Only One Kiss

by Madison, Natasha

  Me and my only girl.

  I caption it and then turn it off, tucking the phone into my pocket. Only then do I see how we are dressed almost alike. I’m wearing navy blue shorts and a light blue V-neck T-shirt with white sneakers. I grab the Babybjorn and her pacifier as we walk out the door. “Are you ready to go make all the boys jealous?” I ask her as I buckle her into her seat and kiss her right before sticking the pacifier in her mouth. If everything goes the way it should, she should sleep until we get there since Nico’s house is about an hour from mine. I stop at Starbucks on the way there to kill more time so she can nap longer. I also drive way under the speed limit.

  When I pull up to his house, I see a bunch of cars all in his massive driveway. I park on the street so if I have to leave, it’ll be easier. I grab the whole seat this time to let her sleep, and when I get there, I’m about to walk into the backyard when I see her walking up the driveway. Her head is down so she doesn’t see me, and it gives me a minute to look at her. She’s wearing a one-piece tank dress that is shorter on one side and shows her leg. Her long blond hair is loose. She finally looks up, and I see that she’s wearing aviator glasses. She smiles but then looks down, stopping when she gets to me. It’s fucking awkward, or maybe it’s just me. “Hey,” I say, and I’m about to say something else when I see one of my teammates and my good friend Miller walking up the driveway dressed in almost the same outfit as me.

  He looks up and smiles and then stops next to Candace, bending and kissing her cheek. “Hey, beautiful.” Then he looks at me. “Hey there, big guy,” he says and puts his arm around her shoulder.

  Chapter 7

  Candace

  “Hey there, big guy.” I stand here with Miller’s arm around me, and my heart is speeding up just a touch, but it has nothing to do with Miller. It has to do with the man who smiled at me and looked like he was in pain or maybe upset I was even here. He looks at me and then at Miller, and then his eyes go to Miller’s hand that is draped over my shoulder.

  When Miller called me two days ago to invite me to this barbecue, I wasn’t going to come. I don’t usually mix business and pleasure, but he told me that some of my other clients would be there, and it would be a great time to just see them. I started working with Miller two years ago, and to say he’s the biggest player in Dallas is an understatement. It also doesn’t help that he’s drop-dead gorgeous and has been on GQ twice.

  “I’m good, man,” Ralph says, avoiding eye contact with both of us. “I’m going to get in there and get Ari out of the sun,” he says and walks away from us. I take a second to watch him and then shrug off Miller’s hand, and he laughs.

  “We should date,” he says.

  “We should not. Ever.” I laugh at him and push him. He tries to put his hand over my shoulder again, and I push it away, scrunching my face. “I don’t know where that hand has been.” We walk behind the house, and I see that people are scattered all around the huge backyard. I want to pretend I’m not looking for where Ralph went, but I’d be lying. I spot his back to me as he puts the baby chair by his feet under the huge awning near the door.

  Nico, the team owner, comes out wearing shorts with pineapples on them and a button-down shirt opened all the way down, showing you his defined abs. He’s one of the youngest owners out there, and I heard he’s a bitch to work for. But isn’t anyone who is running a business? He walks over to Ralph, smiling, and they shake hands and then go in for a side hug. I see him put out his hand and smile at the both of them. He uses his index finger to tap Ariella on the nose. I turn my head to the right when I hear my name being called.

  I walk up to a couple of people and say hello as I make my rounds to greet everyone I know. By the time I get to the awning where I last saw Ralph, I’m dying for something cold to drink. This Texas heat is too much for me. Nico spots me and walks over. “Hey there,” he says, kissing me on my cheek. “It’s so great to see you.”

  “Thank you,” I say, smiling at him. “I came with Miller.” I want him to know that I didn’t just show up randomly.

  “You are always welcome,” he says, grabbing a water bottle and handing it to me. “I heard your brother was in town.”

  “Yeah,” I say, smiling, and my heart hurts a bit now knowing that he’s gone, and I won’t see Zoey for a couple of weeks. Which is another reason I said yes to coming to this thing. I always get depressed when she goes home. “They left two days ago.”

  “I saw him when he was down and tried to get him to come back to us,” he says, smiling, and I see that his blue eyes light up just thinking about it.

  “I don’t know if Matthew would allow that to happen.” I laugh now. “We all know he wants the Cup back in New York.”

  “I hate to say it, but he has the team to do it. Especially now with Justin there, that team is a powerhouse,” he admits. “I have to go check and make sure my guests are okay.” He nods. “I’ll catch you later. Please make yourself at home.”

  After he walks away, I turn to go inside to the cool air and to also use the bathroom. I hear wailing as soon as I open the door and walk into the house, which leads directly to the kitchen. “I know.” I hear Ralph saying, and then I spot him standing in front of the sink as he warms up her bottle. “You’re hungry. I get it.” He bounces her up and down, and then he must feel my eyes on him because he looks up.

  “Hey,” I say, putting down my bag on the table and then walking to them. “Do you want me to take her?” I ask, and he looks at me and then looks down at Ariella, who is just screaming as loud as she can.

  “I don’t know if it will help,” he says, and I reach out and grab her from him.

  “Hey there, pretty girl,” I say softly and look down to see big tears coming out of her eyes. “What is all this crying about?” I ask her as I lay her down in my arms and put the pacifier in her mouth. She stops crying to suck on it, and she looks at me. “You know that your dad won’t let you cry if he could help it.” I bounce her and walk away from Ralph.

  “What is this pretty headband?” I ask her as her chest trembles up and down as she sucks on the pacifier. “Now that’s better,” I say, and she just blinks her eyes at me. Then she kicks her feet, fed up with the pacifier, and starts crying again.

  “Shh, shhh, shhh, shhh,” I say, picking her up straight now and putting her on my hip, bouncing her up and down as I walk around the house with her. “Look at the colors,” I say, pointing at one of the paintings on the wall. She turns her head and looks and then wails. I feel Ralph beside me, and I look at the bottle in his hand. “Do you want her?”

  “I actually need to go to the bathroom,” he says, handing me the bottle. “Can you try to feed her? I’ll take her as soon as I come out.”

  “Of course,” I say, grabbing the bottle from him and ignore the goose bumps that run up my arm when he touches me. Turning around, I walk over to a chair and take a seat. Then I hold up the bottle. “Is this what you want?” I ask, ignoring the eyes watching me. I offer her the bottle, and she opens her mouth and sighs as she drinks it. My hand holds up the bottle as I rub her chubby soft cheek with my finger.

  “You are so beautiful,” I say, and she wraps her hand around my finger. “You got my finger,” I say, and she kicks her foot now. Looking up, I see Ralph standing there.

  “Do you want me to take her?” he asks, and I shrug.

  “I’m good, but do you think you can get me some water?” Nodding, he walks over to the fridge, takes out a bottle of water, and then opens it for me. I take a sip and Ariella lets go of her bottle to squeal. “Is that so?” I ask, and she smiles and kicks her feet while finishing her bottle. Ralph comes over and sits in front of us, waiting for her to finish, and when she does, I put the bottle on the table and then stand her up on my legs as she grabs my hair as she smiles and yells. “Well, you are a happy baby once your stomach is full,” I say, and she bounces on my legs.

  “You sure you don’t want me to take her?” he asks, and for the first time, I look over a
t him, and he is smiling at me genuinely.

  “I’m good,” I say. “Why don’t you go out and hang with the boys, and I can hang with the girl.”

  “I couldn’t do that,” he says, and I get up now, putting her on my hip.

  “Fine, then I’ll come outside with her and just keep taking her from you,” I say and then look over at Ariella. “Do you want to go and play on the grass with me?”

  “Play on the grass?” he asks. I see him taking his phone out of his pocket. “Is that safe? I’m going to google.”

  I throw my head back and laugh. “Okay, let me know what it says,” I say and turn to walk out of the door with her. “I’m going to get a huge towel, and we are going to go sit on the grass and sing about the wheels going round and round on the bus,” I say as I walk out of the house seeing Miller standing there with a beer in his hand. The minute he sees me, he walks over to me hurriedly.

  “There you are,” he says once he gets close enough. Ralph stands at my back, then comes to stand at my side. “I have a situation.”

  “Oh, good God, Miller.” I roll my eyes and shake my head. “What now?”

  “Well, what if by accident I sent out a picture of a certain area of myself?” He looks at Ralph with a smirk. “And by accident or maybe even a glitch, it got sent to all my contacts?” He stands there, moving his head back and forth.

  “You didn’t.” I laugh at him. “Did you tell Nico?” I ask.

  “I was going to do that next,” he says. “I just want to know what I should do. Like what is your professional opinion on how to handle this?”

  “Did you delete it?” I ask, and he rolls his eyes at me like I’m an idiot.

  “Obviously,” he says. “As soon as I got a message from my sister asking me what was wrong with me. And that I’m gross.”

  “You sent a picture of your dick to another woman and you’re telling your girlfriend that?” Ralph says from beside me and I just look at him. “And you’re okay with this?” He turns to asks me.

  “My girlfriend?” Miller says the same time I say, “He wishes.”

  “Dude, she is my social media advisor,” Miller says, and I laugh now and then look at Ariella.

  “He’s so funny because if I was his advisor, he would have deleted the app when I told him to since he doesn’t know how social media works.” I look at Miller. “Delete the app.”

  “Can we say that someone hacked my phone?” he asks, taking his phone out, and I shake my head.

  “How many contacts do you have?” Ralph asks and then takes out his own phone. “And I wonder if I got the picture.”

  “Oh, yeah, can you check?” Miller asks, and I shake my head, walking around them to the chair where I find a folded towel.

  “Are we going to go and play in the grass?” I ask, and Ari slaps my boob with her hand. “Are we going to sing?” I ask as I find a spot on the grass underneath one of the big trees. I open the towel on the grass and then sit with her between my legs, making sure I don’t flash everyone. “Look at all those people, Ariella.”

  I look over and spot Miller putting his head back and then shouting over at me. “I just deleted it again.” Shaking my head, I roll Ariella over onto her back. Her hands and feet move as she laughs at me. I grab her feet and start to sing “The Wheels on the Bus,” and when I’m almost finished, I look up at Ralph who just stands there watching us.

  “Do I want to know what else he did?” I ask, and he smirks and sits down beside me.

  “Um, let’s just say Nico got the picture also,” Ralph says. When I look over at him, I don’t think I’ve ever felt as settled as I do when I’m next to him.

  Chapter 8

  Ralph

  She looks over at me smiling, and all I can do is look at her and then down at Ari, who is kicking her feet at her. She bends over and tickles her stomach and then picks her up. “You are such a happy baby,” she says, and then Ari puts her hands in her mouth as she chews on her fingers.

  “So what do you think is going to happen?” I ask her about Miller’s situation.

  “Well,” she says, and I look at her now. “I’m going to go home and change all his passwords so I can fuck with him.” She smirks now. “Then I’m going to post a picture of him covering his face and admitting he’s not sure what happened, but he’s sorry.”

  “What else do you do for him?” I ask, and she looks at me with a weird look on her face. I look down at the grass, trying to wonder why I was so jealous of them. Why did it bother me so much that they were together? They are both two single, consenting adults, so why should it bother me? I don’t know any of the answers, but what I do know is that I fucking hate it.

  “I don’t even know what you mean with that question?” She laughs at me.

  “I didn’t mean that,” I say, holding up my hands and my stomach sinks thinking about her like that with him. “I mean not that I judge you or anything like that.”

  “Good to know.” She sounds annoyed with me now.

  “I just mean what other services do you perform?” I ask, and her eyebrow shoots up. “Oh, Jesus, I don’t mean that. I mean professionally.”

  “Wow, I didn’t think it could get worse,” she says, throwing her head back and laughing, and if I could, I would grab her hair in my hand and pull her to me to kiss the laughter off her face. But I can’t ever be the one who does that. She shakes her head and then looks at Ari. “Your dad can dig a deep hole.” Then she looks at me as she bounces Ari on her legs. “I take care of all his social media platforms except his Snapchat, obviously.” She shakes her head. “I go onto his page every single day and keep it active for the fans. I usually only take care of Twitter and Facebook and their websites.”

  “What about Instagram?” I ask her.

  “I usually recommend that they do their own, but if they don’t want to, I do it. Most of my clients take care of Instagram because they can post stories and whatnot.” She mentions Evan and the Stone family members. “The only one who refuses to do anything with social media is Matthew and Max.” I laugh. “Evan says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” She laughs now. “But they just have no interest in it.”

  “How do you decide what to post?” I ask. Suddenly, I want to ask all the questions and think of a way to beg her to work for me.

  “Well, I go over their account with them, and we pick five topics that they want to be known for or want to post,” she says.

  “What would you do if it was me?” I ask. She leans forward now when Ari squeals and kisses her.

  “I don’t usually do this on the spot,” she says, “but since I get to play with Ariella while I talk, I’ll make an exception.”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. Getting up, I look around and wonder how I’m going to take Ari away from her without being an asshole. She looks up at me. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I don’t want you bending your rules to do me a favor,” I say, my tone tighter than it should be. She looks at me, not sure if she heard me right. She then looks back at Ari and smiles at her, then gets up with her, and she hands Ari to me.

  “I wasn’t doing you any favors,” she says, staring daggers at me. “I was being genuine.” She doesn’t wait for me to answer. Instead, she turns and walks away from me. Ari and I just watch her go.

  Ari just looks at me and then back again, and I’m sure she’s saying dude what the fuck did you do? I watch her walk around everyone and go to her purse and picks it up. She walks over to Miller and tells him something. He smiles at her, nods, then kisses her on the cheek, and a pit forms in my stomach again as she quietly walks out of the backyard with no one the wiser. I don’t know how long I stand here, but when I finally do walk back to the covered awning, I spot Nico walking out of his house. “Hey, are you good?”

  “Um, yeah,” I say and then look down. “I think I need to hire someone to help me out.”

  He takes his beer and brings it to his mouth, taking a pull. “What were you thinking?”

  �
�I was talking to Becca,” I start telling him. “I have a couple of sponsors I’d like to get with, but I need to get a better handle on my social media. Someone to help me with my social media platform,” I say, hoping to fuck he doesn’t mention Candace.

  He stops and looks around the backyard. “Have you met Candace? She is the best there is out there, and if she would, I would hire her to do the team’s social media along with every single player.”

  “Yeah,” I say to him as Ari whines now, no doubt pissed that no one is playing with her. “I heard about her.”

  “I can ask around,” Nico says. “But if you can pull strings, I would get Candace. She is hands on and”—he looks around—“she knows her shit.”

  “Good to know,” I say, and then Ari starts to whine. “I think I’m going to head out and get her home,” I say, bouncing her up and down. Nico looks at Ari, then back at me.

  “Why don’t I call you tomorrow, and we can talk about things a bit?” he says, and I nod at him.

  “Yeah, that sounds like a plan,” I say, and grab my stuff and say bye to everyone. I put Ari into the seat and then clip her in the car. She fusses, but I stick the pacifier in her mouth and she looks at me as she kicks her hands and her feet.

  She looks exactly like Cassie when she gets mad, not that I was around much when she used to get mad. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure Cassie and I were going to be forever. We just clashed way too much, and when she told me she was pregnant, it threw me since she was on the pill. I never questioned her, never doubted her, but I would sometimes sit and wonder if she did it on purpose because I was pulling away from her. It’s not that I didn’t love her—I did—but she and I were together on and off for more than six years, and it was just the same cycle over and over again. But once she got pregnant, it got a bit better.