The second that I’m out of sight, he’ll move in on her. And the moment that she starts to get lonely and miss me, will give him the perfect opportunity to be by her side, to comfort her. I’m no dummy- I know how this shit works.
It’s going to end with me getting so caught up in what’s going on in New York, that I’ll lose sight of football.
Fuck.
I toss my phone onto my bed and glance around my room. Sheets cover my windows. There’s dark mold growing in the corners of the room, the filthy carpet under my feet and the stench of cigarettes filling the air.
Going to Florida is my way out of this life. It’s always been the goal. The way that I make it to the NFL and get both myself and Willow out of this shitbox of a life. Guys like me have no other chances. Nada.
For me it’s football or factory work. It isn’t even a fair choice.
Realization dawns, even though it causes my chest to fucking ache.
If I let this thing with Gia take control over my life, I’m going to find it impossible to concentrate on football when she’s miles away getting swooned by the prince himself. I shake my head a few times, trying to figure out what the solution to my problem is. The only one that comes to mine makes my stomach twist so badly that I feel like I could puke.
There’s got to be a better option.
But fuck, it’s hard to see it.
“So?” Gia rushes me the second that I walk into first hour. “How was it? Was the campus amazing? Enormous? Everything that you thought it would be?”
“Yeah.” My one-word answer isn’t the response that she wanted. Her face is telling of that.
“Well, did you accept?” I stare up at her, momentarily getting lost in her deep, blue eyes. Goddamn the way my heart swells at the sight of her should be a crime. She always triggers such a wave of emotions inside of me.
“Not yet. I’ve got shit to think about.”
“Wyatt,” she forces me to look at her, even as I try to turn away. “What is there to think about? Florida is everything that you’ve been talking about all year. It’s exactly what wanted!”
You see, here’s the thing about getting exactly what you want. Sometimes you find out that in fact, it isn’t. Never in a million years did I expect myself to feel this way about anyone. And I sure as hell never thought that I would let feelings for a girl get in the way of my dream. Yet here we are, and here it is. Me debating on how in the fuck this life of mine is going to play out.
“Can we talk about this later? I’m tired, Gia. My plane landed at eleven last night, and I hardly got any sleep.”
“Yeah, sure.” She leans over and presses her lips to my cheek. “And I have a surprise for you tonight, hot shot. A little celebratory date planned for us.”
“Where are we?” I glance around, feeling totally out of my element. We’re in the middle of the woods, that much is obvious. But I lost my direction about a mile back.
“This is called a forest.” She rolls her eyes, smiling up at me. “It’s a far cry from the football field.” She leads me a few steps deeper into the woods, and then takes my hands in hers, pulling me down onto a flannel blanket.
My heart thunders in my chest at the effort she’s put into our date. There’s a large blanket spread over the ground, another tucked off to the side, and candles lit all around us. It’s a fucking sweet gesture, and she obviously went out of her way to make this night special. It tugs at my heart that she did all of this just to celebrate my news.
“I got all of your favorites.” She opens a picnic basket and produces two large containers of Burger King chicken nuggets and fries. “It killed me to get BK but it’s your day to celebrate, so…”
Despite all of the shit going on in my head, I can’t stop myself from grabbing her face and kissing her senseless. She falls right into me, her hands wrapping around my head and digging into my hair. She slides on top of me, her legs straddling mine, returning my kiss with fierce intensity. The taste of her invades all of my senses, causing my heart to swell to a size almost too large for my chest. The sweetness of this girl never ceases to amaze me. The way that she goes out of her way to do special things for me is one of the things that I love the most about her.
Love. Hell yeah. I fucking love her.
But in this case, love just isn’t going to be enough. I’m going to Florida in the fall. I may not have accepted yet, but deep down, I know that I’m going to go. It’s what I have to do for my future. A future that if I’m being brutally honest, doesn’t involve Gia.
I’ve thought long and hard about this. In fact, I had the plane ride there and the plane ride home with nothing else to think about except this girl.
She may not be Cole’s Princess right now, but the odds are huge that she will be again. I thought about every encounter that I’ve had with Cole. How adamant he’s been that she’ll always be his. That in the end, they’ll end up together. And if I don’t play my cards exactly right, these feelings bubbling up inside of me for her are going to boil over and cost me everything.
It’s just something that I can’t have.
“Wyatt.” I feel her hands trail down my body, tugging at my clothing and pulling hard at the button on my pants. My teeth clamp together, gritting tightly over her plea.
“I’m ready.”
What? Wait, no…
“It’s right.” When she tugs her shirt over her head, I nearly lose all of my resolve. Good fucking God, why does this temptation to claim her have to be so strong? Her body is so fucking beautiful without clothes on. Sculpted to complete and utter perfection, and mine for the taking. For fuck’s sake, she’s offering herself to me, begging me to take the one thing that she’s held onto for so many years.
I almost cave. Goddam, I want to cave. I want to pull her panties off, touch her until she’s soaked and ready for me, and then drive inside of her, watching the way that her eyes look as she’s claimed for the very first time.
I can be the one to take it. The first one to show her just how good I can make her feel.
But I can’t fucking do it.
“Gia, no.” I grab ahold of her wrists and push her back. “This isn’t right.”
“Isn’t right?” She pulls back from me, her eyes filled with shock. “How isn’t it right? I mean it feels right, Wyatt. I love you and…”
“Don’t say that.” My teeth are clenched and I’m hanging on by a thread of control. “Don’t tell me that you love me. You shouldn’t love me. I’m not a good guy, Gia.”
How I manage to utter the next words, I’ll never know. But with each and every blow thrown her way from my mouth, her face cracks a little bit more until the tears are falling down her cheeks uncontrollably.
I tell her that I don’t have feelings for her. Fuck, I even tell her that Cole was right, and I was only trying to make him pay. I say the words until her face is completely crushed and her heart exposed on her chest.
And then I walk away, with zero intentions of ever letting myself feel this way again.
9
Wyatt
Present
“Good morning, Wyatt.”
“Morning, Shannon. How’d our guy do this week?’
Shannon, Damien’s mom, sets a coffee mug in front of me and fills it with coffee.
“Alright, I suppose. He failed his math exam, but he passed his spelling test. I managed to get him to do all of his reading this week, but I had to threaten him with tomorrow’s game in order to get him to do it. He didn’t talk to me for two full days, but he got his work done. I’m slowly becoming his least favorite person on earth.” Her words leave her mouth in a sigh, finished off with a shrug.
I add some sugar and creamer to my coffee, taking a sip slowly, testing the temperature, before gulping some down.
“You’re a good mom. He’ll realize that someday, and he’ll thank you for it.”
She dusts her hands off on her apron, and then leans forward, squeezing my hand.
“Thank you. I really ho
pe that’s the case.”
“It will be,” I assure her. “You just keep at him. He’ll come around.”
Benji stopped moping the diner floor and glanced up at me.
“Hey, asshat. Think next time, you could stomp some of the snow off of your shoes before strutting in here like you own the place?”
Behind the counter, Shannon rolls her eyes, the corners of her lips turning up in a smile.
“Just because you’re some underwear model now don’t mean shit, you know. You’re still part of the human race. The bottom feeding, scum sucking part, but even still…”
“You’re just jealous, old man.” I glance down at my shoes, that I did stomp the snow off of, by the way, and then, to the floor. “Plus, you can’t mop for shit. You missed half the floor. Sit down before you break a hip.” I hop to my feet and snatch it out of his hands. “I’ll do it myself.”
“Bout time you did something around here,” Benji muttered, taking my spot at the bar. Shannon moves off to wait on the other customers in the diner, while Benji and I exchange insults for a few more minutes.
“They give you another contract yet? Or did the Saints finally wise up and cut the dead weight from the team? I heard that Colton Andrews was going to be a Saint next season. That boy can run.”
“Colton Andrews doesn’t have shit on me, and maybe Shannon needs to bring you to the doctor, old geezer. Your dementia is getting worse. I signed a three year, forty-million-dollar contract last year.” When I wink at him, he rolls his eyes. “Plus, those pictures of me in my undies earned me a pretty penny. Enough money, that maybe Marlene will finally take me up on my proposal.”
At the sound of her name, the white-haired vixen peaked her head out of the office.
“Is that you, hot stuff?”
“In the flesh.”
“I saw you in your undies.” She raises a brow and then winks at me. “Next time, you should go without them.”
“Oh, dear God,” Shannon muttered, making a sign of the cross on her chest as she moved past us, two hot plates of food in hand. “You all need Jesus.”
“Nah,” Marlene calls out. “I just need a night with stud muffin. I bet he’d make my toes curl so much I’d transport back in time. I used to be a real looker, you know. Big ole titties and everything. You would have wanted to bone me back then.” She winked at me. “I was a real fox in the sheets.”
I chuckle to myself and place the mop in the back room. By the time that I set myself back up at the bar, my coffee’s cold, but I take a drink anyways. I choke down a swallow, and then spin in my seat to glare at Benji.
“Salt in my coffee.” The old man beams.
“That was a good one.”
“You were laying it on too sweet with my honey.” He tried to look angry but failed miserably. “Next time, it’ll be poison. Watch yourself, son.”
Shannon got me a new mug and fresh coffee, and for the next thirty minutes, I shot the shit with Benji. We talked about my upcoming spring training, we talked about Damien’s soccer game the next day, and lowered our voices, as we talked about Marlene.
“Doctor said that it’s advanced.” His eyes stay locked on the office door where Marlene was sitting, and he shook his head. “Today has been a good day so far, but yesterday was rough. I caught her standing outside in the rain at one o’clock in the morning, in nothing more than her nightgown. She could have frozen to death if I wouldn’t have woken up. By the grace of God, I did.”
My stomach sunk. In just the short time that I’ve known Marlene and Benji, I’ve watched her memory leave her. I’ve also witnessed just how smart the woman is. She’s very good at trying to cover her tracks, spinning stories around her forgetfulness. After reminding her of my name day in and day out, she just started calling me other names. Hot stuff, sexy pants, whatever comes to her mind. The fact that she remembered seeing the billboard of me in just my underpants but can’t remember my name is just one of the examples.
But the idea of her standing outside, in the middle of an unexpected early spring snowstorm is scary. The thought of Benji not finding her in time is even worse.
Benji eventually leaves my side, joining his wife in the office. With him out of earshot, I look at Shannon.
“So, what do we do?”
“We don’t do anything.” She squeezes my hand again. “They’re my grandparents. I’ll figure it out. You’ve already done enough for us, Wyatt.”
I open my mouth to argue. I don’t have much family besides Willow, and over the last few years, Shannon, Damien, Benji, and Marlene have become mine. Helping them just feels natural and has turned into something that I enjoy. But before I can say exactly that, Shannon holds up her hand and looks me dead in the eye. “If I get over my head and need more help, I promise that I’ll let you rush in to save the day. Sound good?”
That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. I high five her and then say my goodbyes. Marlene and Shannon give me hugs. Benji gives me the middle finger and tells me to take my lazy ass to the gym today because I’m starting to look soft.
It’s all about balance with these people.
By the time I leave the diner, I’m already running late. The snow continued to fall from the sky the entire morning, blanketing the just thawed grass with another coating of beautiful flakes. While everyone around me grumbles over the snow, personally, I loved it. Ask any other football player what their favorite season was, and you could bet that the majority would tell you fall without hesitating. The rest would say football season is the best one, hands down. I love fall, don’t get me wrong, but it will always ride shotgun next to winter. Snow falling from the sky just sits right with my soul.
The drive downtown would normally take fifteen minutes, but today, it takes thirty. The roads are slick, icy patches starting to form on the pavement. Even with the weather being what it is, Willow still cuts her eyes at me, when I finally arrive at the Hamlin Hotel.
“You look beautiful today, sis.” I lean down, smacking a kiss on her cheek.
“You’re still late.”
“Sorry sis. I was at the diner.”
Willow’s never been one to hide her emotions, which is a blessing. I can always tell when she’s sad, angry, or worried. Her irritation with my tardiness immediately switches to concern
“Is Marlene ok?”
“For now,” I assure her, and then I glance around, whistling to myself. I’ve lived in Minnesota now for over four years, yet I’d never set foot inside of this building. Everything inside is marble and gold. Intricate paintings cover the ceiling, the crystal chandeliers hanging down catch glints of sunlight, making everything in the room sparkle. Everywhere that I turn, I’m blown away with how beautiful this place is.
“Damn. This place is insane. I didn’t even know it was here.”
“It’s been under renovation for three and a half years.” Once my eyes notice her walking into the room, the beauty of the building leaves my mind completely. I thought that the sight of her in her scarlet red dress would go down in my memory banks as the most gorgeous vision of Gia possible.
As it turns out, in a fitted slim white shirt, basic black pencil skirt, high heels and a low bun, the sexy librarian version of this woman gives the elegant one a run for her money. I don’t even have it in me to turn my eyes away.
Willow immediately notices and smacks me on the arm.
“Quit gawking at my wedding planner, Wyatt. She’s not here for your viewing pleasure.” My sister is one hundred percent wrong. Gia is absolutely here for my pleasure.
And I’ve never been more excited to help plan a wedding.
“This is where the ceremony would be held.” Gia’s heels click along the marble floor. Willow ooh’s and ahh’s, but I’m hardly paying attention to anything besides Gia’s ass. Her legs are already long, but with heels on her feet, they seem endless. Her slim skirt molds to her curves, cupping her lush ass like a glove. It’s no wonder some wannabe groom ditched his supposed to be bride for a night
with Gia. Shit, I almost gave up my entire football career over the girl. I completely fucking get it.
We tour the building for the next hour. It’s like being inside of an old castle, which Gia informs us, is actually not the case. It started out as a home to the Hamlin family, one of the founding families of the entire state of Minnesota. It’s since been converted into a hotel, and the ballroom, which is where the reception would be held, was added on in the late nineteen hundreds. What used to be the barn has been turned into the chapel, a lush green lawn overlooking a private lake separates the two. All in all, the place is amazing.
“So, what do you think?” By the time that we return to the foyer, over an hour has passed.
“It’s beautiful.” Willow glances up at me nervously. “But it’s too much. Renting out an entire hotel…all of the buildings…this place must cost a fortune.”
I hold up a finger to Gia and pull Willow over to the corner where we can talk privately. As soon as BJ put a ring on my sister’s finger, I demanded to pay for her wedding. It’s the right thing to do, and the responsibility falls on me anyways. Willow’s my baby sister, after all.
Although she argued it with me at first, eventually, I wore her down. But I have a feeling that this is how the planning is going to go.
“I told you, money was no object, sis.”
“And I told you, that I don’t need a big fancy wedding, Wyatt. I don’t want you to spend…”
Before she can finish, her pager begins to beep. Glancing down at it, she sighs. “I have to go. The hospital is really busy today. A lot of car accidents due to the weather.”
I smack a kiss on her cheek and tell her not to worry. I can definitely handle this on my own. As soon as my sister rushes off, I turn back to Gia.
“We’re still not convinced that this is the place. Can we walk through one more time?”
Hard Pass (Saints of Love Book 3) Page 5