Page 48

Jesus Christ.

I stare at the doorway she just stormed through as I try to get my head back on straight.

Fuck, that woman does shit to me.

I was seconds away from nutting in my jeans when we were interrupted.

What the fuck is this?

That doesn’t happen to me. Ever.

Even when I was in high school at a pubescent boy’s horniest levels, it didn’t happen.

But now my balls ache and throb with the need for release.

Preferably inside Hartley, but I’ll take what I can get right about now.

I’m all out of sorts as weird feelings plague me. I want her. I hate her. I want to fuck her stupid. But I also want to press her buttons and fight more with her, and then I want to shut her up by shoving my cock down her throat.

Miller is still standing there awkwardly, and I feel like I should crack a joke or something to break the tension.

Instead, when my mouth moves, dumb shit comes out of it. “Jesus, that woman.”

Mandy laughs. “I’m sure it’s confusing on top of everything else you’re dealing with.”

“It’s been quite a month,” I admit, leaning on Hartley’s desk for a beat as I try to calm everything south of my belly button. “I knew Harper was my daughter, but her mother told me I’d never be part of her life before she was born. I guess nobody knows when their time is up, and here we are.”

“I had no idea,” she says quietly. “How much has your life changed?”

I flatten my lips into a thin line. “It has turned around one hundred percent, if I’m being honest. I went from knowing nothing about children to having a ten-year-old girl. I went from doing whatever and whoever the fuck I wanted to having a ten-year-old girl sneaking into my bed to sleep next to me every night.” I’m not sure why I’m baring my soul to my daughter’s teacher, but the words just slip out. Maybe because she’s Hartley’s best friend and roommate and I feel like she’s my only way in. Maybe because she’s dating a teammate of mine so I feel a different level of trust with her.

“Oh my God,” she murmurs, her hand moving to her heart. “That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”

I shrug as I feel the sudden need to shift topics. “So what’s Hartley’s deal?”

She lifts a shoulder. “You called it right, Mr. Woods. She’s scared.”

“Of what?” I ask. I run a hand through my hair as I try to calm the snake, but goddamn, that woman worked me up.

Jesus.

I can still feel the way her hips were grinding as she pushed down onto me.

It was like the hottest foreplay of my life, and then it all just… poof . Stopped.

“She was with her ex for three years, and she thought she was going to marry him and have a whole litter of babies, and when she finally saw what a, uh… donkey he is, she called it. But all that did was push the future she wanted further out of her grasp.” She twists her lips a little. “I think she wants to find someone who wants that future, too, and she’s afraid of getting involved with someone who has a reputation for… not wanting that kind of thing. You know, of someone who has a membership at exclusive clubs and things like that—that it will only push her dream future further down the road. We’re not getting any younger, you know what I mean?”

I nod as I avert my eyes to my shoes. “Yeah,” I mutter. I don’t say more, but maybe that reputation is no longer in line with who I am now. I joined Coax long before I had full custody of a ten-year-old girl.

Life changes in a flash, and I can feel myself changing right along with it.

I just don’t know what I have to do to prove that to Hartley. I can’t keep having these little sips without the chance for a good, long, hard, chug.

I’ve never had to work so hard for a woman before, but when I think about the types of strong feelings she seems to arouse in me…I feel like she’d be worth it. I feel like we could even have the future she wants.

Not once have I ever had the urge to have a baby. When I found out Caroline was pregnant, my initial reaction was fear—until she told me she didn’t want me to have anything to do with the baby. Then I felt something else. A punch to the gut, maybe.

It changed my entire life, my entire existence, and maybe the fact that she took it all away from me made me not want it with anybody else. It turned me from the guy I was into the guy I became—someone who only wanted one night, who didn’t want to get attached, who made sure to wear a condom because fuck if I was going to go through all that again.

But what would it be like to do it all on purpose? What would it be like to fall in love with someone and create a human out of that love?

I see everyone around me doing it. Tristan Higgins, who was in a horrible marriage and got out of it just to marry the girl who was always in his heart. Ben Olson, our star tight end and the party guy of the NFL whose shoes I stepped right into when he got married and had kids. Jack Dalton, our leader and QB. All guys on my team who have recently managed to find themselves in completely new territory when it seemed like they were stuck right where they were. All guys who have incredible stories to tell, guys who thought life was meant to be one way but when the right woman crashed into their lives, everything changed for them.

Will I be added to that list?

Will that happen to me?

And maybe the right woman isn’t a woman at all but a little girl who crashed into my life and upended it. That is what initiated the change in me.

Being a father is hard fucking work, especially the way it was thrust upon me with zero time to prepare. But those tiny moments of breakthrough I have with Harper are up there with some of the best moments of my life, and it hasn’t even been a full month since I met her.

I can’t imagine what a future made up of those tiny moments might look like.

Maybe all this is what I was born to do…or maybe I’m a huge failure trying to justify the way I feel about a woman who drives me fucking nuts.

“I need to get back out there,” Mandy says. “Are you okay?”

I nod. “I’m fine. I should go find Harper anyway. I left her with Evan and Bella. I’ll walk with you.”

I follow her out of the office and down the hallway.

“So what are you doing with my boy Bryant?” I ask.

I glance at her profile, and her cheeks turn red. “You, uh, didn’t tell Victoria about the club, did you?” She whisper yells the words.

I chuckle. “No, I didn’t. There are air-tight NDAs at that place, so even if I had the chance to gossip with Hartley about you, I wouldn’t. It’s not my business.”

“I don’t think she’d understand.” She shrugs.

“What, you can be a freak but she can’t?”

“Mr. Woods!” she exclaims with a gasp.

“Look, we’re all human. Wear it loud and proud, Miller.”

She giggles, and then we’re outside again. She splits off to go her own way, and I immediately spot Victoria working a huge blue bounce house. She’s focused on her task, and I watch her for a beat.

I wish I knew how to get through to her. I wish she’d stop being scared.

I’m thankful Miller let me in on a little of what’s been going on with her and why she’s reticent to start something with me. I wonder what the ex did that made him such a donkey.

She glances up as if she can feel my gaze on her, and her eyes seem to zero in on mine even though she’s a good sixty or seventy yards away from me. Even from this distance I can tell she’s affected as we hold each other’s gaze.

I don’t really believe she hates me, and I’m pretty sure I don’t hate her, either.

I blow out a breath as some woman bumps into me.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she says, and I glance over at her.

“No problem.”

She gasps. “You’re Travis Woods!”

“I am.”

“I heard you were here. I’m such a huge fan!” She tosses her arms around me, and when I look back at Hartley, she’s not looking at me anymore. She’s helping kids, doing her job, and I’m up here embracing some stranger, probably adding credence to what she believes about me anyway.

“Nice to meet you,” I say, extracting myself from her grip. And then by the grace of God, I see Evan in line for the donut food truck without the girls. “Excuse me,” I say to the woman, and I book it over toward Evan.

“Where’s Harper?” I ask once I’m standing beside him. The lady behind him in line gives me a look like you better not be cutting . I force myself not to roll my eyes at her.

“She and Bella are in one of the bounce houses. Trudy’s down there keeping an eye on things but they seem to be having a great time together.”

I nod. “Thanks, man.” I don’t want to go down to the bounce houses. It’s safer up here, as far away from Hartley as I can possibly get.

He nods and claps me on the shoulder. “You doing okay with everything?”

I nod. “Doing the best I can, you know?”

“That’s all any of us can do.”

Wiser words may never have been spoken.

“Is it okay if I grab a donut for Harper?” he asks.

I nod. “She’d love one.”

“Pink with sprinkles?”

I laugh. “Good guess.”

“You got it. They’re fine if you want to go do anything.”

I thank him, and then I wander around for a bit.

People are milling around the raffle tables getting a good look at what the prizes offered are. I didn’t even know this event existed until a few days ago, so I didn’t contribute anything. To that end, I head to the front table and purchase five hundred bucks’ worth of tickets, and I randomly drop a few into each bucket. Well, more than a few since I have five hundred tickets to drop.

That keeps me busy for a good hour, and it keeps me from constantly looking over at the big blue bounce house where Victoria was standing. When I finally allow myself to steal another glance in her direction, she’s not there anymore, and the disappointment that lances through me feels overwhelming.