Something new about Paige since I moved away from Milan was her current obsession with SportsCenter. She said it was so that she could be as knowledgeable about football as I was, but I think she was just bored.
Over the next week, I came home to her curled in the corner of the couch, watching SportsCenter like it was reruns of The O.C.
Which was why I shouldn’t have been surprised to walk in the door after our next game—a particularly grueling home loss—to find she already had a giant glass of merlot waiting for me.
“That was a tough one to watch,” she said by way of greeting.
“Tell me about it.” I toed off my heels and sank onto the couch.
We’d been beat on every level. Even though the TV was muted, the replay currently on a loop was Luke getting sacked.
Hard.
The ball had been stripped from his hand as he hurtled to the ground, and someone from New England had nimbly picked up the stray football and ran it in for an uncontested touchdown. Instead of watching the guy who scored, my eyes stayed on Luke, the way he twisted around to watch the player take what was his. I watched the way his helmet fell back onto the turf, and he punched the ground twice before standing up. Slowly.
He’d gotten hammered tonight. And not in the fun way, the way I’d been thinking about hammering and Luke all week.
“So,” Paige drawled when she noticed what I was staring at. “Are you going to go over there? It is Sunday night. Your first Sunday night,” she clarified as if I hadn’t thought about it all damn week.
I chewed on my lip after another sip of wine. “I want to. But I don’t know what the protocol is when he got his ass kicked, literally, on the field. He must be really freaking sore.”
Paige’s face brightened. “Sexy massage?”
I smiled. “Maybe.”
She held up a finger. “I’ve got this oil I picked up in Venice. Take it with you. Rub all those muscles down and then … you know, rub something else.”
Her wink was obnoxious, but it made me laugh.
As much as I’d wanted to violently murder her for showing up when she showed up the previous week, it had been good having her in the house. She spent my money very well, helping me furnish the remaining rooms in just a few days’ time. The last of it had been delivered the day before, including a new mattress and mahogany sleigh bed for the guest room that she’d claimed as hers.
Nothing about the house looked like it did when I moved in. It didn’t smell musty with disuse. It was bright and clean and comfortable. Nothing stuffy or ornate. Probably not fitting for a team owner with more money than she’d spend in a lifetime, but I still loved it.
I liked to think that my mom was somewhere up in heaven, obnoxiously pleased that I was living in the home that had once been hers.
Weird how that house was what initially linked Luke and me. What would our relationship be if I’d even been three houses down? I’d never have met him before that first meeting. Never hated him. He never would’ve hated me.
The strength of our emotions was what made our current situation burn even hotter, in my mind. Without those initial exchanges, I couldn’t help but wonder if Luke and I would’ve had the same polite, friendly interactions that I did with every other player, and that made me inexplicably sad.
“Am I crazy?”
Paige, very used to my random thoughts with zero explanation, just shrugged her slim shoulders. “I don’t know. What do you think?”
I gave her a long look. “Not helpful.”
She took a slow sip of her wine and stared out the slider. “I think there’s a lot of potential for a messy fallout.”
Paige wasn’t wrong, but I hated hearing the words come out of her mouth. Even if I’d been circling around the same thing. “I know.”
“You own the team he plays for,” she said, lifting her fingers and checking off each item. “You’re both public figures now; you in a way that’s hugely magnified from before. His daughter idolizes you. And you live next door to each other.”
“Okay,” I interrupted. “You can stop now.”
“You asked,” she pointed out.
“I know,” I moaned, dropping my head back on the couch. “So why am I ignoring all of those incredibly valid points and still thinking about how badly I want to go over there and see if he’s waiting for me?”
Paige blew a raspberry with her lips. “Well, that is easy. He’s not like any man you’ve ever been with. He’s not a pansy or a neophyte or a narcissist or a creep. He’s a man. And he’s not intimated by you or trying to make you a pet.”
I shook my head slowly. “And, Paige, the things he can do with his tongue, and I have not even been able to properly test drive that thing …” I paused and laid on a hand on my chest. “It’s a pretty novel experience for me.”
She smiled. “Don’t tell me stuff like that, or I’ll weep into my wine with jealousy.”
“I know that’s part of it,” I conceded. “The attraction is … potent. But I just need to know it’s enough to risk everything else.”
Paige thought about that. “Risk what?”
I took another sip and let the wine roll around in my mouth. “What if the universe is trying to, I don’t know, tell me something by the fact that we keep getting interrupted? That’s not a coincidence. What if I’m doomed to fail at this owner thing, and getting mixed up with Luke will just make it so much worse if that happens?”
“Oh, my gosh,” Paige said, reaching out to smack my arm. “That’s easy enough, just don’t fail. Luke is completely separate from that.”
“Just don’t fail, she says,” I repeated on a laugh.
“I’m being serious! How many wealthy people, I’m talking obnoxiously wealthy people, own dozens of businesses and have absolutely no interaction with those companies? A lot. You’re smart enough to trust the people to do their jobs, so you show up and make the fans and players happy and keep people interested and let them do their jobs. You won’t fail. You own it; it’s not like they can fire you.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re using this as an excuse because you think Luke and his magic tongue come with a lot of risk. No offense but you haven’t had to take a ton of risk in your life.”
Paige’s face dared me to argue with her. Her stubborn little heart-shaped face dared me, complete with dewy skin and plump lips and wide, heavily lashed eyes that had made her career.
I glared at her, but I couldn’t be mad. Something was inherently annoying about a friend who told the truth, even if it was a truth that might piss you off. It meant they were secure enough in your friendship and knew you well enough to take the leap into a tough conversation.
“I’ve taken risk,” I muttered.
She laughed. “Not really. Yeah, you tried out some businesses, but you were never passionate about them. This whole thing is so much bigger, so much more important than any of that. It’s okay that you care about it, but that’s not why you’re hesitating with Luke right now.”
I felt the back of my neck bristle with the need to defend myself, so I took a deep breath. “I’m not hesitating with Luke.” At her disbelieving look, I amended it. “Not exactly. I’m just making sure I’m not walking into something certifiably insane.”
“Did it feel insane when he came over and asked you about it?”
My cheeks went hot at the memory, and I had remembered it a lot in the last week. “Not in the way I’m talking about, but yes, when I was in the hot tub, and he was standing there …” I shivered. “I felt like I’d lose my mind if I didn’t have his hands on me again. It was as if … I was possessed, Paige.”
“Then what’s with the cold feet now?”
I wiggled my toes where they were propped on the coffee table. Nothing cold about them. They were just being lukewarm cautious. Something I wasn’t used to when it came to my toes if I was being honest. “It’s always different when he’s not standing in front of me with his big hands and rippling muscles and sex eyes telling me he’s going to devour me.”
Paige slapped my arm, and I rubbed at it. “Oh, you bitch! I actually hate you now. Ugh. And a good dirty talker. I’ll tell you why you’re crazy. You’re crazy for second-guessing this.”
I found myself smiling. “You’re probably right.”
“Devour you, huh?” she said with a wide grin.
“Yup.”
“Allie girl,” she leaned forward and held up her wine glass, “I have condoms in my purse. Get your ass down there.”
I took one last glug of wine and set it down on the table with a loud clack. When I stood, I glanced out the slider and saw the aqua glow of pool lights reflecting up at me. At the far end of his lap pool sat Luke, his arms spread on either side of him like a king lounging on his throne.
He wasn’t looking up at me; his eyes were closed, and his head was resting back on the edge. Even with the distance between us, I could see the stacks of muscles in his chest through the wavy water, the black ink scrawled over it. Dates and names and pictures that probably all had some level of significance. As I stared, I thought about how those parts of him had felt under my fingertips and how they’d feel now that they were wet and cool from the water of his pool. He opened his eyes and turned his head, looking directly at me.
“Where were those condoms again?” I asked over my shoulder.
