke her cheek. “I’d like to. Please?”
He saw her mouth curve into a smile, and she nodded. She ducked beneath the spray, turning her back to provide better access. He massaged shampoo through Cameron’s long hair, talking all the while.
“So. We have a geographical problem. We have a family problem on both sides. I want my sisters and grandma to get to know you, and your dad detests me. We work on opposite sides of the country, and neither of us can move. How are we going to resolve some of these things?”
She tipped her head back as he massaged her scalp with gentle fingers. “Maybe we should discuss this later. I’d like to enjoy what you’re doing right now instead.”
“I’d like you to enjoy what I’m doing right now, too, but I want to make this work.” He resisted the impulse to back her up to the shower wall, pick her up so she could wrap her legs around his waist, and plunge into her again. Later. They’d already had a lot of sex. They needed to start talking with each other.
“That feels great,” she sighed. The warmth was back in her voice. Of course, parts of him were responding to the wet, naked parts of her.
It was too bad he couldn’t train his dick to obey on command. Down, boy.
All this coaxing Cameron to talk about her feelings meant that he’d most likely given up his man card for life, but he knew from living with five women that females fell in love through their ears long before their hearts were involved. He’d learned to listen first. If she knew that he cared about the things she found important and tried to understand why she made the decisions she did, they might be able to find common ground on the bigger things, like how the hell they were going to see each other six months a year.
Maybe he should start small.
He rinsed the shampoo out of her hair with the hand-held shower attachment and picked up a washcloth. He grabbed the small bottle of shower gel. “So, question. Do you want to be a sidelines reporter and have your show for the rest of your career? What’s your ultimate goal?” He was smoothing the washcloth over her, leaving a trail of suds. He saw her shoulders move up and down more rapidly. She turned to face him and wrapped her arms around his neck. She backed him up against the shower wall. The hot water cascaded over them, and he pulled her closer.
“Do you want to talk, or do you want to do the wild thing?” she said.
She reached up and bit his lower lip. Of course, he felt the tug in his groin, too. She fit against him like they’d been made for each other. One great advantage to making love in the shower: The clean-up was a lot easier.
“Actually, I had another idea.” He sank to his knees. “It seems I forgot to return the favor earlier, darlin’.”
Twenty minutes or so later, Zach wrapped her in towels and his discarded robe, and half-carried her to the bed. She was pretty boneless after two huge orgasms. He resisted the impulse to pat himself on the back when he looked down at a satisfied, drowsy Cameron, who beamed up at him.
“Where’d you learn that, hot stuff?”
“I may have read it in a book or something,” he teased.
“Remind me to send the author some flowers.”
She rolled over a bit in the bed so he could join her. A discarded condom wrapper stuck to the bottom of his foot. He rubbed the sole of his foot against the other to get rid of it, and pulled the sheet over them as he wrapped his arms around her again.
“That won’t be necessary.”
They’d both had partners before and after each other, but he didn’t want to be reminded of them right now. He pulled them into the cocoon of pillows. Most of the day had passed without venturing out of the suite. They could have spent the time anywhere, but the salt-tinged breeze still wafting through their room relaxed and soothed him. “How about that question I asked you a little while ago? I’m curious.”
She rested her head on his shoulder as
her fingertips traced the outline of his six-pack. “About my job?”
“Exactly.”
“I enjoy reporting from the sidelines, but after this latest incident, I’m wondering if that part of my career is over.” She let out a long breath, and he resisted the impulse to punch the air in victory. His efforts to listen and ask questions were earning her trust. “There’s security at NFL stadiums, but I can’t imagine Earphones One and Two wanting to deal with a stadium full of potential threats. I enjoy doing my show, but I have to find interviews. The contacts I made at games came in pretty handy there. It’s either keep doing what I’m doing, or push myself to the next level.” She was silent for a minute or so. “My dream is to be the first female NFL game analyst.”
He couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d hit him with something. He never considered most of them someone to emulate, and Cameron wanted one of their jobs. He knew she’d run rings around those guys. But in order to understand the nuances of the game she’d have to work twice as hard as the guys who’d played it.
“Those guys sit behind a desk for an hour a week during the season and mouth off about stuff they don’t understand,” he blurted out.
“That’s not true. Most of them are former players. There are some that are better-spoken than others, I’ll give you that, but they’re not inexperienced.”
“Why do you want to join them? You’re a journalist, darlin’. Won’t you miss that?”
She rolled onto her side and brushed her lips over his. If he found her ultimate goal shocking, he was even more surprised at the gratefulness he saw in her eyes. “You called me a journalist. That’s one of the sweetest things you’ve ever said to me.”
“It’s true.”
“There are lots of people who would argue with that, especially some of the guys I work with. They think women can’t really understand or effectively report on the game because they never played it on a professional level.”
“Then they are dumb shits, and you shouldn’t listen to them. I know you understand the game. I’ve seen your sideline reports.”
He saw the corners of her mouth turn up. “You’re such a sweet talker.” He couldn’t prevent the laugh that rolled out of him, and she looked pleased. She rested against him for a minute or two. “Do you think I’ve lost my mind to go after this?”
“It’s no different than wanting to be drafted in the first round or chosen an All-Pro. It’s work and determination and extra effort. I heard another player say once that the separation is in the preparation. It’s true. If you are better equipped than the guys, they’ll have a hard time overlooking you.”
She propped herself up on one elbow. “So, I told you my ultimate goal. What’s yours?”
“Personally or professionally?”
“Whichever you’d like to tell me. Or both.”
He propped himself up on an elbow, too. Their sweet intimacy struck him anew: He longed for a lover and a friend. A woman he could confide his hopes and dreams to. Someone he could laugh with. He wanted that woman to be Cameron so badly it took his breath away.
He pretend-coughed a little to disguise the wave of emotion he felt.
“Do you need some water? I’ll go get it,” she said.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.” He gazed into her eyes, which were a hundred shades of brown. “My professional goal is to make it to the Pro Bowl at least one more time, and I am already preparing for my retirement from the NFL. Every game you get after thirty years old is a bonus.” He hauled in a breath. “After retirement, I’d like to be a coach.”
A huge smile spread over her face. “Really?”
“Absolutely. I’d like to start at the high school level. Coach the kids up, and teach them the fundamentals. I’d have a blast. There’s not a lot of money in it, but that’s okay. I’ll be fine with what I have now.”
“What about your personal life?”
“That’s easy. All I have to do is make sure my sisters get through college and find guys to marry who deserve them, which might be a tall order. Right after that, Grandma might want a place of her own, so I’ll work on that, too.”
“So your grandma really does live with you.” She looked interested and curious. “Tell me about her.”
“She’s my mom’s mom. She helped raise my sisters after my mom died.” He stroked the hair off Cameron’s forehead. “She’s—she still cooks and cleans for us. I told her she doesn’t have to do that shit anymore, I can hire someone else to handle it, but she says she wants to pull her weight. That’s nuts. She’s done so much for me and for my sisters. She let me hire a dog walker and she’s okay with my making sure she has transportation when she has errands or needs to get out of the house for a while, but that’s it. She loves Judge Judy and all those crap daytime TV shows. If they make her happy, though, I’m glad she likes watching them. She’s kind and funny and accepts people as they are. I think you’ll like her. We love her.”
“Does she hate me, too?”
“Not at all. She’s not like that. She’ll want to feed you, though.” He kissed the middle of her forehead.
Cameron let out a soft laugh. He laced his fingers through hers.
“You have a dog?” she said.
“His name is Butter, and he’s a yellow Lab. He’s a four-month-old chewing machine. He also likes to lick.”
“You must miss him right now.”
“I do, but I’ll see him again soon. Do you have a pet?”
She looked regretful. “No. I’d like one, though. I wish I could have a dog, but I live alone and I travel. It wouldn’t be fair. My family didn’t have pets at all, and I’ve always wanted one.”
He loved the mental picture of Cameron and Butter playing in the back yard of his house, hanging out with him and his family, and long nights spent holding each other and talking before they fell asleep. Even the smallest things would be special if she was with him.
“Maybe we could make some kind of deal about honorary dog ownership. One thing’s for sure—if Butter chews up one more pair of Shelby’s shoes, she might want him to move in with someone else.”
The sun sank lower in the sky as they talked and laughed about the minutiae of their lives. She told him about her adventures on the subway. He told her about what it was like to deal with teenage sisters. He’d tried to eat his weight with the picnic basket earlier, but he was hungry again. He’d like to broach the subject of her family, and maybe he should do so when they both had a full stomach.
He scrambled out of the bed, grabbed the one-size-fits-all hotel robe that Cameron could wrap double around herself, and padded into the living room.
“Don’t eat those cookie bars,” she teased him.
“That’s right. I was going to call and see if we could get more before we have to leave.” There weren’t a lot of leftovers from their feast earlier. He knew there was a prix-fixe eight course dinner in the inn’s restaurant each night, but he didn’t want to spend the entire evening with anyone else but her.
“Are you hungry again?” He could hear laughter in her voice.
“Always.”
CAMERON SPEARED ANOTHER bite of her salad with a fork as she swirled the wine in her glass. She’d worked up more of an appetite than she thought. They ate a Mediterranean take-out dinner at the weather-beaten wooden table on the little balcony overlooking the water, and drank some more excellent wine as the sun set.
“I wish we didn’t have to leave,” she said.
“I wish we could stay, too.” Zach touched the rim of his glass to hers. “Maybe we should come back soon.”
“Maybe,” she said.
She took another bite of food and managed not to choke, which was always a good thing. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to spend more time with Zach. She never wanted to let him go. She had had a taste of what the last ten years of her life could have been like, and she wished this peaceful enjoyment could be their reality. She didn’t see how it could realistically happen. She took another
sip of wine.
He was right. They would be apart at least six months a year, unless she quit her job and followed him to Seattle. One didn’t take a job in the fourteenth-biggest TV market after earning and holding a national job in the number one market in the United States, if not the world. She maintained editorial control over her work and scheduled her own interviews. She knew she would never get the kind of independence she craved in a smaller market, nor would she be able to have a career that would continue to grow commensurate with her ambition and willingness to work hard.
Zach wasn’t going to play football forever, but he also was not going to want to retire a five-hour plane ride away from his family. She loved her family and she knew they loved her, too, but they weren’t as close as Zach’s. He’d told her he talked and texted with at least one of his sisters and his grandma every day, and most of the time, it was all of them. He’d described the simple things that most families shared—cooking together, playing games or watching TV in the evenings, taking Butter to the dog park on weekends he didn’t have a game and was in town. He made sure his sisters brought the guys they dated home to meet him first. His focus was completely different than any other thirty-two-year-old she’d ever met.
“We’re not perfect,” he’d said about his family, “but we love each other, and we’re happy together.”
Her musing was interrupted when Zach passed a hand in front of her eyes. “Hey. I lost you for a few minutes, didn’t I? Tell me what’s on your mind.”
She put her fork down on the plate and reached across the table to lay her hand over his.
“I’ve been thinking, and I’m not sure how this is going to work.”
He looked startled for a few seconds, but covered his confusion with a big grin. He knew exactly what she was talking about. He wasn’t giving up on their future quite so easily.
“What do you mean? I have plenty of those cookie bar things now. We can split them. We’ll eat our dinner, and we don’t have to finish the bottle of wine if you don’t want to. Things are great.”
Catching Cameron: A Love and Football Novel Page 21