“Just being neighborly,” Allie answered instantly. She followed it up with a sweet smile that set my teeth on edge. Aviator sunglasses sat on her face, and I didn’t like that I couldn’t fully see her, as they blocked her eyes from view. But I didn’t have to see them to know that they were the same color as the lake today.
Now, if I was a less stubborn man, someone less determined once I’d chosen a course of action, I might have been worried about why I was thinking about the fact that Allie’s eyes matched the lake when the sun hit it just right.
But I wasn’t worried. It was a natural reaction when you’d been celibate as long as I had to notice things like that.
It was natural, damn it.
“What did you talk to her about?”
Allie tapped her chin and leaned forward, but I kept my eyes trained on my own reflection in her sunglasses, not on the deep v of her simple navy bathing suit. It shouldn’t have looked as sexy as it did. But I’d wager a guess that on her, anything would look sexy.
“Well, first I asked her if she knows what your type is.” She paused, cocking her head to the side while I rolled my eyes. “Oh wait, no I didn’t. That’s not right because my world doesn’t actually revolve around you.”
When I braced my hands on my hips, she stood from the chair and mimicked my pose. Except on her, it just looked like something you’d see in a fashion magazine. With her mussed-up blond hair, the high cut of her suit on those impossibly long, toned legs, and the curve of her hips into her waist and back out at her breasts, Allie Sutton was a fucking stunner.
I hated it.
And because I hated it, I found myself snappish and surly just from being in her presence with no buffer, no one waiting in a hallway for us to be done.
“My daughter is off-limits.” I hardened my face, making myself bigger in the space between us. Except she did the same.
“Your daughter came over here, thank you very much. Do you want me to ignore her? Make her feel like she’s a nuisance?” Allie scoffed, shaking her head at me in … disgust? Disappointment? “Get over yourself, Pierson.”
“Of course, I don’t want you to make her feel like a nuisance,” I ground out.
“Good. Because I know how that feels, and if she talks to me, I’m going to talk back.”
My brain hiccupped over that, and I tried not to give her a narrow-eyed look of suspicion. What was that supposed to mean?
Something about standing in front of her made me feel like a fraud. The thought came from the part of my brain that had the flimsiest of filters. She’d been raised with every opportunity presented to her. She could’ve done anything with her life, choices laid out in front of her like a smooth arc of cards from a dealer’s hands, probably on a silver platter.
Just by being born to the right people, she now wielded an immense amount of power. She could fire anyone in the front office if she wanted, any of the men and women who made the Wolves run smoothly day in and day out.
Which was why I wasn’t stupid enough to snap back at her even though the words were ready to spring from my mouth with ease.
“Don’t worry, I’ll tell Faith to leave you alone,” I said before turning and going back home. I heard that sound again, the annoyed huff that scraped my skin like a cat’s tongue, rough and uncomfortable.
When I let myself back in my house, I took the stairs two at a time and found Faith sitting on the couch, my phone in her hand, and she was smiling at the screen.
“I’m talking to Grandma, Daddy.” Faith turned the phone, and my mom’s face greeted me.
I gave Faith a mock angry look. “Who taught you how to FaceTime?”
“You.” She giggled.
With one hand, I ruffled her hair. “What a terrible idea that was.”
“Faith was just telling me about your new neighbor, Miss Allie,” my mom said, voice heavy with meaning. “As in Allie Sutton?”
She’d heard the news then. I kept my face even since my mom had this horrible ability to see right through me. Especially when I didn’t want her to.
“Hey, turbo,” I said to Faith, “why don’t you go play in your room for a little bit, okay? I want to talk to Grandma.”
For a second, she opened her mouth like she was going to argue but nodded glumly instead. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Grandma. Love you!”
My mom smiled. “Love you too, baby. I’ll see you at the airport. I’ll be the one with the suitcase.”
Faith gave the screen a smacking kiss and ran down the hall to her bedroom.
“Your neighbor is Alexandra Sutton?” my mom asked immediately.
I rubbed my forehead and centered the screen so she could see me better. “Yes.”
“Don’t sound so excited about it.” Her face was lined with concern.
“I’m not.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
She exists.
That was what I wanted to say. What was wrong with Allie was that she existed in the house next to me and at work, and I couldn’t escape her.
“Luke,” my mom said slowly when I didn’t answer right away. “What did you do?”
I sighed heavily. “Can we just talk about this tomorrow?”
“No. I’m hiding from your sister.”
“Baby made her crazy, huh? I bet it did.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t change the subject.”
I shifted on the couch and briefly looked out the large glass slider toward the lake. I couldn’t see Allie where she was sitting on her lawn, but I knew she was still down there. I’d seen the binders stamped with the Wolves logo stacked next to her chair.
Finally, I met my mom’s knowing blue eyes. “I wasn’t exactly kind the first time I met her.”
“And the second time you met her?”
In lieu of an answer, I scratched the side of my face.
“Oh, Luke.”
“I didn’t know who she was,” I snapped.
“And that’s a good excuse? Your father and I raised you better than that.”
That was the problem. Even my own reasons for still being an ass to Allie were rooted in my own issues. My own past. Things that, if I was honest, had absolutely nothing to do with her, despite what Robert had told me.
The insidious claws of my own prejudice toward the type of women who wanted to sleep with me merely because of the size of my paycheck, because I put on pads and a helmet for a living. They didn’t care about any other part of me. In fact, I was interchangeable. If I’d swapped out with any of my teammates, they wouldn’t care.
Cassandra had been that type of woman. And she wasn’t the first like that who I’d slept with, but because the consequences of my fling with her had been far-reaching and so life-altering, it left sand and dust in my mouth anytime I thought about venturing down that road again.
It was the cheapest part of this rich life I now led. And Allie had looked like the prototype of that nightmare. That wasn’t her fault, and I knew it. I just didn’t want to say it out loud.
I didn’t want to voice that she represented all the things I actively sought to keep out of my life, out of Faith’s life. That I’d had a prejudice against her even before I’d ever met her, which also wasn’t her fault.
“I know you raised me better than that,” I told my mom. “But you also didn’t raise me to be an idiot. It’s for Faith’s benefit that I am just a little suspicious.”
“But you don’t have the reason now.” She shook her head and looked away from the screen, her disappointment like a shard of glass wedged under my skin. “Think about what that poor woman has been through. She lost the last parent she had in this world.”
“She didn’t exactly see Robert as it was.”
She clucked her tongue. “So judgey. Who does she have now? No one.”
“She’s got an entire football team,” I said dryly.
Like only a mom can, she ignored my wonderful attempt at sarcasm. “Have you apologized to her?”
I slicked my tongue over my teeth. In only the most technical sense. But had I meant it at that moment?
With embarrassment, I had to admit to myself that no, I hadn’t. She’d stood by that table, secure in the knowledge of the position she now held, whereas my own felt flimsy and fragile. Shift too far in one direction, and it felt like I’d tumble off my perch with the team. So, I’d said the words, but that was it.
“Kind of,” I told my mom.
Even from a thousand or so miles away, when my mom narrowed her eyes at me, I wanted to shrink away. “Luke Michael Pierson, you go over there right now and try again. Bring Faith the phone, and I’ll keep her occupied. You apologize to that nice woman.”
“How do you know she’s nice?” I muttered grumpily.
“If she didn’t fire your ass, then she’s probably nice.”
I had to lift an eyebrow in concession. “Good point. I mean, there’s that pesky little thing called a contract, but …”
“Go.”
“I’m going.” I stood from the couch and brought Faith the phone. She snatched it and started showing my mom all her dolls that she’d set up in a tea party. Alone in her room with blank-eyed toys for company. No wonder she went to talk to Allie. “I’ll be right back, turbo. You stay here and talk to Grandma.”
“’Kay, Daddy.”
I kissed the top of her head and slowly walked back downstairs as if a rusty-edged guillotine waited for me and not Alexandra Sutton.
As I opened the slider, I knew why. Because they could both inflict massive damage if used properly.
Careful to close the door quietly, I made my way across my own emerald green lawn with slow and steady steps, making sure my head and gut were in line.
She was just a person.
A person who’d been subjected to the ungracious side of me that I wasn’t always proud of, but still used like armor. A person who’d only risen to the bait when I’d practically forced her to. A person who’d extended me more grace than I’d extended her. And she’d made my daughter smile with enough force to light the entire state of Washington.
As much as it pained me to do so because it felt like I was betraying his memory, I had to set aside what Robert had told me as if it was proof of some crime she’d committed.
Maybe her manners were superior because that was how she was raised. Maybe it was because she was a nicer person than I was. Either way, I was a big enough man to admit that I could do better when it came to how I treated Allie.
From the other side of the hedge, now visibly battered in one spot from the newly introduced traffic between our yards, I heard a deep sigh.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and felt a deep welling of shame.
As soon as I walked through the hedge, her head lifted on a sharp snap of surprise.
“Is it okay if I interrupt for a couple of minutes?” I asked.
Allie licked her lips and then nodded, those sunglasses still covering her eyes. Instead of towering over her while she laid on the chair, I gestured to the patio set. “May I?”
“Of course.”
Pulling one of the chairs out from the table, I angled it toward her and sat, rubbing my hands along the tops of my thighs. Her fingers, long and graceful, tapped on the surface of the binder in her lap when I didn’t immediately speak.
“My apology the other day,” I started, closing my eyes briefly before I spoke again. “It sucked.”
Allie let out a surprised laugh. The hand on the binder lifted so that she could push the sunglasses into her hair. Her face was free of makeup but still held no less impact than when she was fully made-up. With it or without it, I knew that I was looking at one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen.
The thought made me swallow hard. Because how she looked didn’t matter. How I treated her did.
“We all have our reasons for why we do what we do,” I told her; a vague explanation, but it was all I wanted to give. “But my reasons don’t matter in this instance. They don’t really have anything to do with you, so they shouldn’t affect how I treat you. So I apologize for how I’ve spoken to you, and I hope we can start over.”
For a moment, her eyes narrowed as if she doubted my sincerity, so I refused to look away. It wasn’t easy because those thick-lashed eyes, bright and vivid in her flawless face, were surprisingly astute.
“Apology accepted,” she replied quietly. “And in turn, I’ll apologize for calling you a pretentious prick after the meeting.”
My lips hooked up on one side in a begrudging smile. “Well, not an unfair label, given the circumstances.”
“True.”
I pointed at the binder. “What are you working on?”
“The roster,” she said, flipping open to a page. “I want to know everyone by name by the time preseason starts.”
The page she was on was Logan’s, and I grimaced thinking about how he’d done what I should have been doing at that team meeting. “Ward is okay.”
“Yeah?”
I shrugged. “For an Ohio State grad.”
Allie smiled politely, but I could tell she didn’t get the reference.
“Our colleges are rivals,” I explained.
“Ahh.” She squinted out at the lake. “Does that stuff really matter once you’re in the pros?”
I shook my head. “No, it doesn’t. We all want the same thing now. All working toward the same goal. It makes it easy to forget all the things that seemed so big when you were playing college ball.”
Her thumb tapped lightly, and I could tell she was thinking, especially when her eyes darted over to me briefly. “I’m sorry if I crossed a line by talking to Faith.”
I held up my hands. “No, you didn’t. I have a tendency to overreact when it comes to her.”
She stared at the binder for a minute, not really focusing on the page. “I just remember watching my dad work and wishing he would … I don’t know, talk to me. Let me sit in there with him. Anything. She looked so curious, watching me from that hedge. I was looking at myself twenty years ago.”
I shook my head because the shame I’d felt earlier made a hard right into embarrassment. My mom had called me judgey, and she was not wrong.
Twenty years ago.
That was when Robert bought the team, and she was just a little girl without a mother.
After a long sigh, I swiped a hand over my mouth. There were so many things she could relate to with Faith. A father who worked an ungodly number of hours in order to be successful. The void left behind from not having a mother around, and even though I tried very hard to live well below our means, having a life of wealth and ease, free of the everyday struggles most families had to deal with.
What kind of person would that shape Faith into? Would she travel the world, known simply as the daughter of a football player? It was a perspective that allowed me to watch Allie through the lens of curiosity instead of judgment. Like I’d finally given myself permission to view her more clearly and not through the foggy lens of my own bias.
“Can I ask you something?”
She smiled. “In the spirit of this football-related truce, sure.”
I clasped my hands together, and they hung between my spread legs, elbows propped on my thighs. “The other day in the meeting, I asked you why you didn’t sell, but you never really answered.”
There was a spark of humor in her eyes as she watched me. It did something luminous to her as if someone lit a match behind a piece of wavy blue-green glass. You could see the glow, maybe even feel the warmth, even if you couldn’t make out the source of where those things were coming from. “Maybe I didn’t answer because you spit the words at me like they were weapons.”
“Touché.”
Allie sat up, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around the front of her legs. Staring out at the lake, she rested her chin on her knees and looked so much younger than she had the day before in front of the team. In comparison, I felt old and tired with battle-scarred skin and muscles where she was all lithe and firm with soft, full curves exactly where they should be.
“We all have our reasons for why we do what we do,” she said, using my words from earlier. I dropped my chin to my chest and smiled. She turned her head to the side, cheek resting on her kneecap and her eyes aimed at me. Something new and uncomfortable tumbled through me with that look, and I absolutely refused to name it or unpack what it might mean. “Maybe someday I’ll be ready to explain this one.”
We sat in silence for a while with the sound of waves and rustling leaves, and boat engines rising and receding the only things breaking that up.
“I’m just ready to focus on football again,” I told her, surprised by my honesty. “It’s all the extra stuff that makes me cranky.”
“You?” There was a smile in her voice. I didn’t look at her mouth to see what it looked like.
It was a tenuous truce, only a few cautiously asked questions and vague answers serving as the foundation. But it was a start.
