Love on the Highlight Reel (Connecticut Kings Book 2)

by Christina C Jones

  “What can I do for you, Mel?” I asked, leaning on the handle of the treadmill as she stepped further into my office, looking around. She’d never been in my home before – hell, I didn’t even know she knew where I lived – so all of it was new to her.

  “I’d like for you and I to have a long overdue conversation.” She stopped in front of me, her expression open, without being eager. “I realize it could be considered rude not to call first, but I was – legitimately, I think – afraid that you would either not respond, or put me off. And this conversation is, at this point, time-sensitive.”

  My eyebrow crept up. “Uh… okay. Let me see what I have coming up in the next hour.”

  I grabbed my tablet and water from the treadmill, and headed for my desk. Using my phone, I pulled up my schedule, and tried not to visibly react when I saw that I had a good forty-five minutes of time before my next appointment, and that thanks to Presley, most of my to-do list was already handled.

  “I really need a shower,” I said, swallowing hard as I put my tablet down on the desk. “But if this isn’t going to be long… I suppose it can wait a few minutes.”

  Mel smiled. “It won’t be. Can we sit?”

  “Be my guest,” I said, gesturing at the chair across the desk from mine. I let out a deep breath as I sat too, wondering what the hell this was about. I’d talked to my father since that disaster of a dinner, but successfully avoided talking about anything that happened at the dinner.

  “So,” Mel started, with a bright smile. “You and I have been connected through Eli for what, twelve years now?”

  I nodded. “Yes. Just about.”

  “Right. As such, I think that it’s past time that we work on cultivating something more – something deeper – than the… non-relationship we have now. There’s only so long that we can pretend the other doesn’t exist.”

  “You were pretending I didn’t exist?”

  “I was following your lead.”

  “Fair enough.” I laced my fingers together, perching my clasped hands on the desk in front of me as I leaned forward. “Listen… let’s cut to the chase. Whatever you’re really here for… tell it to me like you would tell it to your home girls. We can cut the lead in.”

  Her fuchsia-painted lips parted in surprise, then curved into a smile. “Okay,” she said, relaxing back into the chair. “Our lack of connection is upsetting my man, and I don’t like it, so I’m here to do something about it. Tell me if there’s any chance of us getting close enough to at least have dinner, shop together, something. And if not… I’d like to know why. I’d like to know what it is that you’re holding against me.”

  Wow.

  Okay.

  So, she certainly didn’t hold back.

  I… liked it.

  “Well,” I shrugged, “I don’t… I can’t really say that there’s anything in particular that I have against you, Mel. You make my father happy, and you’re not obviously terrible, so as far as I’m concerned, you’re fine by me.”

  Mel smiled. “That sounds really good, Cole. But cut the bullshit. If we’re going to talk, let’s do it.”

  I let out a dry laugh, and shook my head. “I… okay. Okay. I don’t like that my father brought home a twenty-something when I was a teenager. I don’t understand what, besides money, would attract someone so young to someone so much older. I don’t understand how you were okay with dating a man with kids in the same age demographic as you, and neither of you tried to help me understand. I thought it was a fling, a phase he was going through, but then he married you, he’s still married to you, and now, you two are talking about a baby, and it confuses me. I just don’t damn get it. All my life, I thought that when my father remarried, it would be to someone who would try to place rules and restrictions on me, try to parent me, try to nurture, and bond. I hated the idea of it. But then he married you, and you… didn’t. And I didn’t realize until afterwards that I wanted that. He was supposed to bring me a mother, and instead he brought… you.”

  Something weird was happening in my throat by the time I finished, and I snatched up my water bottle from the desk. I avoided Mel’s eyes as I took a long drink, draining the bottle, then turned to the mini-fridge behind me to grab two more bottles. One for her, and one for me.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, after a lengthy silence had passed between us. “I had no idea you wanted that… wanted a mother.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, well neither did I until just then.” I suddenly needed something a helluva lot stronger than water.

  Damn you, Jordan. Opened the door, and now I’m dredging up all my buried feelings.

  Mel sighed. “I can’t be that for you. Not that I think you’re saying you want me to,” she quickly added, probably seeing the objection brewing in my expression. “Like you said… I’m more your peer than your elder. I can’t mother you, Cole. But I do think we could possibly be friends.”

  I scoffed. “I don’t think we have enough in common for that.”

  “And I think you can be closed-minded, and a little judgmental.”

  “Excuse me?” I snapped, crossing my legs as I sat back.

  Mel grinned. “See? There’s at least one thing we have in common – a sharp tongue.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her for a few seconds. “Touché.”

  “In any case,” Mel continued, “I certainly have no interest in a forced friendship with you. I don’t roll like that. Like I said – Eli wants us to be closer. I want my man to be happy. So here I am, asking what I can do to facilitate that.”

  Propping my elbows on the desk, I rested my chin in my hands, studying Mel’s face. Particularly those soulful, sincere eyes.

  “You really do love him, don’t you?”

  For a second, confusion crossed her face, but then she nodded. “Yes, I do. I love your father with all my heart.”

  “Help me understand that, then. How did you two even come about?”

  A faint smile played on her face as she shifted in her seat. “It’s… kind of a long story, but… the short version is that I married my high school sweetheart, right out of school. Soon as we graduated, because we just knew we’d found our soulmates in each other. Went off to college together. He made it in the NFL, and I was an NFL cheerleader. Living out our dreams.”

  “But?” I asked, and Mel laughed.

  “So you already kind of know how this story goes, huh? His career ended early. Blew his knee out. Blew through the money gambling and drinking. Deciding to take all of his disappointment out on me. I was every kind of slut, whore, you name it, because I kept my cheerleader position with the team. Caking on make-up to cover the bruises he left on me, painting on a smile I didn’t feel, to go shake my pom-poms, so I wouldn’t have to go shake – or sell – my ass to bring some money into the house. Eli was working for one of the major sports stations at the time. They were doing one of those documentaries on players who left the game during their glory days. Decided to do one of my ex.”

  Mel stopped speaking for a moment to clear her throat, then finally acknowledged the bottle of water I’d placed in front of her. She took a drink, let out a deep breath, and then continued.

  “By that point, I was tired. Tired of getting my ass kicked, tired of pretending I wasn’t, tired of looking at him. He… he’d made me lose my baby,” she said, with obvious strain in her voice. “And I was just… I was done. But I didn’t have anywhere to go. Didn’t have anything. Didn’t really think I was anything. He’d been doing the interviews for the documentary, and I was playing loyal wife, because what were my other options? One day, Eli came to cheer squad practice, to interview me. Just me. He sat me down, and he talked to me, and made me laugh, and was just decent. I said everything I was supposed to say about my ex, and then when we were wrapping up, Eli made this comment… that my ex was lucky to have me. I don’t know what it was about that, but I completely broke down. Eli sent the camera man out, and I told him everything.”

  I was leaning onto the desk, c
ompletely riveted, and that weird feeling – that lump in my throat, and tingling in my eyes – was happening again. “What did he… my father… what did he do, when you told him?”

  For the first time in the last few minutes, Mel smiled. “He wouldn’t let me go home. He put me in a hotel room, and went and talked to my ex. I filed for divorce, with Eli’s help. My ex… he threatened me, and Eli hired security for me. Wouldn’t let anybody get to me. He didn’t even know me, but he protected me. Got me into a place of my own. My ex ended up drinking himself to death – liver failure, coma… never woke up. For the first time since I was a teenager, I was really free. Eli and I kept in touch – he would check on me. Take me to lunch here and there. We were friends.”

  I nodded. “But eventually, it became romantic… right?”

  Mel laughed. “I’m pretty sure I had a crush on him first, before he ever looked at me sexually.”

  “Probably because he had a daughter that was barely younger than you,” I muttered under my breath, and Mel shrugged.

  “Perhaps. But in any case… I didn’t care about his money, or who he was. I never did. But I won’t pretend that my feelings didn’t shift, at some point, from gratitude to… something else. I hadn’t dated, since my husband. Almost two years had passed since my divorce, I was lonely. I was horny. Eli rebuffed my advances, laughed me off. So one day, I invited him into my apartment to “see my new furniture”. Once we were inside, he got comfortable, and I took off all my clothes and showed him that I was very, very serious.”

  I frowned. “Okay, I get it.”

  “I’m just saying,” Mel, giggled. “Sometimes you have to drive your point home, so that’s what I did. And… it went on from there. It didn’t matter that he was almost twenty years older, because he never seemed that way to me. He was just… strong, and funny, and kind, and protective, and sexy, and… everything. Cole, I loved your father well before he ever brought me to meet you, and I truly believe he felt the same. He struggled with introducing me to his children, worried about what people would think. But ultimately, the fact that we loved each other outweighed everything else.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, even his kids’ feelings…”

  “Girl, please,” Mel said, waving me off. “Y’all were damn near grown. It’s not like I was around you all the time. I wasn’t trying to be anybody’s momma, or interfere with his relationship with you. The age difference between me and Eli, and our relationship, period, was none of your business.”

  Despite my reflexive scowl… that was actually true. It wasn’t my business.

  I blew out a sigh. “Okay, so… I get it. The origin story isn’t the gross, old man and a cheerleader fantasy I initially imagined it being. What now?”

  She raised her shoulders. “You tell me, Cole. I didn’t put the wall between us – you did.”

  “Right,” I nodded, running my tongue over dry lips. “So… why now? I know my father has been campaigning for years for us to get to know each other better, and you talked him out of making it an issue. So why now?”

  Mel reached for her water bottle again, turning it in her hands for a few moments before she looked up again and met my eyes. “Because I’m pregnant. We weren’t going to say anything yet, until we were past the three-month mark, but like I said… this has been bothering Eli. More so now that we’re bringing a baby into the world. He wants his family unified, and I want that for him.”

  She was talking, but my mind was still stuck back on those first three words.

  Pregnant?

  “Wait… already?! It was barely two weeks ago that y’all were telling me you were “trying” to get pregnant!”

  “We succeeded,” Mel said. “We weren’t expecting it to happen so soon either. We were at the doctor for the routine testing to start the process, and got a surprise. We just found out Monday, before the game.”

  “Wow.” I lifted a hand, massaging the back of my neck as my brain struggled to reconcile the fact that at twenty-eight, I was going to be somebody’s big sister. “Okay. Um…”

  “You don’t have to say anything right now,” Mel interrupted, raising her hands. “I know this is probably a lot to process all at once. I really hate to put you on the spot like this, but like I mentioned at first… there’s a time factor. I’d love for you to be involved in the pregnancy. Come to appointments, if you’d like. Be in your brother or sister’s life. But only if you want to. So just think about it, okay?”

  Absently, I nodded, and it wasn’t until Mel was moving away from her chair that I realized she was leaving.

  “Wait,” I said, jumping up from my seat. “I…”

  Mel stopped, eyebrow lifted in curiosity. “Yes?”

  Shit.

  “We could have lunch or something,” I blurted, before I could mentally talk myself out of it. “Talk a little more.” I picked up my tablet and unlocked the screen as I rounded the desk to push it into her hands. “I’m not available this weekend, but next week… let me know if you’re available at one of the times in green.”

  Mel’s eyes brightened first, and then her face transformed into a smile as she nodded. “Uh, yeah. I’d like that a lot.” She looked down at the tablet I’d pushed into her hands, and a moment later, glanced back up in confusion. “I don’t think this is your schedule…”

  “Hmm?” I leaned toward her to see the screen, and… holy shit… “Oh, sorry!” I said, hurriedly taking it from her. “I forgot I was looking at something else. Here.” I handed it back, with the proper screen pulled up, and a few minutes later, we were scheduled.

  “I’ll see you next Wednesday,” I said, leading her toward the door.

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  Just outside the door to the office, she hesitated, then turned to look back at me with an amused glint in her eyes. “You know… I know we’ve established that whatever relationship we institute won’t really be a mother-daughter type of arrangement, but… I want to tell you this little thing… just, woman to woman.”

  I tilted my head. “Um… alright.”

  She moved closer to me, taking one of my hands in hers. “When a man looks at you like he can’t keep his hands to himself, and makes you throb, and feel butterflies… those are pros, honey. Not cons.”

  She patted my hand and walked off, leaving me with my mouth agape, mortified. A few moments later, Presley appeared in the hall.

  “Cole? Is everything okay?”

  I snapped my mouth shut and nodded.

  “Yeah, Pres. I’m going to take my shower.”

  Nine.

  “Uh uh, Jordan. If you think you’re about to rope me into getting in trouble with you, you’ve got me messed up. I’m not trying to have Front Office pissed at me.”

  I shook my head. “Right. Cause you make too much money snitching on me, huh?”

  “Exactly.” Cin smiled, then winked at me as she closed her mouth over the bright green straw in her clear plastic cup, and moved to the next counter. “I like this one for you,” she said, pointing at an alligator leather and rose gold Audemars Piguet watch. “He wants to look at this one,” she told the sales clerk.

  “No I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do.” She nodded at the clerk, who moved to take the watch from the glass case, placing it in a cushioned box before handing it to us to inspect. “Look at this. It’s hot. You see how the chronograph dials are done?”

  “I don’t want the watch Cin, damn,” I laughed. “Are you about to get a commission or something?”

  “Excuse me for trying to improve your swag.”

  I frowned. “I don’t need swag improvements girl. If the watch is so hot, tell them to box it up. You can have it.”

  “Ewww,” she said, wrinkling her nose at the watch, and handing it back to the sales clerk before she started walking again. “I don’t want it.”

  I chuckled. “So look around. Pick something you do want.”

  “I don’t want anything in here.”

  “Bu
llshit,” I scoffed. “It’s a jewelry store, and you’re a woman. You could find something.”

  “Nope.” She took another sip from her iced coffee, and shook her head. “All baby girl does is tug and pull on anything within her reach. I’m not giving her anything extra to hold on to.”

  I grinned. “Leave her alone. How is my daughter doing anyway? I told you to bring her.”

  Cin’s nostrils flared as she glanced around the empty store, then at the sales clerk, who was several counters away. “I’ve told you, Jordan,” she hissed, keeping her voice low. “Stop playing like that! You’re gonna have that bullshit all over the news!”

  I shrugged. “And? Big whoop, people pin kids on ballers all the time.”

  “It ain’t about you,” she said, stabbing me in the chest with a manicured nail. “I don’t want my name and face getting blasted everywhere, people digging into my business. Those pictures of us at breakfast together were bad enough. The media will eat me alive if they think you’re Yara’s father. Cut it out, I’m serious.”

  Cin looked at me, waiting for a response, and all I could really do was nod my assent to her demand. I hadn’t thought about it from that angle. She was the only woman I’d dealt with on any level since going pro that didn’t thrive on the attention that came from being seen with me – just one of the reasons I kept her close.

  “Thank you,” she said, then sighed as she looked at last two inches of coffee left in her cup. When she brought her gaze back to me, her expression was still serious. “I’m like… two months away from graduation, and then I’m done with Connecticut. Done taking off my clothes for disgusting men.”

  “Excuse you.”

  She grinned, displaying pretty white teeth against her copper skin. “No offense Jordan. But… you were pretty disgusting when we first met.”

  I smacked my teeth. “How?!”

  Cin wrinkled her brow. “You don’t remember putting money in my g-string with your teeth? Vodka body shots? Letting Cedes give you a lap dance?”