One Night with a Quarterback

by Jeanette Murray

  Easier to just have Cassie grab the tickets and scoot straight into the dark theater with her. A dark theater where he could touch and hold her all he wanted, in public, without people watching him or taking not-so-subtle pictures with their iPhones to send in to Bobcats blogs or for their own perverse amusement.

  Take a photo while he was on the field, sure. Ask for a photo and pose with him, yeah. Take one of him secretly while he was on a date and not watching? An invasion of his privacy he never expected when he stared in the league.

  He walked into the lobby to find Cassie standing off to the side with not only tickets, but a jumbo tub of popcorn and two drinks. She held one out for him. “I got you a regular soda.”

  He mentally winced at the amount of sugar, but whatever. A movie meant popcorn and soda. Candy too . . . more in the offseason than now. “Thanks, you didn’t have to.”

  “I know. But I want my own drink. I’m picky.” She grinned around the straw as she took a sip. “I’m also very overprotective of my drinks. Get within a few feet of my beer and I turn into a honey badger.”

  “You don’t give a shit?” he asked, making sure to not touch her while they walked to the right theater number. Anyone who recognized him wouldn’t get a photo of him kissing or hugging Cassie. Not yet. Once they were safely in the dark, he’d be good.

  She laughed at the reference and walked with him into the theater, previews already in full swing. They surveyed the crowd—which amounted to two college-age girls sitting in the front row—and she sighed. “Damn. Where are we gonna find seats?”

  He snorted and they picked seats in the dead center of the last row.

  Their fingers brushed periodically during trips inside the popcorn tub, but for the first half hour, that was their only connection. Cassie watched a movie with her whole being. It was almost more amazing to watch her experience the movie than watch himself. She winced along with the dialogue, chuckled at jokes, tightened her jaw during a tense encounter. She threw herself so completely into the movie she didn’t even seem to realize when he set the popcorn on the seat next to him and curled an arm over her shoulder. Didn’t notice when he pushed the armrest between them up and pulled her tightly against him.

  At least, he thought she hadn’t noticed, until she sighed and snuggled closer into him. He kissed the top of her head and rested his cheek there.

  He could get used to this. Or maybe he already had.

  * * *

  Cassie squinted at her watch as they walked outside after the movie. The bright afternoon light hurt after being in the dark theater for two hours.

  Two glorious hours of sweet romance and just a little action thrown in.

  The movie was pretty good, too.

  She bit back a smile at the reminder of their hot kisses in the dark. Trey’s hands had roamed over her shirt, cupping her breast gently, squeezing her nipple just a little. Enough to make her gasp into his mouth as he’d kissed her like a starving man. She had no doubt if they’d been actually alone in the theater, his hand would have slipped under her shirt for some more, er, intimate action.

  Trey opened her door and waited for her to climb in before leaning in to sneak a quick peck. Then he jogged around the side and climbed in. “Where to?”

  She frowned. “Back downtown so I can get my car. I have to head home. I’ve got a dinner date with my father and his wife and I think he might actually show up this time.”

  He laced his fingers with hers as he drove, quiet support in the gesture.

  Her head fell back against the headrest. “I swear, I see my stepmother more than I see him. I’m not entirely sure he doesn’t want me to just . . . go away.” She made a drifting motion with her hand. “It’d be easier for him.”

  Trey kissed her fingers and rested their joined hands on his right thigh. She felt it tighten and relax as he eased on the gas. “Easier, maybe. But he asked you to stick around, right? I can’t see a guy doing that if he didn’t want to know someone. Too much work to bring them here only to wish they were gone.”

  She shrugged. Trey had a point, but it didn’t alleviate the hurt her father caused when he avoided her.

  “Maybe after dinner, we could—”

  “Stop.” She squeezed his hand. “I already know I can’t. Once I’m in, I’m in for the night.” She gave him a self-deprecating smile. “Just think of me as seventeen again, curfew and all.”

  He gave a horrified glance at her as he stopped for the red light. “I’m gonna skip the fact that you just asked me to think of you as a minor.”

  “Oh. Whoops.” She laughed when he shook his head. “Scratch that. Just think of me as playing hard to get, then. I’d honestly like to meet up again, but—”

  “I got it.” He tugged enough to scoot her over to meet her in the middle for a kiss. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re just going to have to get used to it.”

  Neither of them mentioned the fact that she didn’t actually live in Santa Fe. Or New Mexico. Or a surrounding state . . .

  He dropped her off near the parking garage, where he’d met her. She just wasn’t quite ready yet to tell anyone the full extent of her predicament with her father. Because once she stepped out in her full “I’m the love child you never expected, America” role, there was no closing that box.

  Yes, the attention would dim. Some player would cheat on his taxes, or be involved in a drug bust, or be caught with a dozen hookers on his yacht. But until then, she had to be prepared for a lot of attention and speculation.

  Hardly food for a budding relationship.

  Cassie halted halfway across the parking garage floor. Relationship? Was she somehow in a relationship? She jogged to her car, started it, and waited for the Bluetooth to connect. “Call Anya.”

  The moment her friend answered, Cassie felt five pounds of tension leave her body. “Hey. I need you.”

  “First flight out,” Anya promised.

  “I love you for that. But it’s more of a phone consult.”

  “Damn,” her friend muttered, and Cassie laughed. “Okay, what’s the deal?”

  “Do you have time?”

  “Just left work, heading to do some recon on a wardrobe for a budding debutant. Chic enough to run with the matrons of Atlanta, but still young and fresh enough to not look dour in photos. Sexy, but simple. Sinful, but not salacious.”

  “I just threw up in my mouth a little. How the hell can you think like this all day?”

  “How can you think in code all day?” Anya asked back.

  “Touché. Am I in a relationship?”

  There was a bit of silence on the other end. “I need more information.”

  “There’s not much more to it. Am I in a relationship?” Cassie pulled out of the parking garage and turned for her father’s house. The tension of heading back that direction—tension that had been nonexistent with Trey—made her shoulders ache.

  “Let’s do a quick checklist. Damn it, get out of my way!”

  Cassie smiled. Anya was a horrible driver. Normally conservative and a little quiet, her evil twin came out when she drove around Atlanta traffic. It was as if she morphed into Bitch Mode Anya the moment anyone looked like they wanted to merge. “I’m on speaker phone, right? You aren’t breaking laws and driving with no hands?”

  “Bluetooth. Does he make you smile?”

  “Often.”

  “Do you want to be with him even when you’re not?”

  “Yup.”

  “I already know the sex is good.”

  “Anya . . .”

  “Sunday driver!” Anya mumbled something else, then asked, “What? You said as much the first night you met. Plus, a girl’s best friend is privilege to this information. And I’m not there to see if you’re doing that dopy grin thing where you squint one eye and look like you might have gas.”

  “I do not . . .” She did a quick rear-view mirror check. Damn it. “Is this what gas looks like?”

  “So you are making the face. That’s another che
ck. Do you have the urge to drop him in the friend zone?”

  “Hell no.”

  The line was quiet a moment. “Sounds like a relationship,” Anya surmised.

  Oh. Huh. She bit her lip a little, then turned into the gated community and entered her code for the entrance. “So . . . that’s awkward.”

  “Because of the whole distance thing? Him in Santa Fe, you in Atlanta?”

  “Because I promised Ken I wouldn’t deal with boys right now.”

  “Number one, I think that was rude and presumptuous of him to even make that rule. You’re twenty-eight, not twelve.”

  Agreed. But still . . .

  “And number two, it sounds like this guy has his stuff together. This isn’t some revolving door of beefcake. Your bedroom isn’t flashing a “vacancy” sign. Give yourself a little credit. A meaningful relationship with a put-together man is not the end of the world. And if it is, then your father’s world is very, very small.”

  “Honestly, I think it is.” Or, at least the world Tabitha created for their little nuclear family. She wasn’t quite sure yet if she’d been invited.

  “That’s gotta stop. Okay, pulling in to my private consult. Wish me luck. It’s going to be hell dragging this chick away from the gold, shiny leggings. I could just kill whoever decided leggings were a good thing again.” With that, Anya was gone.

  So. She was in a relationship. Cassie pulled up to the pool house and parked. There were worse things, right? And it wasn’t like Trey was one of those weirdos who would start going to the press the minute he heard who she was. He seemed too relaxed for that. Too together to care what the media said.

  She’d play it by ear.

  Cassie reached for the doorknob of the pool house, then froze when she heard music. Sisters. She tried the door—unlocked—and walked in. “Hey, girls.”

  “Hey!” Mellie’s voice rang out from the bedroom. “You’re back. We expected you awhile ago.”

  “Playing tourist,” she said easily, dumping her purse on the couch next to someone’s plain white sneakers. “Want a drink?”

  “Coke!”

  “Water, for both of us.” Irene walked out, still in what Cassie privately deemed their perma-uniform of pleated skirt and collared shirt. Her hair was pulled back so tight it made Cassie’s scalp ache in sympathy. “Mom will shit a brick if we have carbonation this late in the day.”

  Cassie looked at the clock. “It’s barely four.”

  “Exactly. Plus, all that stuff makes you bloat.” Taking a seat in the kitchen, she gestured with a queenly wave of the hand to the fridge. “There should be bottles of water. I suggest grabbing one yourself.”

  She cut back the urge to ask if she was looking a little bloated. Tossing Irene one, she laughed when the girl fumbled and dropped the plastic bottle to the floor. “Guess the whole athletic gene didn’t hit you, huh?”

  “I’m more of an intellectual.” She rolled her eyes. “Tennis and swimming are about as physical as mom would let us get, in any case. Mellie would have played softball, I think . . .” Irene drifted off, as if realizing she’d slipped a bit from her icy front. “Besides, you don’t strike me as the sporty type, either.”

  “I’m not. Sports and I don’t really get along. I don’t understand them, on the whole.” She shrugged and took a sip of water. “Whenever a guy I dated was a sports nut, I struggled to keep up. I found myself nodding and smiling a lot, but never getting it. I lost entire weekends—weekends I can never get back—pretending to watch back-to-back games or matches or whatever the sport required. When in reality, I usually was on my laptop doing work, or surfing the net and just cheering whenever the boyfriend would cheer.”

  Irene lifted a brow. “Ironic, I guess, given Dad’s profession. Good thing you won’t be around long then, to have to put up with a long football season.” Irene didn’t look up from her bottle of water as she changed the subject. “What’s that like?”

  “What’s what like?”

  She dragged the plastic edge through the condensation beading on the wooden tabletop. “Having a boyfriend. And, you know, doing stuff with him. Stuff you don’t know about, or like.”

  Ah. Cassie, unsure how to proceed, took a shaky step into the open field. “Sometimes it’s fun. If he’s into something I am interested in, I can learn a lot about a new subject. Like a guy I dated for awhile who was into graphic design. I’m not great on the art front of web stuff, but he was a genius with it. So I learned something new while we spent time together.” She smiled a little at the memory. He’d been a sweet guy, though no real spark. “Other times, it’s soul-sucking, especially if I have no desire to know of, or ever hear of, the subject again.”

  “Like what?”

  “Monster trucks,” she said immediately. Oh, Mark . . . “This guy . . .” She shuddered a little, and Irene’s lips quirked up in a ghost of a smile. “He was into monster truck rallies. And not just into them in the ‘Oh, I like watching that if nothing else is on’ sort of way. But like the ‘I’ll drive nineteen hours in the dead of winter to attend a rally weekend’ kind of thing.” She hopped up onto the countertop, ignoring Irene’s slight frown of disapproval. “That one killed it.”

  “So . . . you only want to date guys you have a lot in common with.”

  “No, not always. Sometimes the whole ‘opposites attract’ thing has merit. The difference comes to play when the opposites don’t push you apart, but pull you together. And that has as much to do with the chemistry and personality of the guy himself as it does with the subject he’s into.”

  “Sounds complicated,” Irene scoffed. “Who has time for that?”

  When her half sister didn’t look up from the table, Cassie tried another step out. “Do you have a guy you’re interested in?”

  And Irene shut the field down. “No. I should get back home to change before dinner.”

  “Why? You look fine.”

  Irene’s disbelieving look reminded her how differently they were raised. “I’m not dressed for dinner.”

  In Cassie’s world, if you were wearing pants and a shirt, you were dressed for dinner at home. But, alas . . . the Tabitha factor. “What’s your sister up to?”

  “I don’t know. Just send her over as soon as you can.” Irene set the bottle down and walked to the front door. “She was in your makeup last I saw.”

  Sweet Jesus. Cassie hustled to the bedroom to find Mellie sitting cross-legged on the floor, the entire contents of Cassie’s makeup tote spread out in front of her. She glanced up and grinned from a face painted like a two-dollar hooker.

  “How’d you get this much stuff?”

  “Bought it. Or Anya gave it to me. She gets perks from the store she works at.” Sitting down gingerly next to her youngest sister, she debated how to put it gently. “I don’t usually put it all on at once, though . . .”

  Mellie’s grin faded a little. “It looks bad, I know. I’m just not sure what I’m doing. Mom said I can’t wear makeup until I’m eighteen.”

  Cassie reminded herself she hadn’t known anything about makeup going in either. But she’d had a mother who was willing to show her a few simple tricks, at age-appropriate intervals. “Here.” She dug out a few makeup remover wipes. “Let’s start fresh. I can show you a few things.” She debated, then grabbed a few more wipes for good measure. “For your age, your skin is pretty good, so you don’t need to worry about a lot. Lucky you.”

  “Irene told me I looked like a clown.” Mellie started to wipe off the layers.

  Irene wasn’t entirely wrong . . . but also tactless. “You just need practice. The first few times I tried to use mascara myself, I had spider-leg eyes.”

  Mellie laughed, then shocked Cassie by launching herself at Cassie for a hug. “I needed you.”

  After a moment of frozen surprise, Cassie wrapped her arms around her sister. This, here, was what she’d hoped for. The ultimate goal of this entire embarrassing, demeaning experiment. Finding family. Her throat clogged with tea
rs she had to cough to clear. “I needed you, too. It’s why I came out here.” She patted her sister’s back, then eased away. “Now. Let’s make sure you look presentable for dinner. Otherwise, your mother will probably come in here and murder me in my sleep.”

  “No, she wouldn’t.” Mellie laughed. “She’d hire someone to do that for her.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Trey and Josiah waited for Stephen to finish ordering his meal. He concluded his order with a wink and a grin that had the waitress laughing and winking back.

  “Glad we got the extra seat so you could put down your ego,” Josiah said easily.

  “Chicks love it. What do you want me to do?”

  “Not be an idiot,” was Trey’s helpful response. “Moving on, first order of business.”

  “Jesus, what is this, quilting club?” Stephen mumbled, and took a sip of his water with nineteen freaking lemons. He grimaced, but kept his mouth shut about wanting a beer instead. For which Trey was profoundly grateful.

  “What the hell is going on down at HQ?” Josiah asked.

  Trey nodded and sipped his own water. “Exactly. Something’s up. I ducked in there for a quick drop off of papers, and I saw several cameras hauled in. Something’s going down at the front offices and we’re being left in the dark.”

  “What’d Kristen say?” Stephen asked, smiling again when the waitress dropped off their appetizer.

  Trey eyed the wings, then reminded himself of the soda and massive tub of popcorn he’d shared with Cassie a few days ago and grabbed a celery stick instead. It tasted nothing like a hot wing. Damn it. This was not improving his mood. “What kind of an idiot do you take me for? Of course I asked Kristen. She was either oblivious—which I don’t buy, because she knows everything that goes on in there—or she was playing dumb.”