The first indication that I was waking up under not-normal circumstances was that everything smelled like a man. Manly man.
Like the kind of man smell that made you close your eyes, dig your nose in the nearest fabric, and inhale like a crack addict who just got a rolled dollar bill shoved up under your nose.
So naturally, that was what I did.
Since I woke to an unfamiliar pillow clutched in my arms, I curled into it and took the most blissful, long, sex-induced inhale of my life.
Luke.
It smelled like Luke.
And since I was currently alone in his California King Bed, I knew that it was just from being in his bed, in his room, in his home.
From the brightness of the sky, I knew he’d already be at the facilities, probably getting a massage or his bones cracked into place, which … ooh, I stretched and winced.
I could use a little of that too.
A blissed-out smile spread across my face because holy hell, that night had been one for the record books.
I knew it made me a very, very bad owner to say, but if losing a game did that to a man, then I’d be awfully tempted to tell them to lose more often.
Turning on my back, I ran a hand over my forehead to clear my face of my tangled, bird’s nest hair and tried to do the same to my tangled, bird’s nest thoughts.
Some things I knew for sure.
One- Something was different last night. When I saw the post-game press conference from the comfort of my living room, I saw in his eyes the moment he realized what he’d said about me. Nothing was inappropriate, nothing that could be twisted into a story that was ugly or sordid, but I was watching him through the lens of our little … agreement.
Two- That agreement was shot to shit into a million teeny, tiny pieces now. The second Luke brought me up those stairs, we clicked into a new category. What? No freaking idea. But that brought me to bullet point numero tres.
Three- I wanted more than Sunday nights. And I was pretty sure Luke did too. He held me like I was precious. Made of glass. Something to be cherished and taken care of. But screwed me senseless while also being cherished. In public, to reporters, he spoke of me with respect. With a protectiveness that had made my eyes water.
“What is happening here?” I asked the empty room.
It didn’t answer.
I turned over again, studying his private space. The ceilings, much like my own, were peaked and white, with open beams stretching across the length and ending at a massive wall of windows. The windows faced the lake, as did mine, and were thankfully covered by white lined curtains.
The bed was on a simple iron frame and clad in a light gray bedspread. An empty fireplace broke up the far wall, and on either side of the warm-toned brick were open shelves lined with books, some old trophies, a few framed photos of Faith, and an older couple who must be his parents.
Next to the fireplace was a brown leather club chair with a short, fat floor lamp just behind it, perfect for reading.
On either side of the bed were dark mahogany end tables, mine empty and slightly dusty, his holding a water bottle, a phone charging cord, and a few loose coins. Doorways on the other wall led to a bathroom and maybe his closet. It was clean and simple but not boring.
I mean, I could spruce it up pretty quickly if he was interested in that sort of thing.
As soon as the thought grew wings, I smacked my forehead.
Turns out, it was completely unnecessary as a distraction technique because from outside the shut and hopefully locked door, I heard Faith giggle, then a woman respond.
My mouth fell open. My cheeks burned hot. My heart threatened to crack its way out of my chest.
His mom and daughter were riiiiight outside the room. And I was five minutes away from doing the walk of shame in front of them because I had no clue what time it was, and I was supposed to meet with Joy this morning.
Freaking awesome.
I sat up and blew out a quick breath. My choices were limited. When I’d walked over last night, I left my phone sitting in my own bedroom because I thought I’d be gone for thirty minutes max, so texting Luke to see how long they might be home was out of the question. I could don the jersey I wore over here, shimmy down the edge of the deck and pray no one saw me, or I could snag some clothes from his closet, lift my chin, and accept the situation for what it was.
Shitty. Embarrassing. Absolutely, completely, soul-crushingly mortifying.
Beyond that, I had to take a second and drop my head in my hands and breathe through the sharp flutters of panic.
I’d never met his mom before.
And I was about to walk out of his bedroom, which shouted a whole host of truths that even Faith would catch on to.
I whimpered a bit because the last thing I wanted to do was get her twisted up in the middle of this before Luke was ready.
Which was why people normally, like, woke the other person up and kindly told them to vacate back to their own house before their impressionable six-and-a-half-year-old daughter saw them.
Lifting my head, I took a deep breath and stared at the door.
I flung the covers from me and peeked around the edge of the closet, just to make sure it didn’t like, secretly connect to the kitchen or anything.
Whew.
Without spending too much time digging through his walk-in closet, I found a pair of black athletic shorts that I rolled twice around my hips so that they didn’t fall. Even though it was painfully obvious and horribly cliché, I slipped the jersey back over my head because I couldn’t think of a better alternative in his closet when it came to braless apparel.
In the floor-length mirror, I did what I could by combing through my hair with my fingers, tugging it together into a quick braid that came over the front of my shoulder.
Not the worst I’d looked, I thought wryly. Just not how I ever imagined meeting his mother.
With that, I whimpered again and marched to my fate.
When I quietly opened his bedroom door and peeked out, his mom did an almost comical double take as she was flipping pancakes on a large electric griddle.
Her hair was short and peppered with gray, nothing about her like Luke because of how short and petite she was.
Except for her eyes. She had the exact same eyes as he did.
Faith was mid-chew when she noticed her grandma staring at something. When she saw me, she gasped, flying off the stool with pancake bulging in her cheek.
Her cast-clad arm wrapped around my waist.
“Miss Allie! Hi! What are you doing here? Did you just come to say hi?”
Her face was sticky with syrup, and I smoothed a hand down her neatly braided hair, trying not to laugh hysterically at the fact that yup, I’d definitely come over to say hi. I’d said hi three times last night.
Luke’s mom recovered remarkably well, much better than I did, as I was still trying to force words out of my useless mouth.
“Faith, get your tushy back here and finish those pancakes. We leave for school in fifteen minutes.”
When she did as she was asked, I steadied my breathing, and extended my hand to Luke’s mom, as though I wasn’t currently without underwear and wearing her son’s gym shorts.
“I’m Allie Sutton. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
She took it firmly, eyes twinkling, lips curved slyly. “Roxanne Pierson. I’ve heard so many good things about you.” Her eyes darted to Faith, who was happily munching her pancakes. “From my son and my granddaughter.”
My cheeks may have matched the red on the jersey, but Roxanne didn’t seem to mind.
“Oh,” I stammered, “that’s … nice.”
Even if it was wildly untrue. I could just about imagine some of the stuff Luke might have said about me just a few short weeks ago.
“I told her you looked like Barbie,” Faith said.
Roxanne and I laughed. Unlike mine, I doubted her laugh was to cover up the rapidly growing mania crawling over my skin because I was the one stuck in a kitchen that wasn’t mine, with a mother and a daughter of the man I was casually, maybe not casually sleeping with.
But that wasn’t Faith’s fault, and God love her, she thought I looked like Barbie.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” I told Faith with a smile. “But you’re sweet to say so.”
“Pancake?” Roxanne asked with an expert flip of her wrist. Another golden-brown circle appeared on the steaming hot griddle. The sweet smell of batter filled my nose, a strange and unexpected replacement from the smell of Luke from when I woke.
Outside of a restaurant, when was the last time someone made me breakfast?
Paige poured me some Fruit Loops last week, but no matter what she might say, that didn’t count.
When I was Faith’s age, I had a housekeeper who would cook for me, who’d pour a large cup of orange juice for my dad before he straightened his tie, said hello to me, and wished me a good day at school before he went to work.
I blinked out of the memory and into the much warmer one in front of me. “Oh, no thank you. I’ll, umm, I’ll just eat at home. I have a meeting that I need to get ready for.”
Roxanne opened her mouth to say something when Faith turned and pinned me with a disconcertingly direct look for a six, almost seven-year-old. “Do you work as much as my daddy does?”
My eyebrows popped up in surprise. Roxanne did the same.
“No,” I answered after a beat. “Your daddy works a lot more hours than I do. To be good at what he does takes a lot more time than my job does.”
It was a careful answer, but truthful all the same.
Faith didn’t react as I expected her to. She bent her eyebrows in and twirled the tines of her fork in a spot of syrup on her white plate. As soon as she stopped, the syrup slowly filled right back in.
“Do you know how long Daddy will play football?”
When I imagined how this walk of shame would play out, it wasn’t this.
Roxanne sent her granddaughter a soft smile but didn’t brush her question aside. Nor did she rush to answer it and avert the spotlight from me. I couldn’t blame her since I’d gotten myself into this situation.
The situation being Faith, right smack dab in the middle of whatever Luke and I were doing. The thought of brushing her off and telling her to talk to her dad made my stomach curl unpleasantly. Her sweet, big brown eyes did weird things to my chest, so I rolled my teeth between my lips for a second while I thought about what to say.
“I don’t know, Faith. I’ve never talked to your dad about that.”
Or a whole hell of a lot, really, which made this conversation even more bizarre. Again, I wondered why he’d brought me to his bed, to his room. Why he’d left me sleeping alone when he could have woken me early and asked me to slip out before Faith, before his mother, woke up.
Most of all, I wondered why he’d reached for me again and again as the moon switched places with the sun.
Maybe I was reading too much into it. Maybe he thought I’d sleep well past when they’d be out the door for school.
So many maybes that only one man could answer if he so chose.
“Could you,” the little girl asked tentatively, licking her lips before giving her grandma a quick glance, “could you maybe fire him so he’s always home with me?”
Oof. I made a sound as I slowly sat next to her on one of the empty barstools. Roxanne gave me a small, encouraging smile. Wasn’t this a grandma question to answer? I was nowhere near qualified to tell this adorable little thing why I couldn’t fire her dad.
Honestly, I probably wasn’t even qualified to have any conversation with her because I’d hack my hair off with a rusty blade before I gave her the wrong impression about what I was in Luke’s life.
I knew the kind of damage that might do to a kid like her.
So instead of rubbing her back like my hand itched to do, I curled my fingers around each other and set them carefully in my lap.
“You must miss him a lot, huh?” I asked.
She nodded.
Deep breath, Allie, and holy crap, don’t screw this up.
“I can’t fire your dad because you miss him, sweetheart.” Her face fell, and I lifted a hand, softly laying it on her bird-like little shoulder. “But you know what’s amazing?”
She looked up at me. “What?”
“Men like your dad only work that hard for a couple of reasons. And one of them is because they love something so much that it’s worth all those hours, and all the stuff he has to do to be good at his job. I’ve heard him talk about you, sweetie, and he loves you so much more than anything else in this world. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be doing all this to make sure you have the most amazing life possible. That’s why he works so hard. For you.” I let out a slow breath, surprised at the lump stuck in my throat, wide like a boulder and as immovable as one. “My dad worked a lot too,” I found myself saying, my voice thick and syrupy. “And it was really hard for me to understand at the time why he couldn’t be with me instead. And I missed him terribly when he wasn’t around.”
Roxanne let out a tiny sniff, but I didn’t look away from Faith, who was watching me, me, as if I had all the answers in the world.
“Now I see just what all his work has done for my life.” Where were these words coming from? They couldn’t be coming from me because that voice was all warbly and full of tears. “Without all the work he did, I couldn’t have traveled the world or seen so many beautiful places.” I squeezed her shoulder and tugged at the edge of her braid as I felt a tear spill over down my cheek. “I wouldn’t know people like you, and your dad, if mine hadn’t worked so hard. And I wish I could thank him for that. For the opportunity I have because of everything he did.”
Faith’s lip wobbled, and the icy sweep of panic I felt whipped away any lump in my throat. Please, please don’t let her cry.
“I’m sorry I made you sad, Miss Allie,” she whispered.
“Oh, sweetie, I’m not sad.” I gathered her in a hug when she flung herself at me. I could hardly look at Roxanne for fear of what I’d see.
Then her little hand came up and pressed against my cheek. “Look, you’re crying.”
Well, if I wasn’t before, I certainly was after that. My vision blurred dangerously, and I used my free hand to swipe at my face. “Oh, that, it’s okay. Just … I think I’ve got pancake smoke in my eyes.”
I started to stand because this had gone waaaay too deep, way too fast.
When you start with me naked in Luke’s bed and end with three women crying in the kitchen, it’s time to get the hell out of dodge.
Roxanne cleared her throat, giving me a surreptitious pat on the shoulder. Oh hell no, if she hugged me, I’d lose my shit, fall into her arms, and unload twenty years of repressed grief or something. That one tear that fell was more than I could even process right now.
“Faith, honey, we need to get you to school.”
Faith nodded, giving me a smile as I walked toward the slider. “Bye, Miss Allie.”
The walk from his deck, down the stairs, and over to mine was short. Yet it felt like a mile.
What the hell had just happened?
And why was my first instinct to pick up my phone and call him, make sure it was okay, that I’d done okay with Faith.
I just … wanted to hear his voice.
Oh, this was bad. This was such a very, very inconvenient time to feel stupid, fluttery, inconvenient, falling in love type of feelings.
In. Con. Ven. Ient.
Then I snorted as I let myself into the lower level of my house. The moment he turned to me last night and saw me waiting for him, I should have known I was falling for him.
Because at that moment, Luke Pierson looked at me in a way no one ever had before.
Before he ever laid a hand on me, kissed me, told me I was perfect, I saw the overwhelming relief, the staggering need on his face to find me there.
And I felt truly beautiful.
Even before that, I should have known. But that didn’t matter because when I started feeling it was irrelevant. It didn’t change the fact that Luke and I had a list of complications a hundred yards long, literally, that was standing between us. If that was even something he’d want to explore.
What I would do with these pesky, fizzy feelings, I didn’t have to decide just yet. They would keep just fine for another day. Or another week, if we kept to the same schedule. I climbed the stairs with a dopey smile on my face because, after my meeting with Joy, I would be able to crawl into my own bed and relive every ache-inducing second of last night. Maybe after a hot bath and a couple of Advil, that is.
Paige was standing behind the couch, phone in hand, when she saw me. “Holy shit, Allie, if you’re going to go next door for a sleepover, take your phone with you.”
I lifted my eyebrows at the sharp tone of her voice, so I tried to laugh it off. “Aren’t really pockets in this outfit, if you know what I mean.”
Paige’s face went sheet white, and I narrowed my eyes.
“What?”
She swallowed nervously, then jerked her chin at the TV. “You have a problem. Ava has been calling you nonstop for the last hour.”
The sound was muted, but in a dark, grainy shot behind the reporter’s head was a picture of me, tongue shoved in Luke’s mouth, and his hand up underneath the jersey I’d been wearing last night.
My entire body started shaking as I read the headline along the top.
Wolves’ QB tries out new position with sexy team owner.
That was pretty much when I passed out; Paige’s voice the last thing I heard as my vision turned black.
