Troubled Nate Thomas: Hot Steamy Sport Romance (T.N.T. Series Book 1)
Page 7
Amanda stared at him for a long moment. Then she slapped him again.
Only this time she couldn’t hold the stare and fell against him, her fists curling up in the team jacket he habitually wore.
“NO! Please, no. I can’t, not now, not with him, especially not with him.” Whimpers turned to sobs. The nasty messy kind that left her moaning, with great torrents of tears and snot.
She wasn’t a pretty sight when she cried. Never had been. And for once she didn’t care.
Coach Johnson held her awkwardly, then after a moment patted her back like her father would have. A new father maybe. One who didn’t interact with the kids much.
“I can’t fall for Nate… I can’t!”
“Too late,” Coach said with a sigh that she couldn’t help but feel. “Now you have to figure out what you’re going to do about it.”
“I need to ask you something,” Amanda pulled away and looked up into the older man’s eyes. They were kindly at the center, but she knew that he could be as immovable as iron.
“Alright.” His tone was cautious.
“Do you have a first name?”
He smiled. “Coach,” he said and kissed her forehead. He fumbled in his pocket and came up with a somewhat rumpled handkerchief. “It’s clean, don’t worry.” He chucked her under the chin. “Just, work it out before we get back to Denver. I assume Nate’s in his room?”
Amanda paused in the act of blowing her nose. “Most… likely…”
There was a long silence while Coach’s face went through several shades of red, ending finally in purple. “You lost him? In L.A.? Do you know what kind of damage he can do here?”
She edged backward, her eye on the discarded blanket, thinking it was time to hide again. “He won’t.”
“Why? Because he slept with you? Because he’s quitting anyway? Because he’s been benched? Which of these reasons are you expecting to make him completely change his personality?”
Ouch. Point taken. “I…” Amanda dropped her head into her palm. “It was… and he was all…”
With great effort, Coach dropped his voice down to more manageable tones. It was a wonder that hotel security hadn’t shown up yet. “Do you remember where you left him at least?”
Amanda nodded.
“I think you’ve been nearly naked long enough; why don’t you put something on and we’ll go looking for him?”
“Right!” Amanda said, abandoning the blanket idea. “Good idea… yeah. Only…” She kind of gestured at the door. Her room was small; she could hardly get dressed in front of him.
Not that he hadn’t already seen most of it…
She hitched up her robe as Coach turned red for different reasons and walked out of the door with an ominous warning that she had better not waste any time.
She barely took time to breathe. Amanda threw together a sensible outfit, one of the billowing shirts that kept her figure a mystery and a fresh pair of jeans. It was nice to wear something that didn’t leave a trail of sand in her wake.
She burst from the room fully dressed, and literally ran into Coach Johnson standing right outside her door. He hadn’t been kidding around. She grabbed his arm to keep from falling.
“We got lucky,” Coach said, pocketing his cell phone. “I mean besides you getting lucky, we dodged a bullet. Nate’s back, he was just downstairs returning the rental car and he’s in his room now, showering for the trip home.”
Coach turned to head back toward the elevators and said over his shoulder, “We are leaving here in two hours. I assume that the outfit you wore on the way here is properly disposed of?”
“Yes…” Amanda said quietly, not even wanting to revisit that particular memory. The entire plane ride to L.A. was something she hoped to never hear about again.
“Maybe you can find something between librarian and hooker in two hours?” The elevator opened and Coach stepped through, leaving Amanda standing in the hallway with the absolute certainty that she had left her room key on the other side of her door. “And your cousin’s been calling. He wants his car back.”
“So not fair…” She turned and tried her door. Definitely locked. Sighing, she made her way to the reception desk.
Chapter 11
The flight back didn’t look like it was going to be any easier than the trip out. She kept her head down as she boarded, and glanced around for a seat. They hadn’t been assigned so it left her trying to choose who to sit with. Thankfully, she wasn’t the only woman on board. Some of the other players had wives, girlfriends, and significant others on board. Except the women were already sitting together, whispering, laughing quietly at some inside joke only they knew. Even when they weren’t together, they were still together.
Amanda edged past the single guys who hooted or whistled, and reminded her at the top of their lungs about her last trip, or more specifically that they were speculating about her undergarments on this trip. There was no place for her with the happy couples, and Coach Johnson certainly wasn’t her first choice for seat partner. It was embarrassing. She’d been an idiot to think dressing like Nate’s choice of woman on the flight here was a smart idea.
Exhausted physically and mentally, she finally elected to sit in a row by herself, where she could lick her wounds in peace and wonder whether she was going to ever live down the infamous fall getting on the plane.
The whole thing was… horribly awkward.
She watched Nate come on board, holding her breath as he walked past, barely sparing her a glance. The fact that she’d dropped her tote bag on the empty seat next to her might have had something to do with it, but truth be told she was a coward and it was the easy way out, right?
She followed his progress with a casual turn of the head, waiting to see what happened as he passed Coach a couple rows back. She half expected him to throw his resignation down on Coach’s tray table like from some old movie, but he didn’t say a word. Hopefully he was still contemplating it?
Amanda twisted back around until she was facing forward. Yeah, like you really care. Let’s face it, you’re upset because you don’t have the guts to talk him.
Well, that at least was a normal response, right? Other people got cold feet. Asked for space. Probably half those couples up front had gone through exactly the same thing.
As if. Couples take breaks for what…a few hours? A day or two tops. What sounds better to you? One year? Two? That sounded about right. You’re not even a bloody couple! You slept with the guy, and he probably doesn’t even remember it. She sighed and dug around in her bag for the book she’d thrown in at the last minute but she didn’t even open it, rather held it on her lap, fingers trapped between the pages where she’d left her bookmark.
Yeah, you’re an idiot. You slept with the client. What a lovely way to earn your keep. She glanced out of the corner of her eye and looked at Coach. She’d taken the time before departure to buy some decent clothing. She’d headed to a local shop and picked a dress she thought one of the player’s wives was wearing. And then decided against it because it cost more than two semesters of classes.
She made do with a lower end shop, and although what she was wearing looked ok, it wouldn’t survive a cleaning. Or a second wear by her. It itched and chafed. It felt like sandpaper. But Coach had given her a nod, so she guessed she passed muster even if the thing was giving her a rash.
She groaned for the millionth time in the past few hours. She’d slept with the one and only Nate Thomas. Mr. T.N.T. The man she was supposed to keep in line—not contribute to his delinquency. She deserved to wear sandpaper. It was just punishment for her overactive libido. She had woken under his hand, that broad, strong, capable hand. His entire body was lean and hard and… Talking about hard…
She took that thought and set it under her heel and stomped on it. Repeatedly. Something that her grandmother once said to her about being unforgiven for sins we don’t feel guilty about ran through her mind. Yes, that was good! Grandma. Hold on to that image. Nothing
squelches sexual arousal like the image of one’s grandmother. What was that old joke about men trying to control their erections? Cold showers and… football. Damn.
Amanda let her head fall back against the seat. She stared up at the ceiling, or more accurately at the baggage compartment overhead. She was being ridiculous; she knew it, Nate probably knew it, Coach assuredly knew it, damn his unassailable logic. Did he really need to point out to her that she was falling Nate? Which wasn’t true. Not. At. All.
Damn it! This was getting her nowhere. Besides, Coach was giving her funny looks. Kind of pointed funny looks, the way he kept clearing his throat to get her attention and twitching his head in Nate’s direction.
Right. She needed to get up and walk back to the empty seat beside Nate and sit down. Get back to work.
She would do just that. She was a professional, after all. She …
The plane jumped and fell and lurched again. Turbulence. The FASTEN SEATBELTS light blinked on. Too late now. It was a shame, really, but in turbulence there was a safety issue and the light was on, the plane was jumping, and she was a coward.
Having come to that conclusion, Amanda sighed and settled back in her chair and sipped a bottle of water the attendants had brought out along with a big platter of sandwiches. Apparently, football players needed to eat constantly. The trip up had been one long smorgasbord. Between turbulence both inside and outside, eating was the last thing on her agenda.
So she slunk in her seat again, pretending to be interested in a book she was reading upside down. Eventually Coach gave up clearing his throat and nodding. There was a certain power to being a coward. No one expected too much from you.
She turned around to look at the row where Nate was sitting. No one expected too much from a clown either, did they?
A thought hit her suddenly. Nate played the fool because it was easier and guaranteed his success. No one expected him to excel, did they? Amanda chided herself. As ‘professional’ as she claimed to be, she hadn’t been using her training with Nate, just taking him as a fool like everyone else did. Judging him based on what others said.
She ran through last night with clinical detachment. He’d been more himself then, less the clown. He’d been tender and thoughtful and all that while drunk. Was it all an act with him? An act to get out of…what? Hard work? That didn’t fit the mold. From what she could see, he was as dedicated to the team as any. He’d been smashed and tackled and had a dozen 300-lb. men slam him to the ground, and still he smiled and played the fool.
What was it he said? “If I don’t play, they’re going to forget about me!” Vanity? Somehow it didn’t gel; there was something she was missing and she wasn’t sure what it was. The one thing she did know was that she wasn’t going to figure it out separated from him by several rows.
Amanda took a deep breath and stood, walking past Coach who gave her a not-subtle-in-the-least thumbs up, heading straight back to the empty row where Nate sat listening to his ear buds. She sat next to him, but he had his eyes closed. She looked closer. Asleep? He’d fallen asleep with his chin on his chest and one earbud dangling from his lobe.
She gently plucked this from him and started to put it into her ear when Nate caught her hand. He looked at her for a long moment and Amanda felt her face color. She dropped the bud. “Sorry,” she said, smiling apologetically. “I was just curious.”
Nate nodded and pulled out the other one. Amanda had a fleeting thought that he was going to offer both of them to her, but he reached into his pocket and switched off the player and rolled the earbuds up and put them away.
“Look,” Amanda said, more unsure now than she’d ever been. “I’m sorry I woke you, I’m sorry I was snooping, I was just wondering what you were listening to, that’s all.”
“From all the way up there?” Nate asked, indicating the seat she’d just left.
“No,” Amanda sighed and shook her head. “No, I was moving back here anyway…”
“Why?” He looked at her frankly.
“I… because I wanted… I thought…”
Nate continued to stare at her. His expression unreadable.
“I just thought that we should… talk.”
Nate’s face might have been carved from marble. She saw no judgment, no anger, nothing at all. It was like staring at someone who was waiting for you to speak your peace out of politeness, rather than interest.
She sighed and picked at an imaginary piece of lint. “I just wanted to ask you about your… retirement.”
Billy had the two seats in front of them. He spun around quickly and looked at Nate quizzically. “You’re not serious, right?? You got a lot of good years left, man.”
“What’s going on?” said a deep voice from behind them in the last row. A guy she hadn’t even known was lying down back there shot straight up, draping himself over the back of Nate’s seat.
“Nate’s gonna retire,” Billy practically shouted the news. Apparently Billy, as she was learning, had a tendency to be a little… overenthusiastic about, well, absolutely everything.
“I didn’t say that,” Nate stopped him, but it was too late. Within moments Amanda was surrounded by giant broad-backed men who clustered around Nate. She couldn’t see anything but an ocean of dress shirts and the strong smell of men’s cologne filling her nostrils.
Coach Johnson came pushing through down the aisle, sending men scattering into rows that had previously been empty. He was no small man himself, but the tension ratcheted up a considerable amount. “What’s this I’m hearing, Nate?” he asked, giving every man there a glare that sent most of them back to their seats.
“Nate says he’s gonna retire,” Billy added helpfully, seeming content to stay right where he was.
Nate shot Amanda a look. A real nasty one, then sank back into his seat with a low moan.
“No!” Amanda had to shout to be heard. Several heads turned in her direction. No, make that every… by now even the attendants were pausing in their endless circling with platters of food. “That’s not what he said, it’s what I said.”
“Why would you retire?” Billy asked, his face screwed up in confusion.
“Not me, I just mean I said it, I’m not retiring. I was asking Nate about retirement, not me. But I’m the one who said it.”
Nick scratched his head. “Why would you try to get Nate to retire?”
Amanda floundered for a moment, but a few mumbled “Yoko Ono” comments still reached her ears from several rows away. “I didn’t …”
“Nate, I would appreciate it if you would come to me first about things like this,” Coach Johnson said. “If you’re upset about being benched, this is not the solution.”
“I already told you!” Amanda blurted out before she clamped her hands over her mouth.
Nate was seething. “It was a private conversation, just a little ‘what if’ thing I was contemplating about someday!” he shouted to the throng. “It was said in confidence and was only a discussion. I’m not retiring and, Coach, when I do, I promise you’ll be the first to know.”
Coach Johnson stared at him a moment and transferred his basilisk gaze to Amanda, who was trying to sink into her chair. He nodded once and spoke to the gathered men. “Subject closed. You heard him!”
“I didn’t” a voice from all the way up in the front of the plane said in the pause.
“It’s a private conversation, BEST LEFT PRIVATE!” Coach shouted while staring at Amanda.
She nodded miserably.
“Let’s all sit down before we overload this side of the plane and end up turning left,” Coach muttered and went back to his seat.
“It’ll do that?” someone asked as the men returned to their seats. “If we all stand in the back, will we go up?”
Amanda looked over at Nate; he had the earbuds back in his ears and was staring straight ahead.
Amanda slunk back to her original seat.
Someone please just crash the plane now…
Chapter 12
Amanda let the thought run through her mind as she watched the streets slip past from the taxi window. Nate had put the damn earbuds back in and STILL hadn’t looked in her direction.
At least he hadn’t made her take her own cab.
In the end. After a looong silence.
In fact, it was highly likely that he would have left her standing there if she hadn’t just scrambled into the cab after him when it seemed he wasn’t going to answer about whether they were sharing.
A girl had to be bold sometimes.
But it was still going on, that long protracted silence of his. Any longer and he’d have the record for longest silence by an animated creature.
Hell with it, I’m streaming Casablanca.
“Alright, I’m sorry,” she said as they wound through residential neighborhoods. “Again. I’m sorry again, or still sorry. Whatever. I’m SORRY, ok?”
He turned his gaze on her and nodded once. “Fine.” He turned back so he was facing the driver’s head and remained in that position through Denver, as though the man’s hat was the most interesting thing he’d seen in a long time. He kept it up until they arrived at his… no, their (but his) front door.
She bolted from the cab the second it stopped. She snatched her bag from the trunk and walked off, pulling it behind her. It caught on the cobblestones and twisted in her hand.
“Hey!” Nate called. Amanda turned, ready to forgive him, ready to start over and forget the entire trip to L.A. had ever taken place. She dropped her bag and spun on one heel.
“You need to pay your half of the cab ride!” Nate called out and threw his own bag, infinitely bigger and heavier than hers, over his shoulder and walked into the house.
“Multi-million-dollar player and he splits a cab ride,” she mumbled as she fished into her wallet for a twenty and shoved it ruefully at the cabbie.