Page 56 of Reality With You (Arden Beach #1)

“The board. They want the commissioner to force the sale if Eddie doesn’t decide to do it himself.”

“Well, what’s he going to do?”

A muscle in his jaw pulsed. “Eddie and my dad want to put me back on the team.” Dylan turned to her. “Now.”

The air around them grew thick, sticking in Lennon’s lungs. “You mean, now now? To play this season?” she asked. He gave a curt nod. “How do you feel about it?”

“I have a meeting with the board tomorrow to plead my case. If they approve it, I’ll be back on the field as soon as next week.”

Lennon searched his eyes for the answer to her actual question. Whatever it was, he was hiding it from her. Or from himself. “Is that what you want?”

Dylan rolled his head back to the sky, his hands clasped and thumbs fidgeting around each other on his abdomen. “I want to help the team. I’m just worried it’ll have the opposite effect. Especially if what happened at the party gets out.”

“Aren’t your lawyers working on that?”

“Trying to, but the studio’s calling our bluff,” Dylan answered with a tight exhalation. “They told us to move forward with an investigation if I want to do anything about it. My lawyers are looking for an alternative.”

“I know you’d rather this not get out to the public, but I think you should consider filing a police report if they can’t figure something else out. Or sue the fucking show.”

“We signed waivers.”

“I feel like being drugged against your will should be an exception.”

A sharp divot formed along his jaw. He stared at the sky without answering, but he didn’t have to. She nearly reeled back when she realized what it was she saw there. “You blame yourself,” Lennon surmised.

“I should’ve been more careful.”

“Stop with the victim-blaming, Dylan. This isn’t your fault. You were the one taken advantage of.” Her voice shook a little, her lungs straining around the shallow breaths she took.

“I don’t even know if I was singled out,” Dylan reasoned, becoming exasperated.

“Look—I’m not saying it’s not fucked up, it is.

It’s extremely fucked up. I’m trying to do something about it, I’m just—” He pushed out a sigh as he scrubbed a hand across his face.

The subsequent admission came with a timbre of defeat.

“I’m tempering my expectations. My lawyers said I can expect the studio to put up a formidable fight if I pursue this and probably leak the footage before we even get to it.

They’re confident we’ll eventually win, but not without it going public first. At that point, the league may decide it’s better to cut their losses than be involved in the circus. ”

A deep pit formed in her gut, threatening to swallow her whole. They would do something like that.

Lennon tried to find a steady breath through the despair creeping through her.

A breeze swept through the palm trees, their shadowed fronds briefly blocking the stars as they rustled.

“I don’t know how things have gotten so out of control,” she wondered aloud.

“Whenever I think I’m finally getting a handle on life, something goes wrong, and I realize I don’t know anything.

I’m sick of feeling powerless.” She paused, her voice softening to almost a whisper. “I’m sick of failing.”

“Me too.” Dylan shifted beside her, raising an arm to shove it behind his head, the fabric of his white dress shirt stretching across his bicep.

“Even when I achieve something in my career, I can’t shake the feeling of being a failure.

There’s always another goal, another level to reach.

Someone who’s done it better. Usually, someone I’m related to.

I feel like I’m always chasing something and falling short, like …

I’m running after a moving train I can never catch up to. ”

Lennon’s body—her soul—went heavy from the exhaustion. She could practically sink through the earth. “I keep wondering how long it will take to be able to relax and finally just … be.”

Dylan fell quiet for a few moments, the murmur of cicadas and the distant hum of the ocean filling the space between them. “Maybe we’re the ones who have to give ourselves permission to do that.”

Lennon considered it for a moment. “I’m not sure I can.”

His chest deflated with a soft release of air through his nose. “Me either.” A beat passed before he added, “But the closest I feel to that is when I’m with you.”

The admission caught her by surprise. She felt an expansion in her chest as she turned to look at him. He was already watching her. “How can you say that when I’m the one who got you into this mess?”

“You mean the show? I got myself into this mess because I wanted to,” Dylan said with conviction. “And I’d do it again to have all this time with you.”

The intimate, vulnerable look in his eyes sent a rush of warmth through her. His hand brushed hers in the grass. Her heart skipped. She reached back, softly nudging a finger between two of his.

His eyes fell to her lips, then rose back up, questioning.

Lennon thought of how he’d stood up for her that evening, accepting responsibility for their failed marriage in front of everyone. Even the way he looked at her now—open, raw—was different from the past when he’d been distant and unreachable.

Her fear begged her to play it safe, but her heart nudged her forward.

She leaned in closer, answering.

Their lips brushed together as tentatively and tenderly as their fingers, like the ocean breeze dusting across her neck.

It was a sweet, somewhat hesitant kiss, like they were teenagers again, exploring each other for the first time.

The tip of his tongue grazed her lower lip, and she met it the next time with hers.

The kiss slowly deepened. His other hand came around to cup her face as he rolled onto his side.

She swept hers up his neck so she could dive into his soft, thick hair, fulfilling the fantasy she’d had while dancing at the party, watching him across the room.

Her fingers curled and tugged him deeper into her, eliciting a soft moan that poured onto her tongue.

Blades of grass tickled her back as his hand traveled up her hip, pushing her dress away and baring her skin.

The coolness of the earth contrasted with the heat radiating from her.

From him. As his thumb grazed her waist, electricity exploded in its wake.

Her skin was hypersensitive, every molecule intensely alive.

She couldn’t help how her muscles contracted, and her hips rose slightly at his touch.

As she pressed against his groin, she felt the intensity of his desire for her straining against his pants.

Lennon caught his lower lip between her teeth, biting gently, and the tension against her torso grew harder.

Under the canopy of stars with the languid roll of the ocean and soft earth beneath her, the moment was a perfect collision of sweet-tasting elements, a pocket of time separated from reality, like a dream. Only the best parts of themselves were there, sharing that moment.

Lennon sank into it, ignoring everything outside of it as they kissed—slow, steady, deep.

Dylan’s body molded to hers like a well-worn glove, warm and familiar.

But there was also something new there, the people they’d both grown into in the last six years bringing an extra edge of excitement.

A rush. There were slight differences in the way he kissed, the way his hands moved along her body with more confidence and control.

And in the way she received it. A teenager’s inexperience and insecurities replaced with a woman’s assurance.

She knew what she liked and how she wanted to be touched.

And how she wanted to touch him.

Lennon’s fingers loosened their grip and slid down his neck, stopping to let her thumb trace his jawline before landing on his chest to apply gentle pressure and slow down.

He followed her lead, tapering off with a few soft touches to the corners of her lips, jawline, neck, and finally, her forehead.

Dylan then loosed a sigh like he was barely holding himself together, touching his forehead to hers. Their chests briskly rose and fell, coming together, drawing apart as he hovered over her.

He pulled back just enough to meet her eyes.

She was struck by the apprehension she saw in his—the fragility of his heart resting in the deep pools of brown.

Was he worried she’d change her mind? That he’d lose her again?

The same fears, among others, bubbled within her.

She saw the shift in his eyes as he noticed what must have been a shift in hers.

They stared at each other with their hearts open, saying nothing and everything.

She realized her hand was still against his chest, holding him back. He wasn’t fighting it. He was giving her the chance to change her mind. Despite how he felt, he was willing to let her go if it was what she wanted. She could feel it. His gaze searched hers, asking. Waiting, patient.

With a soft nudge, Lennon guided him away. Disappointment briefly flickered across Dylan’s face before he hid it with a swallow and rolled back onto the grass beside her. He stretched out, staring up at the sky, hands on his stomach as he worked on coming down from the high.

Lennon waited a few seconds for him to settle in before saying, “Race you to the house.” She shot up from the ground and made a mad dash across the lawn.

“What the—”

As she’d hoped, the element of surprise gave her a slight advantage.

By the time his brain caught up to what was happening, she was already halfway to the sprawling patio, holding up her gown to give her legs more freedom to move.

However, her lead didn’t last long. His long, baseball player legs quickly closed the gap.

He yelled after her, and she was startled at how close the sound was.

Looking over her shoulder, she yelped as her adrenaline spiked, her primal need to avoid being captured kicking in.