Page 24

twenty-three

Harlow

Knox and I part briefly when we get back to the hotel. I want a shower after sweating at the game all night. Once I’m cleaned off, I throw on a black tank top and a pair of gray shorts before I meet him in his room.

He greets me at the door in nothing but a pair of blue athletic shorts. Tonight is going to be fucking torture if I have to look at him like that . “Come on in, Lo,” Knox says as I walk into the room.

I sniff the air as I walk in. “Knox, does it smell like… onion rings?”

He rubs his neck. “Uh, yeah… I ordered some onion rings from room service. I remember how much you liked them before.”

I take him by surprise and wrap him in a hug. “Thank you. That’s sweet.”

“Do we hug now, Freckles?” he asks with a laugh as he wraps his arms around my shoulders.

“You’ve had your tongue down my throat, Knox. I think you can handle a hug.”

“Well, I do know I can handle your kisses,” he says as he pulls me in a little tighter.

I lean my head back. “Knox Spencer, are you flirting with me?”

“Have I not been doing that already?” he replies with a smirk as he breaks the hug and walks over to his bed. “So much missed opportunity then.”

“Why you wanna flirt with me?” I ask as I sit on the bed beside him, inhaling the heavenly scent of onion rings.

Knox smirks at me before grabbing an onion ring and taking a bite. “Why wouldn’t I wanna flirt with you, Lo?”

“Answering a question with a question is a terrible deflection, you know.”

“Deflections are easier than the truth, though,” he says lowly.

What exactly does that mean? If that’s not the truth, what is?

Maybe this desire does indeed go both ways. Maybe he does want me like I want him.

That is highly enticing… and very dangerous.

“So, uh…” I stammer, trying to break what feels like awkward tension. “Do you want to watch something?”

“Is it weird if I say I actually just want to talk tonight?”

“From the man who used to not utter more than two words to me, it’s a little odd, but I’m getting used to this new version of you.”

He laughs and shakes his head. “You really are something, Lo.”

“You keep telling me that. I don’t know if that’s supposed to be good or bad, though.”

“It’s good.” He smiles at me softly. “It’s definitely good.”

“Now, that is some high praise from you.”

Knox leans in closer, his lips brushing my ear. “You like praise, Harlow?” A shiver runs down my body, and my breath catches in my throat.

“I, uh… I don’t know,” I admit. “I’ve never actually been… praised before.”

He places a finger under my chin, and his eyes meet mine. “Then you’ve been with some shitty men, haven’t you?”

“Something like that,” I reply softly, hands instinctively rising up to cover my cheeks.

Knox reaches for my hands and lowers them. “You covering those pretty freckles has to do with one of those shitty men, doesn’t it?”

I take a deep breath and cross my legs as I turn to face him, Knox doing the same. “Yeah,” I admit. “My ex-boyfriend Derek wasn’t a fan of my freckles.”

“What does that mean, Lo?”

“It means that he told me they made me…” I sigh, “Less attractive.” I turn my head down and look at the bed. It’s hard to admit something like that. I’m ashamed of letting Derek get into my head like he did, but I’ve been fighting like hell to get myself back.

“Harlow,” he says, taking hold of my hands. “Look at me, please.” I slowly lift my head up to face him. “He couldn’t have been more wrong.” Knox lightly runs his thumb across my cheek. “You’re stunning. You always have been. But the freckles help you stand out even more.”

“You don’t need to talk me up. I’ve been getting better about not letting his words affect me anymore, but you don’t need to just say things to make me feel better.”

“Come on, Lo,” he says with a slight smile. “We both know I wouldn’t do something like that. Too much of an asshole, remember?”

That actually makes me smile. “You’re not an asshole, Knox. I don’t think you ever have been.”

“Ooh, that’s where you’re wrong, Freckles. I bet if you keep getting to know me, you’ll figure that out.”

“So, tell me more about you then. I’ve been learning a lot, but I want to know more.”

Knox sighs. “Okay,” he relents. “But tell me more about what this jackass Derek did first so I can tell you just how wrong he was.”

I snag an onion ring and take a bite. “Oh, he was just your run-of-the-mill misogynistic prick.”

“Ah, the kind of man who’s intimidated by a woman’s success,” he says, taking the onion ring from my hand and popping the rest into his mouth. He smiles as I laugh.

“He was the kind of man that would put me down. My freckles made me less attractive. Running my blog was a ridiculous idea because ‘girls don’t care about sports.’ I needed to keep in shape so he’d still want me. Things like that.”

“Well, I already covered the freckles. As far as the blog, it’s a fucking fantastic idea. Saying that girls don’t like sports is one of the most absurd comments I’ve heard because there are entire leagues of women’s sports, and the stands for our games are always filled with female fans.” He hands me another onion ring to replace the one he stole. “As for that last one, that’s the most incorrect thing you listed. Fuck what shape you’re in. Anybody would want you, Harlow.”

“Anybody, huh?” I say, flirting with him like he did with me earlier.

Knox looks me right in the eyes as he says, “Anybody.”

Oh, there’s that charge between us again. This time, it’s unmistakable, though. The heat pooling between my legs proves that.

Knox wants me . And I know I want him. But we can’t do a goddamn thing about it. This is fake. He’s my brother’s friend, I’m his friend’s little sister. He’s Fort Knox, I’m an open book. We’re incompatible in so many ways.

Tell that to my body, though, since it didn’t get the memo. My entire body is on fire right now, and if Knox touches me, I might actually combust. It’s a bad idea, but fuck , do I not care about that right now.

“So,” he says, severing the tension and electricity between us. “How long were you with him?”

“Oh,” I say awkwardly. “Just over a year.”

“That’s a long time for someone to put you down that much. Must’ve been hard to get over.”

“I’m still getting over it,” I reply honestly. “I’m much better now than when I left him about a year ago. I struggle occasionally, especially with the freckles, but I’ve really improved.”

“They didn’t tell me the details, but the guys all talked about how you’re more like your old self again.”

“Yeah.” I sigh. “The year I was with him had me at my absolute lowest. It took a lot of encouragement from my friends and family to leave him since he had me believing nobody would ever want me if he didn’t. But I left, and I’ve gotten a little bit better each day since.”

Knox rubs his hand up and down my arm. “I can’t imagine knowing you without the spark in your eye.”

“Technically, you did. We just didn’t talk much then, so you wouldn’t have noticed.”

“A terrible mistake on my part,” he says shyly. “But I’m happy I know you now.”

“I’m happy you do, too.” We share genuine smiles as I note the sparkle in Knox’s beautiful green eyes. Butterflies erupt in my stomach, and I have no control over them. My breathing quickens as I try to grapple with my mind, telling myself it doesn’t mean anything because I couldn’t be developing feelings for the mysterious man in front of me right now. That just wasn’t possible.

Right?

“I, uh… promised you that I’d tell you more about me as well,” Knox says, breaking eye contact.

“Yeah,” I reply clumsily. “You did say that.”

“Well,” he says, gulping, “how much do you wanna know?”

“Just whatever you’re comfortable telling me.” I place a hand on his arm to reassure him. “I know it’s hard for you to trust someone, so I don’t want you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with.”

“That’s the weird thing about this arrangement, Lo.” He smiles at me. “It might be fake, but I trust you completely. That’s hard for me to do, yes, but there’s something about you that puts me completely at ease.”

I smile widely. “I’m really glad you can trust me then, Knox. I’d never do anything to break that trust.”

“I know you wouldn’t. That’s the only reason I’m considering telling you this.”

“Telling me what?” I ask curiously.

He sighs as he lays back on the bed. “About what happened that made me become who I am. The guy known as an asshole who won’t ever let anyone in.”

I lay down on the bed beside him, and we both turned to face each other. “You weren’t always like that?”

“No,” he admits. “I honestly used to be pretty optimistic. But one situation took all the optimism out of me, and I’ve kept most everyone at arm’s length since.”

I reach out my hand and lightly rub his arm. “Don’t say anything you don’t want to, but whatever you do say, I promise it’s safe with me.”

He softly smiles at me and says, “I know, Lo. I trust you. “ That admission is all I need to relaunch the butterflies, but I fight them harder this time. Knox deserves my undivided attention, so I don’t want to rummage through my own mind right now.

He takes a deep breath before starting. “Okay, the first thing I need is for you to promise you won’t judge me. I was a naive young adult at the time.”

I eye him curiously. “I’m not going to judge you, Knox. Whatever happened won’t change how I look at you.”

“Thank you, Harlow.” He lets out a deep breath. “This happened right after my junior year of college. Cole obviously plays baseball, so I’m sure you’re familiar with how the draft works, but I turned twenty-one the previous September. The draft was held in early June that year, and the Stars took me with the first overall pick.

“I know it will sound conceited, but I was one of the most sought-after prospects in that draft. I honestly had teams interested in drafting me when I was eighteen, but I opted to play a few years of college ball before heading to the majors. All that to say, my name was well-known already, and once I made my debut with the Stars, it was likely to only get bigger. Everyone would know who I was.

“Well, I had a girlfriend at the time—Emily. We’d been together for maybe six months at that point. When I was drafted, Emily planned a night for us to celebrate my achievement. I was a horny twenty-one-year-old, so I’m sure you can guess what that entailed.”

“I’m going to guess you spent that entire night in your bedroom,” I say with a snicker.

“Yeah,” Knox says quietly. “Really wish I hadn’t, though. Because what Emily didn’t tell me was that she had set up cameras around my room when I was in the shower. Every part of that night, the sweet, sensual, and very X-rated parts, were recorded in HD.”

“She recorded you!” I say, gasping at the audacity of this woman I’ve never met. “I can’t imagine what it was like when you found out.”

He runs a hand through his hair. I’ve started to notice he does that when he’s nervous. “I wish I could say that’s the worst of it, but that’s really just the beginning. It doesn’t get better from here.” He sighs, clearly uncomfortable.

“Knox,” I say, cupping his cheek in my hand. “You don’t need to tell me anything more.”

“No,” he replies. “I actually want to. I’ve never told anyone about this because my life could’ve been ruined, but I want to get it off my chest. I want to tell you.“ Knox takes a few more deep breaths before continuing the story. “From the recordings Emily took, she made several… sex tapes,” he says as if in physical pain. “But the tapes weren’t for her or for me. She planned to sell them.”

“Oh my God!” I shriek, completely dumbfounded. How could somebody do that to such a sweet man like Knox?

“She had left her computer open once and had an email on her screen. I didn’t have a reason to suspect anything, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed to see that email. So, I peeked… and found that she had been communicating with a certain tabloid. They’d formed a plan. Once I made my debut for the Stars, they would distribute the videos. They were going to be plastered everywhere . When everyone knew who I was, they were going to put that out.”

“Why would she do that?” I ask, fighting back tears. I can hear the hurt in Knox’s voice as he tells me this, and it breaks me to see him that way.

“When I confronted her about what I found, she told me it was because she wanted to be famous. Evidently, there are reality TV stars who were propelled into stardom after their sex tapes leaked. For hers to matter, it needed to be with someone with a name people recognized. Once I hit the majors, I was going to be that person. She was going to launch herself and become a household name. I was just collateral damage on her quest for fame.”

Tears spill from my eyes as I can’t hold them back any longer. “Knox, I’m so sorry. What happened after that?”

“I broke it off immediately. I couldn’t stand the sight of her. I was thoroughly embarrassed by what happened, but I knew I needed to talk to somebody about it… so I spilled everything to the agent I had just signed with—Simon. It was hard to admit all of it, but without talking to him, I never would’ve known to contact a lawyer. That her releasing the tapes could be seen as revenge porn since we weren’t together anymore. A strongly worded letter from an attorney to both Emily and the tabloid she was working with that threatened legal action with possible jail time if they released the video was enough to get them to back down. The attorney ensured Emily erased all the footage so there was no more threat. Since then, I haven’t trusted people or the media. I don’t open up because I don’t want anybody to find ammunition to use against me again. I can probably count on one hand the amount of hookups I’ve had since, but they’ve all been in my hotel room. It’s the only way I can make sure there aren’t cameras around.”

“Knox,” I say as I all but launch myself at him, wrapping him tight. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. You never deserved that.”

“I wasn’t the greatest guy or anything, Lo,” he says as he returns the hug, bringing me in close with my face flush against his bare chest. “Maybe I did deserve it.”

“Never, Knox. You never deserved that. You’re not the man everyone thinks.”

“Do you actually think that, Harlow?” he asks, lifting my face up by my chin. His eyes are glassy and full of worry and sorrow. I’ve never seen him like this before.

”I know that. I think you’re a great person, and I think my life is better having you in it. She never deserved you, and she also doesn’t deserve to still have an effect on you.”

Knox smiles softly. “Thank you,” he says as he brushes a stray tear from my eye. “You know, you’re not supposed to be the one crying.”

“Your fake girlfriend is an emotional mess.” He laughs before lightly kissing my forehead.

“Did you, uh… want to stay here tonight? Just to sleep. It might be nice to have someone beside me tonight. That’s the first time I’ve told that story in almost seven years.”

I give him a reassuring smile. “Of course I will. I feel like that’s the least I can do after you just poured your heart out.”

Knox chuckles softly. “I really didn’t think I’d enjoy your presence so much when we started this whole thing. But you’re not at all what I expected.”

We both sit up on the bed to finish off the onion rings we’ve been neglecting. Knox grabs one and holds it up for me to take a bite. “Look at you being all cutesy, Spencer.”

He barks out a laugh. “I’m not fucking ‘cutesy,’ that’s for sure. But that does remind me of something. You know how the Stars’ Charity holds an annual dinner, right?”

“Of course I do,” I tell him. “My brother does play for your team.”

“I’m ignoring the sass,” he says while laughing. “But the dinner is next month on one of our off days. Significant others are all invited to attend. Do you want to go with me?”

“Seeing as everyone thinks I’m your girlfriend, I probably should.” I smile at him. “That sounds like fun. I guess you’ll get to see me in a gown, after all.”

“I think I like the idea of that.” He grins. “Do you have a gown you could wear?”

I sigh. “Well, running a blog doesn’t really send me to anything where I need formalwear, so I do not.”

“We’ll get you a dress then. But we can talk about that tomorrow.” He brings a hand to his mouth to cover a yawn. “I’m pretty tired right now.”

“Yeah, sleep sounds like a good idea.” I stand to move the now-empty container of onion rings off the bed and to the small table. Knox meets me as I stand up and wraps me up in another hug.

“Thank you again, Lo.” He lets out a contented sigh. “It’s surprisingly kind of nice to have someone else who knows.”

I bring my head back and look right at Knox. “We’re friends now, Slick. You can lean on me when you need it.”

He rests his forehead against mine and smiles. And the goddamn butterflies retake flight. And the electricity sparks. And the heat flows through my body.

It’s undeniable now that there’s something between Knox and me. That’s worrying because we’re supposed to keep things light and easy. No complications, no strings. A fake relationship that ends when the season is over.

But when Knox’s mouth captures mine, kissing me for the first time without an audience, things start to seem heavier. As he parts my lips to stroke his tongue against mine, things begin to feel more complicated. And as he rests his hand on the back of my head to deepen the kiss, things start to feel a lot stringier.

My heart is happy, and my brain is scared. What do I do from here?