Cross-Checked (Boston Rebels #3)

Chapter 28

Chapter Twenty-Eight

McCabe

W hen we’re both spent, I scoop her into my arms. I’m fairly sure her legs wouldn’t work if I asked her to walk, so I carry her toward my bedroom. “Let me clean you up.”

She opens her mouth like she wants to say something, but no words come out. Then she closes her eyes and sighs, her lips curving up in a way that makes her look totally content.

Laying her on my bed, I head into the bathroom and wet two washcloths. After I quickly clean myself off, I bring the other washcloth back to the bedroom. AJ hasn’t moved from where I set her down, lying on her side, facing the bathroom, eyes closed, like a picture of serenity.

“You alive?”

She doesn’t open her eyes, just mumbles, “Barely.”

Taking her knee, I lift, rolling her onto her back so her legs fall open. I’m looking down, focusing on what I’m doing as I use the warm washcloth to gently clean her, but I can feel her gaze on me.

“I’m just going to...rest here for a minute,” she says. “Then I’ll head home.”

“Stay with me tonight.” After three nights of sharing a bed with her, there’s no way I want her across the hall when she could be here.

“No, it’s okay. I can find my way back to my place.”

I lie on the bed next to her before she can get up, my arm tightening around her ribcage, and pulling her so she’s cuddled into me. “That wasn’t a request.”

Her chuckle is low and sultry. “So now you think you’re giving me orders?”

“I answer to you in every way, AJ. This is the one and only place where you can let me be in charge, and I suggest you do if you want me to continue providing you with orgasms.”

“This was supposed to be a one-time thing.”

“And yet you came back for seconds, and thirds, and fourths...” I tease.

Her annoyed expression only makes me smile. “I’m going home now.”

God, I love it when she’s feisty.

I pull her back to me before she can get up from my bed. “Over my dead body.”

She tilts her head to look at me, a wild glint in her now very awake eyes. “If you insist.”

She’s so cute when she starts making threats. “Maybe you should climb up here and sit on my face...try to suffocate me while I give you yet another orgasm.”

Even though she’s shaking her head, she can’t seem to stop herself from smiling. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Maybe so, Sunshine,” I say, gripping her hips in each hand as I lift her up and set her with one knee on either side of my head. “Better sit on my face and teach me a lesson.”

There’s a moment of hesitation before her smile widens and she reaches forward for the headboard. And when she slides her knees farther apart so she can sink onto my face, I’m pretty sure that if she actually tried to kill me right now, I’d go happily—so long as I died with her cunt spread above me like this and my tongue gliding over her clit.

Because the sounds she’s making as a result, and the way she breathes out my name as she gets closer, is exactly the soundtrack I’d want to hear in the afterlife.

I ’m surprised to find my bed empty and the sun streaming through my windows when I wake up. I didn’t set an alarm last night because we don’t have practice today, and I knew Abby would get me up at 6:30 in the morning. She’s like clockwork in that way.

But when I grab my phone off my nightstand, I’m shocked to find that it’s an hour past her wakeup time. And when I glance at the video monitor, her crib is empty.

In a panic, I jump out of bed. My feet are on the floor and my heart is pounding in my throat before it occurs to me that Abby can’t get out of her crib, and so AJ must have her. But how did I sleep through that?

When I pad out to the kitchen in nothing but my sweats, AJ and Abby are sitting on the living room floor. I watch from the doorway between the two rooms as AJ stacks soft, colorful blocks on top of each other, and then Abby pops up onto her knees and knocks them over, laughing. I’m sure I’m grinning like a lunatic as I watch them repeat the process several times—especially when AJ laughs and tickles Abby under the chin, calling her a “little monster.”

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It feels like there’s some sort of vise around my ribcage, making it hard to breathe, hard for my heart to keep beating. But...this scene. This fucking scene is just so domestic, so perfect. And it hits me then that this is what I want for Abby and me—and I want it with AJ.

I must let out a sigh or something because Abby’s head shoots up, looking for me, and AJ’s back stiffens.

“Da!” Abby yells before crawling around AJ and toward me. I pick her up and give her a big hug, kissing the top of her head when she snuggles into my shoulder. I expect she’ll want to stay there for a while because she’s normally pretty clingy on my first day home from a trip, but after hugging me, she’s leaning down and whining. Squatting to set her on the floor, I watch as she crawls right back over to AJ, who’s staring at me with some sort of apologetic look on her face.

Moving closer, I sit down next to her. “Hey, what was that look?”

She glances back toward Abby, refusing to meet my eye. “What look?”

I put my hand on her lower back, rubbing circles there as she leans forward to rebuild the tower of blocks so Abby can knock it down again. “The one where you looked like you were...I don’t know, apologizing?”

“What would I be apologizing for?” Her tone is dismissive, like she’s trying to find a way out of the conversation.

After Abby knocks the blocks over and AJ claps for her, telling her what a good job she’s doing, I reach over and turn her face toward mine. I hate that I can’t read the look on her face. It’s like she’s put those walls back up, and I just want to crash through them. “What’s wrong?”

Her gulp is audible. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Don’t lie to me, AJ. That’s not what we have here.”

She takes a deep breath. “I need to go.”

My hand clamps down on her thigh, trying to anchor her here so she doesn’t get up and leave. “What? Why?”

“I just...I have things I need to do today. I need to stop by the office?—”

“On a weekend?”

She looks away, and it feels like she’s avoiding my gaze so she can lie to me—and possibly herself—more easily. “Yep. There are things that I need to take care of before this week starts.”

There’s a hard edge to the way she’s speaking, and I know I should let her go. I should give her some space and time to work through whatever complicated emotions she’s having about our developing relationship, spending the night here, being part of this domestic scene this morning.

But I don’t want her to go. I don’t want her to have space or time, because I’m fucking terrified that if she walks out that door, she might not walk back through it again. I don’t know if making her talk about this right now is the right thing to do, or if I need to pause and leave the ball in her court.

I opt for the latter option, even though it goes against every instinct I have. I’m acting like a stage-five clinger, and I need to stop.

“Alright,” I relent, as she stares down at my hand where my fingers are curled into her thigh. I relax them, and she glances up at me. “I don’t want you to go. But if you have to, you have to.”

The impassive look on her face—the one I usually see at work but not in private—softens. “I’m sorry. But I do have to.”

I swallow and give her a nod while I sit there wondering what the hell is happening. I keep following my heart instead of my head when it comes to her, and it seems like it’s causing AJ to pull away. As I watch her run out the door without so much as a goodbye, I have to wonder if distance actually is what she wants?

“ T hank you so much,” I say, handing Nicholas the baby monitor. Abby’s fast asleep, and hopefully she won’t wake up while I’m gone. “I really won’t be gone for too long, maybe a couple hours at the most.”

“It’s fine,” he says. “Nicole’s at the library tonight studying for a test, so I was just hanging around anyway.”

I’ve almost forgotten what it was like to have free time, back when my life wasn’t ruled by the whims of an adorable ten-month-old tyrant. Not that I’d want it any other way now that I have Abby, but sometimes, I do miss just being able to walk out the door when my teammate calls me about getting a beer, instead of having to scramble to find a babysitter. Thank god I have Nicholas, for now.

As I head out my door, I can’t help glancing at AJ’s. I wonder if she’s home? And if so, how long ago did she come back? Is she planning to reach out? Is she coming over tonight?

The thought of not having her in my bed is painful.

I’m not just desperate for her physical proximity, for the way we make each other feel when we’re together, but also for the way she opens up with me, the way she shows me who she is and how she feels in a way that she doesn’t do with anyone else.

It’s not just the sex. I want her . All of her.

I want her to keep talking to me, to feel safe and comfortable enough that she keeps revealing parts of herself that no one else knows. I want to tell her about my sister, and how earlier today she texted me a listing for a house in her neighborhood, with the message, “Want to live on my street?”

I want to talk about why she’s refusing to renew my contract, when I’m barely asking for more money than I’m currently making. I know what the salary cap is. I know what she’s already spending for next year. That’s why I initially told Trevor to be reasonable in the negotiations, but then AJ refused even a tiny pay increase despite my stats line and the fact that I’m the team captain.

The not knowing is killing me. Not knowing whether I’m staying in Boston. Not knowing how she’s feeling about us, beyond the amazing sex. Not knowing if she’ll ever want more than sneaking around.

I know I fucked up last night. I can’t demand we talk about my contract while I’m licking her pussy, driving her toward another orgasm after watching her make herself come. In fact, I shouldn’t be talking to her about it at all. That’s exactly the type of unethical shit she was worried about. But in that moment, I felt so desperate for her to know that I want to stay. That I want to work things out between us.

I don’t care that she’s my GM, but I know she cares. She’s poured everything she has into her career. She’s forsaken a lot in other areas of her life to be successful in her role. And I understand her fears about how she’ll be perceived by her peers, her employees, her players, and the media if this all comes out.

But I don’t give a shit about what anyone else thinks about this relationship, and I wish she didn’t either.

I’m so lost in my own head, trying to figure out what to do next, that I don’t see Walsh sitting at the bar until I’ve almost passed him and he reaches out to punch my arm.

“Shit. Sorry, man,” I say as I pull out the seat next to him. Unsurprisingly, the bar is pretty empty on Sunday night.

“You look exhausted,” he says. “Abby keep you up all night?”

“No, she let me sleep in, actually,” I tell him, feeling guilty because of course I look exhausted—I’ve stayed up late the last few nights with AJ. And the only reason I got to sleep in this morning was because AJ got up with Abby.

“Then why do you look like shit?”

“Pint of Guinness, please,” I tell the bartender as he slides a coaster onto the bar in front of me, taking the opportunity to avoid answering Walsh’s question. Finally, I say, “Didn’t know I looked like shit. Thanks.”

Walsh takes a sip of his beer, eyes focused on the game on the TV, then glances over at me. “You look like a sad puppy that just got kicked to the curb. This about AJ?”

I glance at Walsh, wondering if I can trust him. It would be great to have someone to talk to about this, and I know this is the real reason he called and said we should grab a beer. As team captain, I’d have done the same thing if I thought any of my teammates were stepping over a line like this.

Keep your fucking mouth shut, I tell myself.

Coming here was a mistake. I should go home and call Renaud, who is supposed to be my best friend. But I’ve hardly talked to him this season while he’s on the IR. And the only person Aidan Renaud worries about is himself—so I don’t know how much he’d be able to help in this situation. He’d probably tell me not to tie myself down in such thorny circumstances, give me some advice about getting back out on the dating scene and finding any woman who isn’t my boss.

I decide to risk confiding in Walsh, instead. “Can I trust you to give me good, and confidential, advice?”

It’s not that he’s not a trustworthy guy—he’s one of the best. But his sense of right and wrong is so black and white; I worry that he won’t be able to see into the gray areas of this situation.

“Yes, you can trust me not to tell anyone, and to give you my honest opinion.”

I mull over his offer as I take a long gulp of my beer, draining half the glass and hoping that the alcohol will smooth out the erratic beating of my heart and relax my overly tense muscles. Instead, it loosens my tongue.

“I think I’m falling for AJ.”

Walsh doesn’t say anything, but his jaw tenses. Then he picks up his pint glass, tilts it toward the bartender and calls out, “I’m going to need another,” before he drains it.

With my heart still pounding, I take another sip of my beer, directing my gaze to the TV where St. Louis is crushing the third game in their series, while I wait for him to respond.

“So the other day when you said it ‘wasn’t what it looked like’ and that you were just helping her iron her suit, that was...?”

“A partial truth. A couple weeks ago, we realized that we actually live across the hall from each other?—”

“How the fuck did you not know that?”

“Because I’d never seen her in my building. I guess she moved in a few months ago, but I think she’s always at work. And it’s not like my schedule has a consistent pattern either. So anyway, when she got hurt and couldn’t use her right hand, I was helping her out a lot.”

I don’t mention how I moved her into my place, helped her get dressed, took her clothes off to look at that bruise on her back, bathed her, and then fucking jerked off in my room thinking about how she was just down the hall. Because looking at it from his perspective, I know there’s no way any of that wasn’t crossing a line.

“Um hm,” Walsh says, like he knows exactly where this is going.

“And she helped me out by getting her little brother to be my nanny until the end of the season.” That wasn’t exactly the order of things, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“Your manny is her brother?”

“Yep. And the night before you saw me coming out of her hotel room, she’d texted me to tell me she was on FaceTime with him, and that Abby was trying to take her first steps. So I rushed over there so I didn’t miss it, and before you ask, no, we didn’t realize our hotel rooms were across the hall from each other until then.”

“The universe has a funny sense of irony,” Walsh says, chuckling.

“You’re telling me.” Slightly relaxing, I take a sip of my beer. “Anyway, we were chatting and eventually we fell asleep. Nothing happened. I wasn’t lying about that.”

“Yeah, because people always fall asleep chatting when they’re not already laying down together.”

He has me there. “I already feel bad for your kids when they’re teenagers. Nothing gets by you.”

Lifting an eyebrow, he turns to take his second beer from the bartender. “So then...?”

“So by then, I was getting to know her. Not just the side of her she shows us when she’s at work, but the real her.”

“There’s another side of her?” He asks the question ironically, calling me out for previously thinking she was a one-dimensional person.

I dip my head and laugh into my beer as I bring it to my lips. He does not want to know about the sexy side of her that I’ve explored, and I’d never tell him anything personal about her past that she’s shared with me. “Yeah.”

“So…what? You guys are seeing each other?”

“I mean, it’s only been a few days. Maybe a week if you count the few days before we went to Philly, when I was seeing her a lot more than normal.”

“Are you sleeping with her?” he asks, and my stomach twists.

“I’m not going to answer that.”

“But you’re falling for her?”

I lick my lips as I try to think of how to explain it. “When you and Marissa were first together, what did it feel like?”

He tilts his head as he assesses me, and I know he wasn’t expecting me to compare my feelings for AJ to his for his wife. “Like I wanted to be with her every second of every day. She was oxygen and I needed her to breathe. Gotta be honest, still feels like that.”

“All these years later?”

I don’t know if the thought of always feeling this addicted to AJ is appealing, or fucking terrifying. All I know is that it doesn't matter, because there's no way I want to live without her in my life.

“Yeah,” Walsh says. “Even after all these years. I think that's how you know you have a good thing, because even though life changes, you still love being with that person.”

“I think...” I press my eyes closed, before admitting, “...I think AJ is my person.”

Walsh scoffs. “I never, not in a million years, thought I would ever hear you say that.”

Our eyes lock, and we both laugh, because there’s no getting around it. She and I are quite possibly the world's most unlikely pairing. And yet somehow, it just works.

“So what are you going to do about it?” Walsh asks, eyebrows pinching.

I pause, thinking about what my options are. “I don't know. Everything feels so uncertain at the moment. Like, I don't even know if she's going to renew my contract.”

“You guys haven't talked about that?” Walsh asks.

“That would be unethical. Not only because she's not supposed to talk to me about stuff like that without my agent present, but also because I'm not using this relationship as a bargaining chip. I want to stay in Boston,” I tell him, wondering exactly when that changed, and realizing that I need to have a conversation with my sister about that. And I should probably let my agent know. “But ultimately, it isn't up to me.”

“I’m not sure how the guys are going to take this news. Are you planning on telling people?

“I don't know,” I say. “I have to talk to AJ about it. I don't even...I don't even know for sure that she feels the same way.”

“Shiiiiiit.” Walsh grinds out the word. “You're talking to me about it and you haven't even talked to her?”

“Oh, she knows how I feel. But every time I try to talk to her about where this is going, she shuts the conversation down. She's convinced that there's no way this can work.”

“And you're convinced there's a way it will work?” The doubt in his voice says a lot.

“It can’t work the way that it is right now, with us sneaking around all the time. But also, I can't imagine a situation in which it doesn’t work out in the end. So we have to find a way.”

“And what does that way look like?” Walsh asks, sounding more curious than doubtful this time.

“I still have no fucking idea.”

“You guys have to figure this out before everyone else sees what’s going on here. You’re lucky it was me you ran into in the hallway, and not someone with a bigger mouth.”

“I know,” I tell him, pressing my lips together. “And I appreciate your discretion while we figure this out.”

“Are you prepared for . . .”

“Spit it out,” I say when he trails off.

“Are you prepared for the reality that she might not want to go down the same path you want to go down?”

“I don't know,” I tell him, trying to imagine how I would feel if AJ doesn't want this. A wave of nausea rolls through me.

“This is a dangerous game, and she’s the one who stands to lose the most in this situation. You need to seriously consider whether this is worth it. Because if you get in any deeper and she isn't in it with you...dude, you’re going to be wrecked. You're already so fucking far gone over her,” he says, a breath whooshing out of him. “And as much as I like her, I don't want to see her ruin you over this.”

I huff out a laugh, but we can both tell how fake it is. Because he's right. If this doesn't work out, I'm going to be a fucking mess.

Is pursuing a trade actually the smartest option? Maybe she's right, and this can't work out while I play for the team she manages. Maybe the only way I can have her is if I don’t play for the Rebels. But how would it possibly work out if I lived halfway across the country?

I’m starting to see why she thinks our situation is hopeless.