When I was doing my interview for Sports Illustrated, the reporter asked me a question that I wish I could answer differently. It wasn’t that what I’d said was wrong or something not true. I just wanted to say something that was now more right. More true.
“What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned through this whole process?” was what he’d asked.
“Besides what a salary cap means?” We both smiled, knowing this wasn’t my real answer. Before I spoke again, I gave the question significant weight by pausing, thinking back on the last month. “I’ve learned that I’m capable of a hell of a lot more than I gave myself credit for.”
I could tell my answer pleased him with the twist of his lips and the slow nod of his head. And I still felt that way. We’d won our second game, this time at home, the article absolutely blew up, was shared by millions on social media, and it was overwhelmingly positive. Two months earlier, if someone had told me that I’d be in that position, with this kind of reach, this kind of impact, I would’ve laughed my ass off. So my answer still held a firm grip on the truth.
But what was more true now was this: the gaining of knowledge was transformative and irreversible. I could never un-know the things that I’d learned in the past eight weeks. About myself, about the team, how incorrectly I’d viewed its impact in my father’s life. About Luke.
Luke most of all.
Maybe it was silly that in the midst of all those things and the bearing they now held on my life, he was the thing I couldn’t get out of my head.
Because I knew things now even if I couldn’t really explain them.
For example, I knew that Luke was such a mothereffing good kisser, I’d almost let him screw me on my hotel desk.
I knew that his hands were huge and covered my ribcage with ease.
I knew that when he sucked on my tongue, it caused an involuntary clenching of my thighs.
I knew that when he rocked his hips against me, he was either hiding a steel pipe in his jeans or he was very, very blessed.
And I knew that I wanted to revisit all those things again. With regularity.
Maybe it was because I hadn’t had sex in months. A really long string of successive months that should probably depress me if I thought about it, but that was mainly because most of the men who had balls enough to come talk to me and hit on me were usually egotistical assholes.
Hedge-fund managers and models who spent more time looking in the mirror than they did conversing with actual humans, or men old enough to be my father and somehow thought it was appropriate to proposition a twenty-six-year-old woman.
But Luke was different. I’d never met a man quite like him before. Okay, fine, I had to factor in that he loathed me on sight and wrote me off as a gold-digging, whore-y football groupie before I’d even opened my mouth, but even that was completely novel for me. It lent an element of refreshing honesty to our relationship, whatever that might be.
If Luke stripped off his shirt for me, if he licked my neck, bit the flesh over my spine, smelled my hair, and told me he wanted to see me naked, it was damn well the truth. It was in spite of what he’d thought of me when we first met. In spite of the fact that I owned the team he played for. In spite of every possible roadblock laid out in front of us.
Luke wanted me.
And, oh sweet baby wolves on the fifty-yard line, I wanted him too.
Knowledge. It rearranged your brain, allowing space, shifting your perception of reality and making sense of what the domino effect might be.
My mistake in this little bombshell was trying to explain it to Paige when we FaceTimed.
“I think,” she said slowly, concern etched over her pretty face, “that you have lost your mind.”
I laughed. “Oh, come on, you know what I’m saying. I know things now, Paige. I can’t un-know them.”
“Mm-hmm. You mentioned that. It’s cute. You should make it a bumper sticker.”
I lifted my hand so she could clearly see my middle finger on the screen.
It was her turn to laugh. Beyond where she was sitting on the sleek black couch, I could see our little patio set on the veranda, the uneven rows of tall, narrow buildings of Milan in the background.
“So … you know you want to bang your neighbor. It’s not the end of the world.”
“No,” I agreed, “it’s not. I’ve barely seen him since we got back from that game, though. The players’ schedule during the regular season is insane. I don’t know how he balances it, especially as a single father.”
Paige propped her chin in her hand and grinned at the screen. “It’s so hot that he’s a single dad. I Googled him last week when you sent me your post-kiss freak-out texts.” She shook her head. “Allie, that man is en fuego. Like for real. He could be the long-lost Hemsworth brother, and I would not be shocked in the slightest. And he friggin’ felt you up, girlfriend.”
“I know,” I groaned. “I can’t stop thinking about it. About him. And I have a thousand other things that need to be more important in my head than one make-out session that might not get repeated anytime soon.”
Through the screen, Paige smiled at me. “But you want to.”
“I’m not even going to pretend like I don’t, Paige.” I tucked my knees up to my chest and stared out the slider. From where I was sitting, I could see his deck, which was empty. This time of day on a Wednesday, he’d be at practice or reviewing film somewhere with his offensive coordinator and the quarterback’s coach. The level of his dedication—of all the players, the coaches, and the coordinators—was one of the most mind-boggling things I’d ever seen.
“What are you up to this week?” I asked her. “Any shoots?”
She shrugged, narrowing her gray eyes somewhere past the screen. “Nah, not this week.”
“Paige.”
“Allie.”
“What’s the body language I’m seeing here? It’s weird. You’re acting weird.”
My friend did not fidget. She moved like a ballet dancer in shoots, could glide over a runway like her feet were made from clouds or something, but she made a weird twitchy move with her shoulders and started chewing on her lip.
“I don’t know. I think I’m getting bored with Milan.”
I clucked my tongue. “Well, duh, I left. Of course, you are.”
We both smiled. Paige ran a hand through her dark red hair, one of her trademarks, and sighed. “Maybe that’s it. I’m too much of an extrovert, and you left me all alone here, and I’m just … ugh, I think I’m getting bored being a model. Point and click, pose, angle your shoulders, suck in your gut …”
“You do not have a gut,” I interjected harshly. “You’re like a size one.”
“I know that. But photographers are assholes.”
“Not all of them,” I pointed out. She rolled her eyes. “You know I’m right. But so what if you’re getting bored with modeling. No one says you have to do it forever.”
“Yeah, I guess. Maybe I’ll come to Seattle and stay in your big mansion, and you can be my sugar momma.”
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “I’m not in the mansion, and you know it.”
“I know. Why aren’t you, again?”
I looked around the family room, now fully furnished and feeling like me. The large couch, now with matching chairs, were soft and white. The hardwood floors had area rugs of dark blue and white covering it. Along the wall with the rock-covered fireplace, I’d found some tall white vases that I loved, each holding spiky green fronds. The bookshelves flanking either side were slowly being filled with pictures I’d found in boxes downstairs. Mom and I when I was little. She and my father on their wedding day.
The upper deck wasn’t empty anymore. I had a long rectangular dining table in dark wood and chairs to match, which was where I ate most of my meals, looking over the lake. Someday, I’d have enough people over to fill the chairs, then I could light the candles lining the middle and not feel like I was wasting it on just me.
“It feels like my home,” I said to Paige. It was the best answer I could give. “My dad’s house is way too big for just me anyway. I really need to call a realtor and have them list it for me, furniture and all.”
“There’s nothing in there you want to keep?” she asked skeptically.
“Anything sentimental that was tied to my mom was brought here. Anything from my childhood is in storage from when he renovated a few years ago, and anything else that I might find important is at his office.” I shrugged. “That was just … a house. And it’s a house I don’t need.”
“Just add the sale money to your ever-growing pile of cash,” she teased.
I stretched. “Don’t you know? I told them to print it all off so I can swim in it. Every night, I lay it on my bed like a blanket.”
She snorted. “I’d punch you if you were ever that obnoxious.”
There was movement on Luke’s deck, and I smiled at Faith skipping around the edge wearing a black and white Wolves’ jersey over some sparkly leggings. Her dad was obscenely wealthy, just like mine was. Or like I was now. And she was happy to skip around a deck on a sunny day after school.
“It doesn’t even feel real, Paige.”
“What doesn’t?”
“The money. Any of it. I could read financial statements until my eyes bleed, but my dad’s wealth, my wealth, is this weird, abstract thing that I don’t really have a firm grasp on in my head. I’ve been so focused on getting up to speed with the team, and it’s like, I finally have to try to come to terms with exactly how much he left me with, and what I’m going to do with it.”
Faith did a spin on the deck like a clumsy ballerina, and it made me smile. I hadn’t noticed before, but she was wearing the number one on the jersey. The jersey I’d worn in the photo shoot. Ava had insisted that the pro shop start carrying them. And Luke’s daughter had one.
My heart could hardly take it.
“Like invest in real estate or something?”
Another spin with her arms above her head and Faith had my brain whirring. I thought of the little girls at the first game, who wanted my autograph on their sign. Team Sutton, it had said.
“Like maybe a foundation.” I tapped my finger against my mouth while my head spun with ideas. “You know how I told the reporter that I was surprised at how much I was capable of? It wasn’t because anyone told me I couldn’t do things when I was growing up. But I wasn’t told that I could either.”
Paige’s expression sharpened like it did when she was interested. “So like leadership development?”
I felt a smile spread across my face. “Yeah, maybe. I know it would be a lot of work to get it up and running, but wouldn’t that be amazing? Have a camp every year, go speak in schools, there are so many things you could do to help little girls recognize their potential.”
“Well, holy shit, Alexandra Sutton. You’re the boss for like three seconds, and all of a sudden, you’re a mogul.” She nodded. “I like it.”
I liked it too. Just the seed of it in my head felt good. Felt important. Less like I’d been swept up in the tide of something and more like I was the one making the wave.
Paige and I said our goodbyes, and I walked over to the slider to watch Faith dance around.
Had I ever acted like that as a little girl? Probably. I just couldn’t remember. So much of my younger years were hazy chunks that I couldn’t recall; maybe because I spent more time with nannies and house staff than I ever did with my father. I had snippets of clear memories, but none of them were of me dancing around by myself in a home filled with love and support where decisions were made for my sole well-being.
Maybe that sounded terribly like I was a poor little rich girl, but the truth was that Faith was wealthy in something I’d never had. Luke loved her more than anything, and he didn’t care who saw it.
Real men loved their kids like that. It was just another piece of the Luke Pierson puzzle that did absolutely nothing to stem the rise of desire inside me. And that probably meant I was screwed.
