by Vi Keeland
“Coach said the same thing.”
“Have you tried squeezing your thumb and index finger on your guide hand together?”
“I’ve tried, but I forget when I’m in a game.”
“You need a shooting strap. Back to basics. A J-strap and at least fifty extra free throws a day after practice until you do it automatically without the strap on in a few weeks. I can grab you one.”
“Okay! What else?”
I looked at the time on my phone—it was almost seven-thirty. We’d walked around the corner to a coffee shop after the game so Hunter could give Izzy his thoughts. But the game ran late, going into overtime, and Hunter had to excuse himself for a business call that took close to a half hour as soon as we arrived. Now, I only had a half hour before my date, and it would take me that long to get Izzy home and get back to where I was supposed to meet Marcus.
Hunter caught me watching the clock and smirked. I wouldn’t put it past him to have sat outside for a half hour without really having anyone to speak to.
“Excuse me for a minute. I need to make a call of my own,” I said.
I stepped outside and pushed Marcus to eight-thirty with an apology. It would cut the date short, because I didn’t like to leave Izzy alone at night for long and always liked to be heading home by ten. I could have postponed, but I refused to give Hunter that satisfaction.
When I returned to the table, Hunter stood. “Are we keeping you from your date?”
I flashed him a sugary smile. “No, I pushed it back a half hour.”
Hunter and Izzy went back to basketball talk as I sat.
“When you’re shooting from long range—three-pointer distance—you should drop your elbow to get more power behind your shot.”
“I thought I was.”
“Not enough. You’re also leaning forward. Here, let me show you.” He stood and held out his hand. “Natalia?”
I reluctantly put my hand in his. He helped me slip out of the booth and turned me around so my back was facing him. Gripping my hip in one hand, he used the other to control my arm. I was essentially his puppet.
“You’re releasing here.” He stopped my hand above my head.
Without realizing it, I had leaned forward, following my extended hand. Hunter ran his fingers down my side outlining the arch my torso had formed. Chills broke out all over.
“See how she’s naturally bending here? Now watch her stance when she releases earlier.”
He again controlled my arms to mimic throwing a ball, but stopped my hand a little lower for a simulated release. Again, he ran his hand down my side. Only this time, he went slower. Izzy was so enthralled with the knowledge and advice he was sharing, she didn’t seem to see anything other than shot counseling going on. But, God, I felt it.
“See? No arch,” he said as his hand reached my hip. “When’s your next game?” he asked as we sat back down.
“Thursday night.”
“Sorry, I won’t be able to make that one. How about after that?”
“We have a game Saturday morning. But it’s an away game in Westchester.”
“Work on what we talked about. I’ll be at that one.”
Izzy’s face lit up. “Okay.”
By the time we paid the check, which Coach Delucia refused to let me do, I was already going to be late (again) for my date.
Izzy began texting away on her phone the minute we walked out onto the street.
I turned to Hunter. “I guess I’ll see you Saturday then?”
“I’ll pick you up. We can drive together.”
I said yes only because I didn’t like to drive over bridges. Sure you did.
“Izzy, say goodnight and thank Hunter.”
She looked up from her texting for two seconds and gave him a genuine smile. “Thank you and goodnight, Hunter.”
“You’re welcome.”
Izzy immediately returned her attention to her cell.
“Goodnight, Natalia.”
I’d given up on correcting him and telling him I preferred to be called Nat. But why did the way he said my name have to sound so damn decadent?
I cleared my throat. “Goodnight, Hunter.”
He gripped my hip and leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. His head lingered close to my ear. “Don’t sleep with your date to try to get me out of your head. It won’t work anyway.”
Chapter 13
Natalia
“I’m sorry. What did you say?” God, I wanted to punch Hunter. This was completely his fault.
Marcus furrowed his brow. It was just the two of us at a quiet table in the back of a nice restaurant, an expensive restaurant at that. Yet I still wasn’t able to maintain my focus.
“I asked if you wanted to go to an art gallery opening on Sunday afternoon.”
“Oh. Sorry. It was a long day at work today, and I have a patient on my mind,” I lied. “Umm…sure. That sounds nice.”
Sadly, I really didn’t want to go to an art gallery opening on Sunday. I said yes because I needed to have something blocking the path for Hunter. Marcus was that obstacle.
No matter how nice a guy he was and how much I wanted to be attracted to Marcus, it wasn’t there. Being with Hunter an hour ago was a not-so-subtle reminder of what attraction felt like. You can’t force chemistry to exist any more than you can deny that it’s present. Then again, chemistry wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Chemistry is what brings people together. It isn’t what keeps them together. Trust, respect, and compatibility are the glue that keeps a couple together. I had all the chemistry in the world with my ex-husband, but none of the glue that mattered most in the end.
Marcus reached across the table and took my hand. “Don’t sound so excited about it,” he joked.
“I’m sorry. I’m just having an off day. It’s not you. Really. It’s not.”
He laced our fingers together. “How was your stepdaughter’s game?”
“They won in overtime.”
“It was nice of the coach to give her feedback after. He must be dedicated.” I’d mentioned that I was going to be late because Izzy was getting some coaching tips.
“Oh, it wasn’t her coach. It was Hunter—he’s a friend of a friend.”
“The guy from California?”
My brows drew down. “Yes. He’s here for a while on business. How did you know he was from California?”
“You mentioned him on our first date.”
“I did?”
He nodded. “A few times. When you were talking about your trip.”
“Oh.” I felt the need to explain now. “He played college basketball, so he came to the game to observe and give her some tips.”
For the rest of the date, I worked at being present. Marcus didn’t deserve my half-assed attention.
At the end of the night, outside of my apartment building, he took my hands. He’d insisted on seeing me home. “I know you have to get home to Izzy, but maybe Sunday after the art gallery, I can make you some dinner at my place?”
Third date. Even though I was sexually deprived and had started to date to remedy that situation, I wasn’t ready for sex with Marcus.
“I go to my mom’s on Sunday evenings for dinner. All my sisters go.”
His smile wilted. “Another time, maybe.”
“Sure.”
He leaned in and kissed me. As it happened, I found myself focusing on the mechanics of the kiss. Almost as if I needed to think about what to do with my tongue, my lips, even my hands. It was the exact opposite of a kiss with Hunter. With him, I was unable to think. Raw passion took over, and I had zero control. Marcus’s kiss was…nice. Pleasant.
I definitely was not panting when it broke.
“I’ll see you Sunday?”
“Sunday it is.” God, the entire thing felt awkward, and I couldn’t wait to hide in my apartment. “Thank you again for dinner.”
I knocked on the door to Mrs. Whitman’s apartment across the hall to let her know I was home. Izzy was fifteen, pa
st the age that she felt being left with a babysitter was acceptable. But I still asked the neighbor to check in on her when I went out.
Izzy was fast asleep on the couch with the TV blaring when I walked in. Rather than wake her, I covered her with a blanket. Her laptop was open, so I went to shut it, but when I moved it, the screensaver turned off, and the last thing she must’ve been working on came up. It was the results of a Google search of her father’s name.
I’d caught her doing that on a few occasions after he was arrested. At the time, I figured it was natural for her to be curious what was being said about him. But this was more than two years later. It made me realize Hunter’s presence tonight had probably made her miss him. As much as he’d lied to me and kept things from me, he’d been a good father to Izzy. He’d never missed a game, and they used to play basketball often together.
I sighed and shut the laptop before flicking off the TV. Why did the men in my life have to be so difficult?
***
The buzzer rang half an hour early. Considering I was running late and had just gotten out of the shower, I hoped it was my neighbor in 4D who’d forgotten her key again.
“Hello?”
“Morning, sweet pea.” His voice was extra gravelly through the intercom. My nipples perked up.
I looked down, and spoke to them. “What am I going to do with you guys? Haven’t we talked about this? You get your hopes up too fast, and then you’re sorely disappointed.” I pressed the intercom. “Fourth floor.” I buzzed the front door open.
A few minutes later, Hunter stepped off the elevator and sauntered down the hallway toward me. He had a natural, confident swagger that made even his damn walk sexy—not to mention he had his work boots on again today. Those things really did it for me for some odd reason. And since I was standing there doing nothing but holding the door open, I couldn’t help admiring the rest of the package. Unfortunately, that didn’t help my nipple situation any.
Hunter’s eyes dropped and took lingering note before his gaze returned to mine with a triumphant smile. I rolled my eyes and stepped aside for him to come in. Of course, he stopped in the doorway so we were toe to toe. Leaning down, he kissed my cheek and then leaned in—it seemed to be his thing, a few words that made the hair stand up on my neck after a superficially innocent kiss.
Only this time, he didn’t say a word. Instead, he took an audible, deep inhale and groaned out the exhale. I felt the rumble from it shoot down to my toes, making some interesting stops on its way.
Seriously? I was a puddle from a fucking sniff. I needed an extra thirty seconds to collect myself after he walked inside.
“You’re early.”
He held up a bag I hadn’t noticed. “I brought breakfast.”
I read the logo. “Jamba Juice?”
“Steel-cut oatmeal with bananas, shredded coconut, and brown sugar.”
My eyes widened. “That’s my favorite breakfast in the world.”
“I know. Bella told me.”
“You called my mother to ask her what I liked for breakfast?”
“No. She called me last night to invite me for dinner on Sunday, and I mentioned we were going to Izzy’s game. She might have suggested I pick up breakfast on my way and told me what you liked.”
I spoke under my breath. “Of course she did.”
Hunter smiled. “Come on, let’s eat before it gets cold.”
It would’ve been stupid to let a perfectly good breakfast go to waste as a form of protest against my mother and Hunter’s new-found friendship. So I sat down and dug into the awesomeness.
I hadn’t realized I’d been quiet for so long while I shoveled oatmeal into my mouth until I caught Hunter’s lip twitching while he watched me.
“What?”
“I take it you really do like this stuff?”
I spoke with a full mouth. “It’s better than sex.”
“Then you haven’t been fucked properly.”
Mid-swallow, I choked on the oatmeal, sputtering and gasping.
Hunter dropped his spoon and looked like he was about to dive across the table to deliver the Heimlich.
I put a hand up to stop him and spoke with strain. “I’m fine. Water.”
He grabbed a glass and filled it while I worked to catch my breath. My throat burned as I downed the water.
“You sure you’re okay?”
I patted my chest as everything finally made its way down the right pipe. “I’m fine.”
Hunter sat back down. “You shouldn’t try to talk while swallowing.”
“You shouldn’t say inappropriate things.”
“You started it. Answering the door with your nipples all perky, smelling so fucking good, talking about sex. I think you’re the one who’s inappropriate here.”
My eyes bulged. “You showed up half an hour early, so I’d just gotten out of the shower, and my nipples were still hard as a result. That smell you like so much? It’s called soap. And I wasn’t talking about sex. I made a statement that was a metaphor to describe how much I like the oatmeal.”
Hunter scooped a heaping spoonful of oatmeal from his container and spoke before shoveling it into his mouth. “The only thing I heard from that explanation was nipples and sex.”
***
“How was your date last night?” Hunter side-glanced at me before returning his eyes to the road. We were sitting in traffic on the bridge on our way upstate for the game.
“It was wonderful.”
He chuckled.
“What?”
“You’re a shit liar.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not a liar.”
“You pick imaginary lint off of your clothes when you lie. You just did it when you said your date was wonderful.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
He shrugged. “If you say so.”
A few minutes of awkward silence passed before he spoke again. “Did you go back to his place?”
“That’s really none of your business.”
“You wanna know what I think?”
“Not really, no.”
“I think you kissed him goodnight but compared it to our kiss and realized as much as you want to want this guy, you don’t.”
My gaze narrowed. “We had sex, and I didn’t think of you once.”
“Really?” He glanced over at me.
“Really,” I said. I turned my head toward the window to keep my heated face from his view.
Hunter leaned over and breached my personal space while driving. “What’s that you’re doing with your left hand right now?”
I froze. I was picking imaginary damn lint off of my jeans. Having no response to being caught lying, I simply scowled at him.
He gloated a smile in my direction.
After a few minutes, he sighed. “Let me take you to dinner tonight.”
I ignored him. “Did you take the garter I caught from Anna and Derek’s wedding? I couldn’t find it when I left my hotel room.”
“Nope. Didn’t see it.”
“Damn. I really wanted to keep it.”
Hunter changed the subject back. He really had a one-track mind. “So…what do you say? Let me take you to dinner tonight.”
“No.”
“You’ll let the poor bastard you don’t even like kissing take you to dinner, but you won’t let me take you out?”
I nodded. “That’s right.”
“I’m attracted to you. You’re attracted to me. I don’t get it.”
I decided to be honest and not filter my response. “When I was twelve years old, I came home from school early. We had a half-day for parent-teacher conferences. My mom kept a calendar on the refrigerator with all our schedules and activities. With four girls, there was scribble on most days. But that particular day, Mom had forgotten to write that we had a shortened day. Both my parents worked, and I was a latch-key kid, so I walked home from school and let myself in. There was noise coming from my mom’s room, so I figured she’
d left the TV on like she sometimes did. I went to turn it off and walked in on my father having sex with one of my mom’s good friends.”
“Shit. I’m sorry.”
“My father begged me not to tell my mother, swearing it was the one and only time. He said if I told her she’d be heartbroken, and I’d break up the family.”
“That’s shitty. He should have manned up and told her himself, not put that on you.”
“Yeah. I know that now.”
“Did you tell her?”
“Not for a few weeks. One night the woman was over, and I saw the way my Dad was looking at her. I couldn’t let my mom be humiliated like that. I knew it wasn’t a one-time mistake he’d made, even though I was twelve. When I finally told her, he admitted it and said he was in love with her friend. Dad moved out, and Mom went into a state of depression that lasted a really long time.”
“Sometimes doing the right thing sucks.”
I forced a smile. “Yeah.” I stared out the window, watching the trees pass for a while. “My husband didn’t cheat on me, but he also didn’t tell me the life we were leading was funded by money he’d stolen from unsuspecting clients, or that he’d been running a scam for years. Nor did he mention that the penthouse we lived in was on the verge of foreclosure or that he’d run up a fortune in debt on credit cards under my name. I had to move two weeks after his arrest, my bank account was overdrawn, and my credit was complete crap because he’d been having the credit card bills sent to his office and wasn’t paying any of them. Even borrowing money from my mom, I couldn’t get an apartment on my own because of my bad credit. Lucky for me, my wonderful husband’s best friend was very supportive and was nice enough to help me find a place to live. In exchange for that kindness, he thought I should have sex with him.”
“The men in your life have been shit. I get it.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “I have definite trust issues. But it’s more than that. I didn’t go away to college like I would’ve liked to because I didn’t want to leave my mom alone. She never asked me to do that. In fact, she pushed me as hard as she could to go away. When I married Garrett, he wanted a stay-at-home wife even though I was just getting my therapy career started. So I left my job because of him. I’m just at a point in my life where I need to focus on me. I love my job. Izzy needs my attention. I can’t get involved with anyone, even if I’m attracted to him.”