I watched Blade and Tyra together.
“Baby, you want to order something for dinner?”
“Yeah! How about some fries or something?”
I smiled as Blade took her hand across the table. I recognized that tenderness in his eyes. It was exactly the same tenderness I felt whenever I thought of Ryanne.
Watching them sharing nachos, the way Tyra joked with the guys and Blade showed her casual affection, made me see so clearly that she didn’t fit into my world at all. That made me feel distressed. I reached for my drink, feeling restless. Suddenly I just wanted to go home.
I turned to see Jake frowning at me.
“You look stressed,” he said.
I sighed. “Not really.”
He nodded. “Well, maybe we can talk later, huh?”
I shrugged. “I guess, well…it’s complicated.” How could I tell him that I had fallen for a wealthy CEO who would probably just laugh at me if I told her. I didn’t know how she felt. And her reply to my dinner invitation didn’t exactly fill me with encouragement.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s Ryanne,” I said. What the heck—I might as well tell him. It was going to come out sometime and I couldn’t keep it inside anymore.
“Oh,” he said. He didn’t say anything more than that. Just that. And, “well, we can talk later, huh. When the others have gone.”
“Sure.”
I just didn’t know what to do about the fact that I had, as someone who was fairly sure they’d never fall in love, just fallen in love. It was problem I’d never thought I’d face.
***
“So,” I said. I looked at Jess over the top of my glass. “So, I think I have a small problem on my hands.”
“Mm?” Jess frowned at me. She was sitting at her table with a tall glass of sparkling grape juice in one hand. I had Vermouth. She looked more relaxed than I did. “What sort of problem?”
“I…well…I think I might just have…well…feelings for someone.”
She looked at me. She didn’t get all excited, for which I was grateful. She carefully lowered her glass. “Really?” she said.
“Well, I…I don’t know,” I explained, feeling a little silly. I guess I should have known what it felt like to fall in love, shouldn’t I? I did and I didn’t. The way I felt for Tyler felt like nothing I’d ever felt before.
“I think you do know,” she smiled, knowingly. “Sometimes one wants to treat these things as less than they are.” Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Dunno why.”
“Well,” I frowned, my forehead as tense as the rest of me. “I suppose I am trying to downplay it. I feel dumb about it.” I shifted in my seat, uncomfortably.
Jess’s hazel eyes held mine—big and sparkly, the kindness in her gaze made me feel a little calmer. “Love is never silly,” she said. “It’s the only truth.”
I felt a bit broadsided by that. It was quite a big, profound statement. I thought about it. Sipped my drink. Remembered my dad. Remembered him saying to me, one night, after dinner when it was just the two of us there, saying: never forget I love you. Nothing else means as much to me as that does.
Suddenly, I was crying.
“Whew,” I said, sniffing. “Hell, Jess. You really got me there.”
She just nodded. “Well, I’m sorry for upsetting you,” she said gently. “I didn’t mean to.”
“You didn’t…upset me,” I sniffed. “I was just thinking about, well, about Dad. And how he said love was all that mattered. He was right. You are right.”
She just smiled. Let me sit there in the quiet, ginger-scented dining room and digest that truth.
“Okay,” I sniffed. “Should we have dessert now?”
She grinned. “Yay!” she said. She jumped up and went through to the kitchen and I followed her. As she put it out—she’d made some fancy Thai thing that seemed to involve ice cream and oranges—we talked.
“So?” she said. “This guy. I know him?”
I grinned. “I don’t think so,” I said.
“May I ask how you met?”
I just smiled.
“Well?” she said, brow raised. “How did you meet?”
“At a club,” I said. It was Jess. She might as well know if no one else did. I trusted her with my life.
“Sounds interesting,” she said, tapping a spoon on the side of the bowl to empty it.
I grinned. “He is interesting,” I admitted. “And, well…hot.”
“Ryanne!” she went pink and giggled. “I never knew you were so naughty!”
I laughed. “Am I?” I raised a brow, trying to look innocent. I gave up—it wasn’t possible.
“You are,” she said. “So? What’s he like?”
“Well, he’s…kind. And tender. And, like…like he cares about me. Hell, Jess. He’s totally different to any guy I ever met.”
“Wow,” she said. “That sounds good.”
“It is good,” I nodded. “You know, I always thought that guys were all like Levine—cruel, abusive. Ready to lose their tempers at the slightest thing. Ready to condemn everything I did. But they’re not!” I shook my head. It was like a revelation.
She giggled. We were back in the dining room now, and she set a bowl of ice cream down at my place. “Well, I’m so glad you found him!” she said.
I nodded. “I am too. Shall we sit?”
She nodded. “Yes! I want to try this. I made it myself before you got here and I…well, let’s just say I never made ice cream before. I want to see how this works!”
I laughed. She was as innovative in her cooking as she was in her design, which meant that I could expect the unexpected. Usually in a good way. I lifted my spoon and tried it.
“Wow,” I said. I stared at her. The ice cream was intensely flavored with mango and a little bit of vanilla. “This is incredible.”
“I decided not to go with oranges. I like mangoes. I added the vanilla to kind of lift it.”
“So, you designed this too?” I chuckled.
She grinned. “I guess.”
I could have eaten that all day. I wondered, abruptly, what Tyler would think of the dessert. The Thai-style soup had almost set him alight. It was weird that I wanted to share even something as simple and intimate as a dinner with my friend, with him. Hell! I really was in love.
“So,” I said as I ate. “If I were to tell you that this guy was, well, really out of my social sphere, what would you say?”
“I’d say great!” she grinned. She had a dab of ice cream on the end of her nose and I had to smile.
“Great?”
“Well, yeah!” she chuckled. “It can be a great thing. I mean, it can open up a whole new world! A different background means different values and a different worldview. It’s kinda like a different culture—like me going to Thailand. And you know how exciting that can be!”
I stared at her. “You know, I never thought about it that way.” I laughed. “So you really think it would be okay? I mean…what about the press?”
She put her head on one side. “I don’t know?” she said, making the statement a question. “I mean…does it matter?”
I sighed. “Yes,” I said.
That was the crux of my problem. The press did matter. If they started to trash me, consumer confidence would fall. And if that fell, share prices would follow. Well, it could affect them and I didn’t want to risk it. The company was my life and my dad’s legacy.
She shrugged. “Well, I don’t know. You could just keep it between the two of you? I mean, he can be a secret for a while?”
I sighed slowly. “Well, I guess,” I said. “But, well…it’s hard to keep that secret, you know.”
She nodded. “I did. I dated a professor of mine for a while.”
I stared at her. “What? No way!” I laughed. Jess had done that?
She shrugged. “Yeah. We loved each other.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Well, this and that. I guess the d
ifference in our ages, his worries about what people would think…it kind of made it impossible.”
“That’s said,” I said. Jess swallowed hard. She looked distressed and my heart hurt for her.
“Well,” she sighed. “These things happen. And I did find Duane—after a long while.”
“Thanks for telling me,” I said. It was strange hearing it from that side. Her relationship had been ruined by the fact that he cared about what other people thought. Was I doing the same thing to Tyler? Would it happen that, ten years after our relationship, he would say that I’d left him because I cared about what other people thought?
“Sure,” she said. “We’re friends, right? We can tell each other everything.”
I nodded. “Yes. Thanks for being such a good friend.”
Well, I hadn’t told her everything—not about Jake and Tyler and exactly how we had met—but I couldn’t really tell her something like that!
We talked for a while and finished the delicious ice cream, and then I looked at the clock.
“Hell! Is it eleven already? I should get back. I need to get up early tomorrow.”
She smiled. “Sure. It’s been so great seeing you.”
I thanked her for the dinner and hugged her. Said I’d be thinking a lot this evening.
“Do that,” she said levelly. “Goodnight.”
As I drove home I couldn’t help thinking about what she had said. I knew now that I really was in love with Tyler. And I also knew that the only thing stopping me from getting together with him was that I cared what people thought.
Maybe I should do what Jess had said. Maybe I could keep him a secret. Just for a while, anyway.
I was in bed, still worrying about it, when I decided just to send something to reply to his text. I did owe him that.
See you Friday. Dinner at my place? Let’s say seven.
I lay down, snuggling under silky soft covers. When I was half-asleep, a reply came through.
Great. Thank you.
I went to sleep with a smile on my face, a bittersweet ache in my heart. I was in love. I was risking my dad’s legacy to follow it. I just wasn’t sure whether that was a risk I was prepared to take.
CHAPTER 15: TYLER
I made sure I was home early on Friday. Most of the guys were—it was the day before the game, so we would all be trying to get as much sleep as possible, to wake refreshed and ready to play.
I stood in front of the mirror, sweating. I just couldn’t decide if I looked right or not. I wished I had a friend or a sister to ask if the look was the right balance between formal and casual, if jeans went with a casual brown blazer, and if the shirt was the right balance of semiformal for a dinner at someone’s home.
“How the heck am I supposed to know things like this?”
I sighed. Grinned at myself. I was a football player, not a fashion consultant. I wanted to impress Ryanne, though.
I combed my hair and put my head on one side, studying the effect of the whole look. I guess I looked okay. The jacket was a little tight for my shoulders—I could thank my trainer for that, making me work out my biceps so much—but otherwise I looked good.
“Let’s go.”
I checked my watch. Everyone I’d ever spoken to said that being on time was the best way to make a good impression. I got into my car—this was my one flamboyance, my BMW i8—and grinned as we shot off smoothly into the night.
I had gotten Ryanne’s address from Jake the night we talked about my relationship with her. As I drove through the darkened streets I found myself running through what he had said.
“Just be yourself,” he’d said. “She liked you. So why’d you change?”
I sighed. “I dunno, Jake. Why would she like me?” I’d questioned.
He just laughed. “Why wouldn’t she?”
I hadn’t had a real answer to that. I didn’t know. It was just that abiding conviction that we were so different. She might as well have been a green man from space, we came from such different walks of life.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Well? Not worth thinking about, then, is it?”
I had just sighed. “Have you ever been in love, Jake?” I asked.
He grinned. “Bet I have,” he said.
“Well?” I asked. “Didn’t you think you were, like, not good enough sometimes?”
He shrugged. “I guess. I never know if I’m doing the right thing.”
I nodded. “I suppose it’s mostly that.”
“Well, I can tell you that you’d feel that way whether you fell for a princess or a regular girl like you and me.”
“I guess.”
“I’m sure.”
We’d laughed at that and the conversation had turned to other things. I still wasn’t sure, though. Even just looking up at the classy, marble-fronted entrance to her apartment block scared me.
“Let’s go.”
I had parked my car in the parking garage around the corner, and now I headed slowly up the steps. Took a steadying breath and rang her bell.
“Hi?” her low, melodious voice replied.
“It’s me,” I said. “Tyler. Hi.”
Oh, for pity’s sake. You’re not fifteen.
I sighed. The gate unlocked with a click and I walked in. Went up the stairs to the third floor. Went to her door and rang the bell.
“Hi.”
I swallowed hard. She was there, standing on the threshold in sandals and a dress. She had her hair down.
The dress she wore was a light, simple one in a blue color so pale it could have been white. It was a finger’s width above her knee and I stared at her legs. Long and shapely, they were so hot. I couldn’t look away.
I gulped. “Hi,” I said.
She nodded. “Well? Come in.”
She stood back for me at the door and I walked in, feeling uncommonly nervous. I didn’t know why—it wasn’t like I’d never been here with her before, after all. I just felt shy all of a sudden.
“How was work?” I asked, following her into the kitchen.
“Oh, not so bad,” she said, shrugging those trim shoulders. She reached into the cupboard and I couldn’t look away from her waist, her butt, the inch of skirt rising an inch higher. I swallowed and tried to look away.
“It was really nice to decide to have dinner,” I said. “I mean, here, in your place.”
She smiled, raising a brow. “It’s more private.”
I felt blood rush to my groin. “I guess,” I nodded. I swallowed and she smiled.
“You want a beer or something?” she asked. “I cooked fish, so I guess we could have wine? Maybe Vermouth or something?”
I frowned. “I guess beer doesn’t go with fish, then?”
She laughed. “Not as far as I know, no,” she said. “I guess fish and chips, maybe.”
I nodded. “I’m learning.”
She smiled. “I’ll open the wine.”
“Thanks.”
She poured our drinks and I stood with my glass, feeling hesitant.
“So?” she raised a brow, seeming amused. “Should we go out? I mean, out of the kitchen? The fish is still doing.”
“Sure,” I said. I followed her into the sitting room. I sat down on the couch. She sat on the chair at an angle to me. Her feet had, I noticed, left the sandals and I looked at them intently. She had pretty feet—pale and well shaped.
She smiled. “I didn’t ask if you had a good day? You’re playing tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” I replied, nodding briefly. “I’m kinda nervous.”
“You get nervous?”
“Sure,” I said. “I always am nervous. I remember in college I used to throw up before big games. Every game, actually. Sorry,” I added, wondering if it was okay to say “throw up.”
To my surprise, she laughed. “I know how you feel,” she said. “If I could throw up before a board meeting, I swear I would.”
We both laughed. I imagined—or tried to imagine—what it would be like. I
imagined a room with a long fancy wooden table, some older guys in suits sitting around it, and Ryanne at the end. I wondered what it was really like.
“So?” I frowned. “What’s it like?”
“What’s it like?” she asked. I felt her foot move and I tensed as it rested on mine. I regretted the need for closed shoes and long trousers—I wished her foot was on my skin, or mine on hers. Her calves were so firm and shapely and I wished I was touching one.
“Well, a meeting?” I asked. “I mean, I can’t imagine what a business meeting is like.”
“Well, I can’t imagine what a football game is like, from the field,” she laughed.
I nodded. “Well, you run on, you feel superscared—thousands of people are there staring at you and you don’t know what to do. And you think you’re gonna do something dumb. But then the play starts and you know what to do and it all goes smoothly and when it ends you wish it hadn’t ended. But you feel pretty good.”
She grinned. “Well, sounds like a meeting.”
“Really?”
“Well, exactly. I always feel like I’ll do something stupid. And then it starts and I could be up there all day. I feel passionate, talking about my company. I guess they probably wish I’d shut up after half an hour.”
“No,” I said at once. “No one would want that.”
She blushed. “You’re just sweet.”
“No,” I said. “I’m truthful.”
I leaned forward and looked into her eyes. She leaned forward too. Our lips pressed against each other and my tongue slipped into her mouth and I felt my whole body ignite as we kissed hard.
I leaned back, gasping, my body on fire.
“Ryanne?” I whispered. “I want you so much.”
She smiled. “I need to check the fish,” she said.
“Come back soon,” I said.
She giggled. “I will.”
She was silent without her shoes. I didn’t know she’d come back in until I felt her hand on my shoulder, gently turning me toward her. She leaned in and kissed me. Her lips parted sweetly to mine and her tongue, strong and insistent, pushed into my mouth. I gasped. I had never been kissed like that before. My pleasure caught up soon after.
“We…I want you,” I whispered.
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