Page 7

Chapter Seven

Scott

With every drip of sweat making its way down the side of my face the same phrase turns over and over in my head; I should have kissed her.

I should have kissed her next to that stupid plastic wave and I should have kissed her when I dropped her off. She seemed to shrug off the almost kiss easier than me. I thought about it as I’d driven her to a park nearby where I’d organized a taco food truck to meet us for dinner. I’d thought about it as I watched her put away no less than six tacos, only four less than myself, and I’d thought about it as she laughed at my story about the time my mom had interrupted an exam in my final year at school because I’d forgotten to wear my lucky pineapple socks.

When I dropped her home, I’d driven five miles under the limit just to prolong my time with her. I practically tripped over the bonnet of my car trying to open her door for her and I had to bury my hands in my pockets in an effort not to touch her. I stood on the porch in front of her door and I studied her soft looking lips down to the exact shade of pink.

When I leaned down, my hand finding her hip and my fingers splaying across the fabric of her shorts, I hesitated for the smallest moment and gave her the chance to turn her head. My lips met her cheek and my pride had plummeted.

I’m a fucking idiot.

At least, when it comes to Ivy I am. My performance on the field is better than ever. She’s in the back of my mind but my focus is on the team and it’s showing. My teammates and I are starting to click. The running backs are learning my quirks, I’ve finally started to mesh with the offensive line after the center and I got on the same page. Flynn is my tight end but it only took us half a practice to get back into the rhythm of things. It’s like playing in college with him again.

I’m getting comfortable.

Thank god for that.

Summer may have turned into autumn, the leaves have started to change their colors, but the sun is still beating down on our backs during this morning's practice. Flynn strolls up next to me, ripping his helmet off and lifting his practice jersey to wipe the sweat building up on his forehead.

“Honestly, fuck this heat.” He lifts the water bottle, squirting it into his mouth. If only the jersey chasers could see him now. Flynn has always been good looking, but in college it was more of a baby-face-innocent look. My mom would squeeze his cheeks after wrapping his large frame up into a hug whenever we’d go to see my parents.

I shared a wall with the guy in college. He is anything but innocent.

He lost his baby face just before senior year. Now, he’s all straight jawlines and abs. Before I moved to Boston, he had hair longer than his shoulders. He called it sex appeal but I just had the urge to cut it off with scissors. Thank god he did it himself before the season started.

Flynn shakes out his hair, sweat drops flying from the short strands.

I turn my eyes on him, leveling him with a stare as I drag a hand down the arm closest to him. “Gross.”

“I’m allowed to be sweaty. I work hard,” he replies while running a hand through the sweat soaked strands.

“Go be sweaty somewhere else.”

I go back to watching the defensive team drills. Once they’ve finished up we will be heading for the showers before breaking off for meetings and film. It’s going to be a long evening.

“Why are you so cranky today? Did your date over the weekend go badly?” he asks as he shoves my shoulder. I keep my stare ahead but it doesn’t stop the inevitable replay reel starting over in my head, torturing me with the opportunities I missed to get a real taste of Ivy.

I scowl. “Shut up.”

“Hm.” I can practically hear the smirk forming on his face. “You know, I’ve been to Pats a few times since we went there.”

This gets my attention. My eyes snap to him, my helmet slipping through my fingers and hitting the turf with a thud. “You what?”

“I wanted to get a look at the girl that has you all twisted up and smiling like an idiot at your phone,” he says as he shrugs. He stretches his legs, lunging forward as he turns his face up to me. “Never seen you like this about a woman before. It’s refreshing.”

My chest tightens. Ivy is different. There were girls in high school, a short-term girlfriend here or there, and in college if I had needed to let off steam then I’d always found someone willing. But since going pro, I’ve been careful. Selective.

As in, I haven’t selected anyone at all.

I’m committed to the game and my attention isn’t wavering from that.

Well until now.

Ivy’s undone all of it with a glance my way and a smile.

“Have you … did you meet her?” I ask. I try to school my features into a look of disinterest, to feign some sense of not caring all that much that he was snooping around Pats trying to get a look at her.

But who am I kidding? I care a whole lot.

Pats is a sports bar. Not just any kind of sports bar but one that is across from the Broncos training facility dedicated to Boston’s sports teams. It plays classic football games all day long. Flynn has been playing with the team since being drafted out of college. Any Boston football fan worth their salt would know who he is.

If Ivy is there, if she asks him how he knows me, he will tell her. I’ll be outed .

“Na, she’s not been there,” he says and relief washes through me. “Met her friend, though. The one I signed the autograph for. Katie.” There’s an accusation in his tone and my stomach drops.

“Shit,” I curse. “Look, I—”

He holds up a hand. “You’re in deep shit if you confirm this. Please tell me the woman you’re all twisted up about knows who you are? Please tell me her friend was just having a moment and didn’t ask me if you were the team’s psychologist or something?”

My guilt is written all over my face.

Flynn curses. “Are you insane?”

“I know.” I rack a hand through my hair. “It’s fucking stupid, and risky, and I’m a dick.”

“No, but you are a franchise quarterback worth a few million dollars and trying to date a girl who doesn’t know who the hell you are just before the season starts. This will never, ever end well man. You have to tell her.”

He’s right.

Damn it, I know he’s right.

I’d known when I met her that she hadn’t recognized me. I’d known it when she’d told me she hated football without hesitating like she might offend me. I know it every single time I field one of her questions about my job.

“I caught on pretty quick when Katie mentioned her friend had gone out with someone who ‘worked’ for the team.” He lifts his fingers, air quoting himself. “What the hell made you not disclose you are the quarterback for the team?!”

“She hates football,” I sigh, my head dropping.

“What?” Flynn stands straight, his stretching forgotten.

“Ivy, the girl I went out with, hates football. Like with a passion. Wants nothing to do with it. Doesn’t watch the games, the coverage, not even SportsCenter . She has no idea who I am and I loved that at first," I admit, the word vomit hurling out of me. Ivy’s smile blossoms in the front of my eyes again. “It was like we met and instead of seeing the giant flashing arrow pointing me out as a quarterback, she just saw some poor guy wallowing in the fact he’s moved to a city he hates for work. She’s determined to get me to like Boston.”

I suppress a smile as I remember her listing off her top ten favorite things to do in the city over tacos.

Flynn shakes his head again. “You’re such a sucker. You know that, right?”

“It was nice.” I run another hand through my hair, tugging at the ends.

Across the field, Coach blows his whistle signaling we can hit the showers and eat. Flynn and I grab our helmets and head toward the change rooms.

“Look,” Flynn starts. “I know that with who we are and what we do, there is a risk to meeting someone and them not being genuine but you still should probably tell her before someone else does. Just because she hates football might not mean she has her fucking head buried in the sand completely. If you like her, like properly like her and want a shot, you gotta tell her man.”

We file into the change rooms, heading for the lockers where our bags sit.

“I will. I will tell her. I just … it’s been so nice.”

Flynn stares at me, studying me as something like curiosity flashes in gaze. “Man, you’re done for already.”

“Shut up.”

“You are though! This girl has you so twisted up.” He grins, picking up his phone. “You know, this might be good for you. Dating a girl that hates football and doesn’t give a shit that you’re the best QB in the league right now. Very humbling.”

I ignore him, digging around in my own bag. I sent Ivy a message this morning as I pulled up for practice. I wanted to see what she was wearing today. Her outfit of the day pictures are my favorite messages. Her clothes tell me a lot about her as a teacher. Sneakers, so she can be as active as the kids but still comfortable. Pants, always. Light colors even though she tells me she’s spent a fortune on learning how to get paint out of her clothes since starting.

She wore denim cut off shorts on our date and converse sneakers. She hadn’t cared about wearing heels or a dress, I’d told her to dress comfortably and that’s what she’d done. She’d smiled, and laughed, and ate as many tacos as she’d damned well pleased.

Flynn’s hand waves in front of my face, breaking me out of my Ivy induced hold. “Scotty, what’s her last name again?”

“Huh, who’s?”

“Your girl’s, duh.”

“Oh … uh,” I strain my memory. I vaguely remember her signing her name on the score cards at mini golf. “Booker, I think.”

I look over at Flynn tapping away on his phone. He pulls up Instagram and in less than a minute, a picture of Ivy’s smiling fills his screen. “Got her.”

He holds the phone up to me proudly.

“You’re a creep, you know that? You found that way too fast,” I say to him as I take the phone.

He pouts, reaching behind him to pull off his practice jersey.

“What? So girls can be literal FBI agents when finding a guy’s profile but I can’t?”

I glance at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

He sighs, taking his phone back. “Never mind. You’re such an old man.” I watch him scroll through her profile. “You know, Booker sounds familiar.”

“Does it?”

“Yeah. I know that name. Just can’t think where.” He scrolls further down her feed, pulling up picture after picture. Summer holidays, in a swimsuit, to a photo of her on graduation day, to another of her at a college hockey game wrapped in a giant scarf and beanie. Another of her and Katie standing on the bar at Pats, drinks in their hands. Ivy’s head is thrown back, her laughter caught on camera.

Flynn zooms in, studying her face a little closer so I lean over and lock his phone. “You can stop thinking of her altogether.”

He sticks his tongue before tossing his phone back into his bag and heads for the shower. “You’re no fun.”

I shake my head, following him to the showers and pushing all thoughts of Ivy out of my head.

***

I take my seat in the back of the small theatre room. The coaches sit in the front and the rest of the guys spread out around me. Flynn drops down on my right, legs outstretched in front of him. He tugs his hood up and over his head and his arms fold over his chest. He is most definitely planning to fall asleep.

As the lights turn out and the game tape starts to roll on the screen—Coach’s red laser pointer highlighting whatever player he wants us to be focusing on—my thoughts turn back to Ivy. This week, trying focus on the start of the season and on football has been torture.

While running drills on the field, or throwing the ball down the line … damn my mind should be on practice but it’s not. Her face is right there, the forefront of my brain.

I can’t get the girl out of my head.

Might not be affecting my game but it’s beginning to affect my sanity.

I’m still deflecting any work-related questions she throws at me. It’s clear she has no idea who I am and Flynn has confirmed her friend doesn’t either. It isn’t that I want to keep it a secret forever but considering how she feels about football and considering my job, I just want time.

I want time to show her I’m more than a football player, more than a quarterback .

But she knows I work for the team and I want an excuse to talk to her. She has not sent a reply since this morning. I gathered this morning it was because she was wrangling children but it’s now just after seven. She’ll be home now.

I lean back, turning the brightness on my phone all the way down and snap a picture of my outstretched legs with the screen clearly showing the game tape we are watching.

Scott: *1 Attachment*

I wait, phone in my hand, eyes watching the screen whilst my mind replays the almost kiss for the millionth time over. Next to me, Flynn shifts further down in his seat.

Ivy: Looks like my worst nightmare.

Scott: And mine tonight …

Ivy: Tired?

Scott: You’ve no idea.

Ivy: I just got into bed, Friends is on and I’ll be out any minute …

Jealous?

Scott: That sounds like a dream

Ivy: *1 Attachment*

Her room is bathed in shadows. A lamp must be on next to her, lowly lit. There is a small lump in her bedding where I guess she must have her legs curled up. As promised, the TV plays an episode of Friends . I’ve learned it is her comfort show and, even when she’s watching some other new series, she is always watching Friends.

When I asked how she could watch the same show over and over, she’d told me that sometimes she just needed the background noise. And she likes that she knows how it all ends: happily.

I glance toward the front of the room at Coach. He is focused on the screen, laser pointer in his hand and red dot furiously moving across it.

When I look back down at the picture, I study her surroundings. White furniture, what looks to be a light pink color on the walls—although it is difficult to tell when the picture isn’t all that well lit—a few pillows scattered on the floor in front of her bed.

Her room is all soft edges and comfortable landings.

Just like her.

Scott: I like your room.

Ivy: Ha! I haven’t changed it since high school.

But thank you.

I hesitate. The almost kiss replays over and over, melding with the moment she turned her head at the end of the night and my lips had landed on her cheek. Her cheek ?

She’d turned her head so I’d caught her cheek, for fuck’s sake.

When did my ability to ‘woo’ a woman go to shit?

I type out the question that has been burning inside my chest since I’d pressed my lips against her soft skin for the first time.

Scott: Why didn’t you let me kiss you the other night?

Ivy: Um, not sure, actually.

Christ…

Scott: You’re not sure?

Maybe I’m wasting my time. I am taking the gamble that she might not hate football as much as she says she does anyway. Maybe, even though I’ve become ridiculously obsessed with her in such a short time, she doesn’t see me the same way. Maybe she sees me as a new in town, Boston hater that she’ll try to change the mind of. Maybe I am being … my phone vibrates in my hand.

Ivy: Scott?

Scott: Ivy?

Ivy: Will you try again next time?

Fuck.

“Coach?” The words are leaving my lips before my brain even processes them. “It’s been a long day. It’s hot as fuck out. Let’s call it for the day. I’m sure the team would appreciate the early night.”

Coach pauses the tape before getting to his feet and turning to stare at me in the back row. His eyes flicker to Flynn, who is curled completely into himself and sleeping quietly beside me. I nudge him with my elbow and he jerks awake, sitting up before running a hand over his face.

“We’re playing the top of the division come Sunday,” Coach huffs out. He glares at me, I glare back. “But Harvey’s right. It was tougher than we anticipated out there this afternoon. You’re dismissed.”

I move before anyone else.

Flynn calls my name but I’m collecting my bag and out the front doors of the training facility before he even hits the locker room for his own.

I have to act on this now before she takes it back.

Before I lose my nerve.

Ivy’s place is no more than fifteen minutes from the facility. I park in the same space outside her place as last weekend, my feet travel the same path as they had when I’d knocked on her front door and listened to her shuffle around behind it cursing my early nature.

I knew I should’ve waited around the corner a little longer than I did.

I’d been a full ten minutes early to pick her up for our mini golf date but forced myself to wait before pulling up to her house.

Her small red car is sitting in the driveway in front of the closed double garage door. For the first time since I’d seen her message, I hesitate, but it’s only for a second. There’s no porch light on, no light coming through any of the front facing windows. She’s either adverse to leaving a hall light on or already asleep.

I take the chance anyway and ring the doorbell.

When there’s no movement—knowing full well it’s been no more than thirty seconds—I lift my fist and knock.

A light appears at the top of the stairs, shining through the curtains over the front windows that frame the door. Then another light, a shadow of someone moving down the stairs.

Then the porch light.

The beat of my heart slows as I wait.

Something clicks, likely the lock on the door, and Ivy’s face comes into view as she pulls it open gingerly.

“I know it’s only just after seven but I did say I was in bed already,” she says, her voice sleepy and quiet.

Even her shy smile is beautiful.

Her soft features are free of makeup, her hair falls over her shoulders in loose curls and the pajama shorts are surely not legal; they're that short.

I focus on the blue eyes I think about so often. They swirl with confusion, amusement, and curiosity. She’s wondering why I’m here. Why I left what was obviously work for me to see her. I have to eventually tell her what I do, especially now that I’m here to cement that I definitely didn’t want her to be just a fucking tour guide.

“Scott? Is everything alright?” Her gaze flickers to the quiet street behind me .

“Can ‘next time’ be right now?” I step forward, hand resting on the door, pushing it open a little further so I could step my body directly in front and in line with hers.

“I– huh?”

“I’m going to kiss you,” I say. Her eyes widen. I lift a hand to cup her cheek, thumb stroking along the edge of her jaw.

“You’re … you’re going to…”

“And this time, you’re not going to turn your head.” I take her face between both my hands, cradling her gently as I step further into her space. There’s a faint blush rising up her chest. It clashes with the soft pink silk of her pajamas.

My gaze drops to her lips. Her tongue darts out to wet them and I lean forward. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

I dive in.

She tastes better than anything I could’ve dreamt up on my own. Strawberries, and something else sweet. Her lips are gentle and soft against mine. She’s timid and shy at first but when I stroke a finger down her throat and run my tongue against the seam of her lips, silently asking for her to open, she does so and my whole body goes up in flames.

Her tongue tangles with mine as she rises on her toes, arms snaking over my shoulders and locking behind my neck. Her fingers drag through the hair at the nape of my neck, tangling amongst the strands and tugging.

Fuck, but I love that.

I drop my hands, curling them around her body and pulling her harder against me. I pull her bottom lip between my teeth and she whimpers.

Forget flames, her noises will have me in a pile of ashes at her feet.

When she pulls away, out of breath and blushing, I drop my forehead against hers gently. Her eyes close, a gentle smile appearing as she chews on her bottom lip .

I smirk, lifting a thumb to her lip and pulling it from between her teeth. She opens her eyes, watching me. I drop another kiss on her lips.

“Did you leave a meeting at work to come here?”

“Sort of.”

“Will you get in trouble?”

“Well, no. I asked to be dismissed.”

“To come here?”

“Yes.”

“To kiss me?”

“Yes.”

As if to prove a point, I kiss her again.

She pulls away. “Why?”

“Because I should’ve fucking kissed you on that stupid mini golf course and I’ve regretted it ever since.”

She hums. “Yes. You should’ve.” Her lips curl, a gleam sparkling in her eye. She rises on her toes. “But this is good too.”

I meet her half way, knowing that I can likely spend the rest of my days kissing this girl and die a happy man.