Covering my face with my hand, I groaned. “Please stop talking. Can you just bring me a different shirt and some date shoes?”
“Sure.” She let out a gleeful squeal that had me pulling the phone away from my ear. “Do I get to choose the shirt and the shoes?”
“As much as I may come to regret this, yes.” Spinning lightly in my chair, I studied a picture of the Washington stadium. Specifically the logo at midfield. Without his little initiation exercise, I wasn’t even sure I’d have ever met Dominic.
Without warning, a dull thud of disappointment hit me in the chest.
I was excited about this one single date that he’d probably screw up.
The only time I ever got excited to interact with any man was Nick, and I hadn’t even thought to check my messages the night before when my brain was spinning with thoughts of my upcoming date.
Kim popped her head into my office. “Molly Griffin is here to finalize her auction items for the dinner. She wanted to know if you were available for a couple of minutes so she could say hi.”
I gave her a thumbs-up. “Tor, I need to go. Just … don’t pick anything too fancy or skanky looking.”
“Killjoy,” she muttered. “He makes millions of dollars at his job, Faith. Don’t you think he’s going to go the Bottle of Cristal-wow you with his connections at the fanciest club-try to dry hump you in the corner with loud, dirty music playing while all the cool kids do drugs around you route? You should dress appropriately if that’s the plan.”
“Blech. I hope not.”
“Okay. I’ll shoot for a happy middle. He’ll want to rip your clothes off with his teeth, I promise.”
“That’s not—” But I was speaking to no one because Tori hung up. “Great,” I muttered. The possibilities of what she could bring me, hidden in the dark corners of my closet, made me shudder.
“Now that’s a happy face,” a friendly voice called from my office door.
If anyone understood what it was like to be as enmeshed into this strange little Washington Wolves club as I was, it was Molly and her sisters. Raised by their brother, Coach Ward, and his wife, Paige, they’d grown up on that field just like I did. Molly took it a step further, marrying a former defensive player, Noah Griffin. He’d just retired a couple of years earlier.
With a smile, I stood to greet Molly with a warm hug. “Missed you at mini camp yesterday,” I told her.
“Our six-year-old puked all over my shoes right before we walked out the door, so… kinda wrecked the idea of a family outing.” Pulling back to study me, Molly shook her head. “First, it’s amazing how you get older and more beautiful, and I somehow have not aged a day past twenty-five.”
We laughed, and I gestured for her to take a seat across from my desk. “Kim said you’re dropping off your auction item?”
She nodded. “Noah and I decided to join forces on this one. It’s our take on a surf and turf, but we’re calling it log cabins and red carpets. A weekend in our cabin in the Black Hills, and a red carpet experience for our next All or Nothing premiere,” she said, referencing her job working with the Amazon production.
“Ooh, love it.” Taking the envelope from her outstretched hand, I pulled out the single sheet of paper that held all the details and gave her a huge smile. “Thank you, Molly. This is perfect.”
Leaning forward in the chair, she turned a picture of Lydia and me at a Wolves game, making silly faces at the camera. “I can’t believe you’re old enough to be running this place. I remember when Allie took over all those years ago. You were so little.” Carefully, she returned the photo to its original place and took an approving look around my office. “This looks good on you, Faith.”
“Thank you.”
Her gaze softened. “So why’d you look so frustrated when I walked in?”
“Ahh.” I cleared my throat. “My roommate is bringing clothes for a, a date I have later, and I don’t know if I trust what she’ll pick.”
“Ooh, who’s the guy?” When I hesitated, she clasped her hands over her heart. “Please, indulge someone who’s been married for years and hardly remembers what the dating world was like.”
I sank back in my chair and gave her a considering look. Because she was more than a decade older than me, it wasn’t like Molly was someone I was close to. But with her upbringing and the man she married, she just might’ve been the perfect person to walk into my office.
“How did you…” I paused. “Did you ever worry about dating a player? Like it was too much.”
“Too much in what way?”
I gestured to my office. “In every way, I guess. We were practically born with the Wolves logo tattooed on our foreheads, and I work for the foundation that’s tied to them, and my parents are there every day, and”—I shrugged—“putting my love life in that same category feels like … it feels like it’s too much. If I can even trust that all he wants out of it is … me.”
I hated putting that fear into words, but I couldn’t leave it out. It was always lingering just out of reach.
Molly took a deep breath. “Is it really in that same category, though?”
One of my eyebrows rose slowly, and she laughed.
“Okay,” Molly said, “so he plays for Washington. I know that much.”
My face was hot when I nodded.
“Have you ever dated someone on the team before?”
My nose scrunched. “Not for Washington, no.”
She heard something in my careful answer. “On another team, though?”
“In college,” I said. “Let’s just say it wasn’t a good experience. So it’s never been hard to put everyone on the Washington roster out of my head.”
“So … he’s not like the guy from college, though, right?”
I breathed out a laugh. “Not at all.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“It’s always seemed too complicated. Allie owns the team, and my dad is my dad, so he’s crazy overprotective when he thinks about Lydia and me dating someone like my ex. But I’ve never found anyone the normal way, you know? In the grocery store buying the same ice cream or something.”
“Listen, in every single facet of life, there are keepers, and there are guys who should come with warning labels. It doesn’t matter if they play football for a living or if they’re a doctor or a teacher, or you met them somewhere normal. You and I know better than most that there are solid, loyal, loving men who do this job. My husband is one of them, your dad and my brother are too. All three of my sisters married athletes. And the amazing thing is that they get it. Noah knew exactly what kind of crazy was involved in my family, in this life, because he comes from this world too.” Molly smiled. “Can I get a hint of who it is?”
“Not yet,” I hedged. “I don’t even know if we’ll go on more than one date. He’s not exactly … I wouldn’t have picked him for me, at first.”
She hummed. “I know a few couples like that. Nothing wrong with someone unexpected. It kinda sounds like you’re just overthinking a rule that’s been in place for a long time.”
“It’s possible.”
“It only takes one person, Faith. Just one person who makes you want to risk something big, simply for a chance with them. I know that’s how it was for Noah and me.”
Her words held more than a ring of truth and were prophetic enough that I couldn’t ignore them. Already, I’d felt that unnameable, overwhelming tug to Dominic, even before he asked me out.
Well, it did have a name.
Want.
There was no other way to say it, and it was absolutely pointless to hide it. I wasn’t the type to throw caution to the wind, but he made me want to. If he’d touched me more than that one finger along my wrist, I might’ve kissed him right there in the middle of the field. But there was still so much about him that I didn’t know and wasn’t sure of.
Yet from what I’d seen, he was worth the risk.
“Judging by the look on your face, I think you may have the ans
wer of whether he’s that person or not.”
I set my hands over my cheeks. “I can’t know that before the first date, Molly.”
“Can’t you?” she asked lightly. “As far as I know, there’s no timeline of what’s right or wrong. It might come completely out of nowhere. But if you feel it, then go for it. You’ll know soon enough if him being in this world with you is too much or not.”
It was exactly what I needed to hear.
“Thank you,” I told her. “Your timing today was … impeccable.”
She stood to give me a brief hug. “Good luck on your date tonight. Do you know where he’s taking you?”
“No. Hence the clothing situation I find myself in.”
Molly laughed. “I like that he wants to surprise you. You and I are planners, Faith. We need someone who’s not afraid to knock us off-balance.”
As I watched her go, I turned those words over and over in my head. In general, I was a pretty easygoing person … except when I wasn’t. I liked knowing what to expect. I liked feeling competent in what I was doing. And when those things were removed from the situation, off-balance was a great way to describe it.
I just had to know Dominic could help steady everything if I was.
My phone buzzed, and I picked it up off the desk, assuming it was Tori about my clothes.
But when I saw Dominic’s name instead, it was like he clipped a jumper cable around my nervous system. A quick turn of the key, and I felt the effect everywhere. Again, Molly’s words rang in my head. It might come out of nowhere.
“No shit,” I whispered.
Dominic: I’ll pick you up from your office at 5:30.
Me: I thought we were going to meet somewhere? For all I know, you could be a serial killer and your whole plan is to lure me into your truck so you can chop me into a hundred pieces out in the woods somewhere.
Dominic: First, that’s incredibly morbid and terrifying. Second, I never said I wasn’t going to pick you up. You assumed, and you know what they say about assuming, sunshine.
Me: Fair. I also assumed we’re going somewhere public?
Dominic: Well … I could hardly dismember you if we did.
Me: …
Dominic: Yes. Sort of.
Me: Can I just get one tiny hint of what you’ve got planned?
Me: I’m not very good with surprises.
Dominic: As a wise man once said, surprise is the greatest gift life can grant us.
I sat back in my chair, jaw hanging open. The tattooed man who got drunk on the fifty-yard line just … yup, a quick Google search confirmed it.
Me: I’m sorry … did you just quote BORIS PASTERNAK to me?
Dominic: Even reprobates like me had to go to college, sunshine.
Me: So you won’t give me a hint then?
Dominic: See you at 5:30.
There was no denying that he had me intrigued. And confused. His sudden change of heart toward me still caused some head scratching, but I’d give him an actual chance. Especially after my talk with Molly. If he could manage to, as he said, give me the gift of surprise, maybe I’d figure out why this man—with his hard shell, chip on his shoulder attitude and surprisingly gooey center—suddenly decided I wasn’t the enemy. And why I wanted to jump his bones with a terrifying intensity. With a deep breath, I shot off a text to Tori.
Me: Tori?
Tori: OMG don’t tell me to pick something boring, I’ll scream.
Me: Nope. Pick something I’d never dare to pick for myself.
Tori: ON IT.
Faith
“Well?”
Tori’s expectant expression had me biting down on my bottom lip to stem my smile because torturing her was a genuinely enjoyable life experience.
But when I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the wall mirror of my office, the grin broke free. Tori raised her fists in the air, her face comically frozen in a scream of victory that had me laughing.
“I never would have picked it,” I told her, adjusting the teeny tiny strap of the cheetah print bustier-style top that was slicked tight to my midriff, tucked inside the dark ripped jeans. My boobs—not normally the type to give second-glance-worthy cleavage—were pressed together and quite glorious, if you asked me. “But,” I continued, “I still have no idea what we’re doing, what if this is way too…” I gestured at the ladies, all propped up and pretty.
Tori laughed. Then she held up a finger and started rooting around in the bag of goodies she’d brought with her. When she straightened, she held out a small black ball of material that had me raising my eyebrows.
“This is the key,” she said, with a serious voice and serious eyes.
I pointed at the wad in her hands. “That right there?”
“Yes.” As she extended it toward me, she took a deep, dramatic breath. “You must wield it carefully.”
It was light in my hands, but when I held the material from the top and let it unfold in front of me, I blinked a few times before meeting her eyes cautiously. “It’s … a cardigan.”
Tori rolled her eyes, gripping me by the shoulders firmly so she could stand behind me. “Put it on.”
“The basic black cardigan?” I shook it. “We’re talking about the same thing, right?”
Her expression went grave. “Remember when I went on the date with that med student from UDub, and we barely made it out of his car because I drove him so crazy?”
“Yes.”
“We almost did it in the car ten minutes after he picked me up, Faith.”
My eyebrows popped up. “And why are we recapping this?”
“It was the cardigan.”
Helpless laughter spilled from my mouth. “Oh my gosh, Tori.”
“I’m serious! Try it on.”
With a sigh, I slid my arms into the cardigan. When I had it over my shoulders, Tori shifted in front of me to button one of the large mother-of-pearl buttons. She stood back, and I gave my reflection a surprised once-over.
Okay, she wasn’t wrong.
It hung down past my hips in a way that my waist was hidden, but my cleavage wasn’t. The jeans and nude strappy heels made my legs look a mile long. Then she turned me to the side.
“Now, this is the magic,” she said. “Drop your shoulder just an inch or so.”
I did as she asked, even though it felt stupid, and the cardigan slid fetchingly down my shoulder, exposing the bustier top. Even half covered up, I looked sexy. But … not in a way that made me uncomfortable. That whole I will own and show my killer body sexiness was Lydia’s thing, not mine. I loved that for my little sister, but it had never been my thing.
This, however, was me. Tori nodded in satisfaction when she saw the expression on my face change. “See what I mean? This cardigan, Faith Pierson, you treat it with caution.”
With a soft laugh, I pulled it back up onto my shoulder. “Noted.”
“You ready?” she asked.
A nervous exhale slid through my pursed lips. “I guess. I’m not used to dates like this. As much as he pissed me off when he said it, Dominic was not wrong. I usually date nice guys.”
“Yeah, I remember the guy who showed up in pressed khakis,” Tori said, her face in a tight, disgusted grimace. “I think Mr. Tattoo is a wonderful choice for you to loosen up a bit.”
And like her words had conjured him, my phone lit up on the corner of my desk, and his name appeared on the screen. Tori leaned over and smirked as she read the message.
“Oh yeah.” She handed me the phone. “I like this.”
“If you’re up for a challenge tonight, sunshine, I’m ready whenever you are,” I read. “What a cocky shit.”
Tori laughed. “He knows how to build a mood, that’s for sure.”
“Ahh, but I have the cardigan. Apparently, I’m bringing a mood of my own.”
She set her hands on my shoulders. “May it treat you well tonight, my child.” With a smile, she shooed me out of the office. “You go. I’ll pack up my stuff and tell Kim to lock it
up after me.”
“I’ll see you later,” I told her.
“Wait, I need your car keys.”
I paused. “Why?”
Her grin was pure evil. “I took an Uber so I could drive your car home and force a drop-off scenario with Mr. Tattoo.”
Fishing them out of my small purse, I glared mightily as I handed them off. “You owe me for this, Victoria.”
She blew me a kiss.
No one was in the front of the office when I left, and I was glad of that. My parents might have some raised eyebrows if they knew I was going out with Dominic, and the last thing I needed was any well-intended Team Sutton employees to send Allie or my dad a text like, Saw Faith get picked up by that tall, muscular tattooed guy!
And they would’ve commented because when I pushed the front door open, he was like every teenage fantasy come to life, even if I’d never fantasized about something like this.
His truck, clean and gleaming in the sun, was parked in the closest spot to the building, and Dominic was leaning up against the passenger door. If it hadn’t been for the slightly crooked smile on his face, he would’ve looked so incredibly dangerous. His arms were crossed over his chest, which was covered by a black button-down shirt. The sleeves were rolled up, so his inked forearms were exposed. The shirt was unbuttoned at the top, and another dark swirl of ink covered the tanned patch of his chest that was visible. Like me, he wore dark jeans, but on his feet were heavy black boots.
This man would cause every overprotective dad in America to lock their doors and double-check the windows in their daughter’s rooms because he looked like sex. He looked like something sinful and decadent.
And when he pushed his sunglasses up onto the top of his head so he could cast a leisurely gaze from the top of my head to the bottom of my strappy-sandal-clad feet, I actually, physically felt like I’d burst into a puff of pheromones.
The Lie : a bad boy sports romance Page 11