The Ground Beneath (You and Me Book 1)

by Stephanie Vercier

  “Thanks, Amanda,” I tell the woman as she heads off to get more glasses.

  “You know her name?” Scott asks me, punctuating it with some dismissive laughter.

  “I know most of their names. I did a lot of the hiring for tonight.”

  “You didn’t go through like a catering company or a party planner?” Mallory asks with a perplexed wrinkling of her nose.

  “No. Sheila and I hired the caterers ourselves, to answer directly to us.” I pause before adding on, “That’s how Theresa wanted it.”

  “What a demanding little bitch she is,” Scott says, not mincing words. “I wouldn’t sign her and that husband of hers even if she begged me.”

  “Do you have to call her a bitch?” Mallory scolds, gently slapping at his chest.

  “She kind of is though, isn’t she?” Josh says, taking a gulp of his champagne.

  “She most definitely is,” Scott reiterates.

  Hunter remains silent on the subject, nearly chugging his entire glass of bubbly down. And I have no comment either. The last thing I need is for it to get back to Theresa that I had anything at all unkind to say about her.

  “Hey, you aren’t old enough to drink, are you?” Scott asks, a satisfied grin on his face as I’m tilting the flute to my lips.

  “Mind your own business,” Hunter snaps.

  “It’s sparkling cider,” I inform Scott, tapping at the small charm around the stem of the glass. “The ones with charms like this are non-alcoholic.” It was a necessity, considering my low alcohol tolerance and my need to be totally sober tonight.

  “Good to know,” Josh says. “I’m trying to cut back myself.”

  Scott laughs again, and it’s starting to get really annoying. “I’d say good luck with that, because aren’t you kind of a lush there, Joshy boy?”

  Scott and Josh had also been friendly on that flight to San Francisco, even joking around like two old—if not somewhat immature—friends. Something underneath Scott’s smile tonight, though, tells me he might actually enjoy wounding people.

  “I’m not afraid to admit it,” Josh says. “I’ve been a fucking mess half of my life, and thankfully I’ve got one decent friend in this world who’s reminded me I can do better. I even stopped smoking if you can believe it.” He grips his hand on Hunter’s good shoulder just then, and I can see how much Josh admires and looks up to the man I’ve fallen in love with.

  I’ve seen Hunter’s teammates look at him the same way when he’s joined them on the sidelines for their Sunday games. It’s how I think Logan sees him too, even through the justified anger he feels about having cancer.

  “Oh, please.” Scott lets out a bored breath.

  Mallory tilts her head back and offers Josh a genuine smile. “I think it’s smart, especially the part about the cigarettes. You should take care of your health.”

  I swear Josh turns a shade of pink that has nothing to do with the champagne he’s just ingested.

  “Yeah, well, whatever,” Scott says with a sneer. “I think I see some people I need to talk to.”

  While I’d love nothing more than for Mallory to dump Scott right here and now, she follows him, walking away with nothing more than a shrug and a wave.

  “I don’t get why she’s dating that guy,” Josh asks, staring after her, “especially given the whole age difference thing.”

  Hunter punches his upper arm. “Hold your tongue, man. I’m sure that’s what any guy under twenty-five is asking about Alli and me.”

  I’m the one who gets a somewhat apologetic look from Josh. “Sorry, Allison. Wasn’t meaning to be a dick like Scott and infer your guy here should be put out to pasture or anything.”

  I glide my fingers over Hunter’s strong upper arm and say, “You don’t put bulls out to pasture, Josh.”

  It’s a corny thing for me to say, but Josh says, “Touché,” and he looks sort of impressed.

  “I’m glad you think I’m a bull,” Hunter says, pulling me close to him.

  And I have the not so innocent thought of just how much I’d like him to prove it to me tonight.

  The three of us go on joking with each other, and I find myself at ease with Josh, perhaps for the first time. He’d never been overtly rude to me, but I’d been feeling like he didn’t like me or was afraid I was trying to take his friend away from him. Whatever it was, I hope it’s behind us now.

  I could have gone on all night like this, enjoying my time with Hunter and people I considered friends and forgetting entirely about Theresa Carmichael. But then, as if she were a supernatural force, the air chilled, and I could sense Theresa’s presence before I saw her entering the ballroom on her husband’s arm.

  Conversations quiet, Theresa looking nothing less than stunning in a red, form fitting gown, and Henry handsome in his tux, though he still resembles a Neanderthal, no matter how cleaned up he is. Out of perhaps some sense of insecurity, I look toward Hunter to see his reaction to arguably the most beautiful woman in the room. His eyes capture her for a second before they dart in the opposite direction, as if he’s doing his best to keep his gaze from attaching to her.

  “She knows how to get the tongues wagging,” Josh says.

  “Not my tongue,” Hunter replies, his voice pressured. “The only one that does that is Alli here.”

  “I’ve got to go talk to her,” I say, not responding to his latest compliment.

  “I’ll come with you.” Hunter tugs at my hand.

  “You’ve got to let me come too, then,” Josh says. “I haven’t been up close and personal with Theresa in quite a while.”

  Hunter throws him some kind of look I can’t quite decipher, but there isn’t time to delve too deeply into what it means when I need to do my job. “Come along then,” I say, forcing a smile and hoping Theresa hasn’t already spotted a dozen flaws about tonight.

  When we get to Theresa, she’s in a conversation with two other women, a conversation she seems to take pleasure in extending for as long as possible before leaving an opening for me.

  “Hi Theresa… Henry,” I’m finally able to say when Henry nudges his wife and the two women she’d been talking with scamper off. “I hope everything is going the way you wanted it to.”

  “It’s a hell of a party so far,” Henry says in his deep rumble of a voice, a drink already in his hand, his eyes seeming to follow the movements of one of the female servers.

  “No complaints,” Theresa tells me, almost dismissively, as her attention moves to Hunter. “I’m so glad you made it to my little party, Hunter. The public will be thrilled to see two of their favorite players in one place.”

  As if on cue, one of the photographers I’d hired for the evening comes into focus, getting some natural shots before asking Henry, Theresa and Hunter to pose.

  Hunter looks like he’d rather eat a live insect, but he acquiesces quickly, tugging me along with him.

  “I don’t think I should be in this shot,” I whisper to him, tugging back. “You said you weren’t ready for us to go public.”

  “Maybe I was wrong,” he says, putting his arm around me as the photographer asks us to smile.

  The man snaps at least a dozen pictures of us, then says, “Excellent! Thanks so much,” and is off to capture more.

  “I’ll be back,” Henry says, not even waiting for his wife to respond before he takes off, appearing to follow a woman in an incredibly short dress.

  “You lost your husband,” Josh says, poking his way back into the group.

  Theresa looks at him dismissively. “So I have. He has the attention span of a small rodent, but he’ll be back when he gets bored.”

  Josh laughs, but her words are more sad than funny to me, and by Hunter’s blank expression, he seems to agree.

  As if he’s trying to get rid of her, Hunter says, “I’m sure you have plenty of people you’d like to say hi to, Theresa.”

  “No, I’m perfectly fine right where I’m at. In fact, it’s you I’ve been wanting to have a good talking
to.” She takes my boyfriend’s arm, then continues speaking. “I’ve got a surprise planned for this evening, and I’d like to hear your thoughts on it before I share it with everyone else.”

  The color on Hunter’s face drains away, and I’m sure if I were looking into a mirror, worry would be etched on mine. It’s not just Hunter’s odd behavior around Theresa that has me wondering, but it’s the surprise she’s mentioned. She didn’t ask us to plan for any speeches or big reveals tonight, just a party for the sake of Theresa Carmichael wanting to have one.

  “If you’ll excuse us,” she says, pulling Hunter away from me like she has him under some kind of mind control, leaving Josh and I alone and, quite frankly, a little stunned.

  “She’s like a viper,” Josh says, shaking his head. “One strike, and she’s got him in her clutches.”

  “She’s a married woman,” I remind him. “Maybe her reveal has something to do with the team or Henry, and she just wants Hunter’s opinion.”

  Josh raises an eyebrow. “Sure… yeah. You know, I wasn’t trying to imply anything dirty. I can pretty much attest to how much my buddy loves you.”

  Josh looks sincere, and I hate the fact that I feel at all anxious about Hunter walking off with a woman his friend just referred to as a viper. And maybe I wouldn’t if Hunter wasn’t acting so odd around her.

  “Thank you, Josh. I should probably go find Sheila and check on how things are going. If you see Hunter before I do, would you mind letting him know?”

  “No problem. I guess I should get out there and mingle too.”

  “I’ll see you later.” I offer him a smile and then go in search of Sheila, doing my best not to keep a jealous eye out for Hunter and Theresa.

  The ballroom has filled up considerably, and thankfully, it appears that the guests are enjoying themselves. There is food and drink, places for people to sit and socialize, and a DJ Theresa had us fly in from New York that has already gotten a few couples and small groups on the dance floor. I don’t find Sheila right away, but I run into Amanda, one of the servers, again, and she says there’s a slight emergency in the kitchen.

  By slight, she means that someone broke “like two hundred glasses.”

  I race into the kitchen and find that’s it’s more like three hundred glasses. People are trying to avoid the mess while they continue doing their work, and they’re looking to me to fix it.

  “We’ll run out of glasses,” one woman says.

  “And someone’s going to get hurt—we can’t just avoid a pile of broken glass all night,” one of the male servers adds.

  This is one of those moments where I start to panic and feel the pressure of being young and inexperienced, but I remind myself this isn’t rocket science, that Sheila wouldn’t have kept me on if I were incapable of fixing situations just like this one.

  “I’ll start cleaning it up,” I say, not wanting anyone else to get hurt or cut on the job.

  “In your dress?” The man looks at me like I’m crazy.

  I shrug. “Someone has to do it. Would you guys be willing to go out and start gathering up any empty glasses you find? I think we’ll need to run the dishwasher nonstop just to keep up.”

  I’m very grateful that neither argues, and I get to the job of cleaning up the mess with a broom and dustpan while the rest of the staff goes about their usual duties. In a way, I’m glad for this. The manual labor takes my mind away from whatever it was I’d been worried about between Hunter and Theresa, and I’m able to show myself as a team player, not just some nineteen-year-old girl who gets off on barking out orders to people twice her age. It earns me some respect too, getting nods from the staff and offers of help that I decline in order to keep things running smoothly out in the ballroom.

  When I’m finished, I check myself in a full-length bathroom mirror, and, somewhat miraculously, my dress, hair and makeup are all no worse for the wear. I skirt the edge of the ballroom, knowing I should at least try to find Sheila to update her on the kitchen mishap and wanting to find Hunter, but what I really need is some fresh air. On a mission for just that, I finally slip through one of the exterior doors to the large, wrap-around balcony, closing my eyes and taking in a deep breath when a cold October breeze hits me.

  There are a few other people out here, huddled in small groups, their boisterous laughter likely brought on by the glasses half emptied of alcohol they hold in their hands. I take a few steps away from them, wanting just a moment or two of peace and quiet. But as I move further away, there is another sound that begins to overtake the laughter, a sound that is generally only related to one thing.

  I don’t want to believe it at first, but it becomes unmistakable.

  It’s the sound of sex.

  I’d have turned back the way I’d come, anxious to get away from the moaning and groaning of the intimate act, but when I catch sight of the red dress that I just know belongs to Theresa Carmichael, my feet become leaden, as though they’re trapped in concrete.

  My stomach hollows and my heart drops as I take in the form in front of her, the man holding her up against the stone wall and thrusting into her and groaning like he’s about to come, Theresa clutched to him, her head tilted back, eyes affixed on the stars above. The man is tall and broad and blond, and I tell myself over and over again that it can’t be Hunter, that he would never do that to me, and yet I feel sick at the possibility that it could be him, that he’d been acting strange around Theresa. Had this been why? Was he sleeping with her behind my back?

  I shake my head.

  No.

  I won’t believe it.

  That’s not him.

  With my head down, I turn and begin to run back toward the doors. I’m not sure how far I get—not far at all I’d guess—when I run right into a man’s chest.

  “Alli.”

  I look up and see Hunter, sweet relief washing over me.

  He puts his big, warm hands on my shoulders, a concerned look in his eyes. “You okay? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

  “I just needed some fresh air,” I tell him, my heart beating so fast, ashamed that I’d thought him unfaithful, even for a second.

  “Yeah… Josh told me he saw you coming out here. But where were you before that?”

  “Come on,” I say, pulling one of his hands from my shoulder and taking a few steps closer to the doors. I want to go back inside before he can discover the same thing that I had.

  But something keeps him still, his body hard and frozen. And when I turn back around, I see what Hunter sees, the man who’d been with Theresa. He stops too, continuing to stuff his shirt into his pants that he then zips up.

  He shrugs, smiles and says, “Hey, it’s a free country.”

  I don’t know the man—he sure as hell isn’t Henry Carmichael—and I’m trying to place just who he might be, as if it even matters, when Hunter lunges forward and punches him in his face, knocking him to the ground.

  “Hunter!” I run toward him and try to pull him back as he bends down like he’s ready to keep on pummeling him.

  “You crazy fucker!” the guy is yelling, and then it’s Theresa appearing from the shadows and saying, “What in the hell do you think you’re doing, Hunter?”

  He stops immediately, looks up at Theresa and then back at me. He shakes his head and sighs, then puts his hand out to the man he’d just attacked.

  “Get the fuck away from me!” the mystery man says, scrabbling up and charging past us.

  Theresa clears her throat and spurts out a dainty laugh. “I didn’t realize you were so jealous over the men that I sleep with,” she says in a cool, sexy, almost cliché tone.

  “I’m not… that’s not—” Hunter shakes his head. He looks angry.

  Theresa tilts her head up and parts her lips, then says a very satisfied, “Oh.”

  In that moment, I understand just what the “oh” is for.

  I guess it’s better than Hunter being pissed off that Theresa Carmichael is having sex with men other th
an her husband, but it does hurt a little to imagine he thought I’d been the girl the guy was screwing, him being left behind to zip himself up while I hurried back inside, a few steps ahead of him.

  Oh, indeed.

  Not that I can get too high and mighty—I’d basically feared the same thing with Hunter.

  “I hope you aren’t planning on tattling on me tonight,” she says when neither Hunter nor I say a word, not to her or to each other. “Henry and I have an agreement, so while what just happened in that alcove isn’t against the rules, I doubt Henry would want the details.”

  “I’m not going to say anything,” I tell her. “It’s none of my business.”

  She steps forward, all of her focus on Hunter. “And what about you, Hunter? Are you good at keeping secrets?”

  He eyes her like he wants to kill her, and I get that sick thud again, the one that says there’s something going on here that I don’t know anything about.

  “It’s not my business to say anything,” he pretty much snarls.

  “Very well, then,” Theresa says, sounding as chipper as a woman preparing to read a sing-along, certainly not someone who’d just had public sex with a man who isn’t her husband. “I guess I’ll be getting back inside and joining my guests. Try not to punch any more of them this evening, Hunter.”

  She takes her leave, that lavender-scented perfume of hers still wafting in the air, but she’s left something else behind too, an unease between Hunter and myself. I consider following her lead, going back inside and forgetting about what just happened here. But then I think of how many times I’d let Wyatt off the hook, how often I’d given in to his wants when I should have argued my point, the times I’d let things go because I didn’t want to cause strife. I can’t do that again because I know where it leads and how it ends. Having an honest relationship means things might get messy once in a while.

  “Did you really think I would have cheated on you with that guy?” I ask him, calm and trying very hard not to add any hint of accusation.

  Hunter’s jaw ticks before he lets out a long sigh. “I thought maybe he did something to you… and that you were just trying to pull me away because you didn’t want to cause a scene.”