In a Rush

Chapter 11

chapter eleven

Emme

Today’s Learning Objective:

Students will understand the assignment.

I hated to admit it but the meal was not five thousand dollars impressive. It was very good, definitely better than anything I would’ve thrown together, but it didn’t come close to my expectations.

The expectations might’ve been the problem. I’d had it in my mind that every bite would be a gold-flecked orgasm or something. Maybe the gold-flecked orgasms were reserved for the twenty-five-thousand-dollar dinners.

Here was what I thought would happen: Lots of air-kiss schmoozing with snooty people who had snooty things to say while drinking snooty cocktails like rye on the rocks or pisco sours. Ryan would just glad-hand his way through it like the media-trained superstar he was while I’d smile and make innocuous chatter like such an important cause and aren’t the flowers a wonder?

What actually happened: There was a small stampede to get a photo with Ryan, and everyone —even the actually snooty people with their foamy pisco sours—wanted all the insider football gossip. They wanted the drama going down between the coaches, managers, and owners, they wanted the scoop on trades and draft picks, they wanted to know if the fast receiver with good hands was on the road to recovery after another knee surgery or if the tight end who had a knack for being everywhere Ryan needed him on the field would be extending his contract.

And god love him, Ryan handled every question like he hadn’t already answered it forty-seven times. He had a patient, natural way about him as he clapped people on the back and leaned in close to repeat the same evasive yet fully chummy response that he’d given everyone else, and these people ate it up.

Once again, I was in every photo, but at least I didn’t have to say a single word about flowers. And it was a good thing, because with the lengths Ryan was taking all this performative affection, my body was stirring up some thoughts that I’d left alone for the past few months. I could feel the red staining my cheeks when he pulled me in close for a photo or he kissed my temple or he fitted one of those big hands around the curve of my hip and gave it a squeeze like he did that all the time—but with a whole lot less clothes. Every time his fingers traced the ball of my shoulder or followed the line of my dress across my back, more heat pooled low in my belly.

Of course I was having naked feelings from some absent-minded petting—and a few kisses for the cameras that’d hit harder than any real kisses I’d ever received. The past few months had been lonely. I hadn’t bounced back from Teddy with any random hookups. Maybe I should’ve because I was damn near climbing out of my skin.

Surprising no one at all, I wasn’t helping myself in shutting these naked feelings down. I responded to all this coziness by slipping my hand under Ryan’s jacket and walking my fingers up and down the corded muscle in his back. Or dropping a loving hand to his chest and then letting it slowly slide down the solid length of his torso to the abs that felt like cobblestones. I kept my hand there through several tedious conversations until Ryan snatched it up and lifted it to his lips only to growl, “That’s enough. We’re leaving right fucking now.”

“But—”

“No.” He led us to the door in long, quick strides that had me struggling to keep up. “We’re done here.”

“But dessert,” I whined.

We were almost to the elevator when we heard, “Ralston, get your ass back here.”

“Motherfuck,” he muttered. He cut a sidelong glance at me. “This will only take a minute.”

Turning around, I found half the New England offensive line ambling toward us, bow ties loose and beer bottles in hand. I hadn’t spotted any of these guys during cocktail hour and I would’ve, since they stuck out like sore thumbs. Very tall, very broad, very confident thumbs.

I pulled in a breath and let my eyes close for one final moment of peace before football crashed into my life all over again.

“Where the fuck did you fools come from?” Ryan asked, leaning in for one-armed embraces. He hadn’t released my hand from his hold.

“I thought I was supposed to pick up Wilcox,” said Crawson Bigelow, pointing to the running back, a thick-shouldered Black man with the kind of perma-smile that could thaw ice.

“I thought I was picking him up,” Jaden Wilcox replied, pointing a baseball-mitt hand at the left tackle. Bigelows’s chest was about as wide as a freeway and he had a dusting of freckles across the light brown of his cheeks. Adorable. “So I was waiting outside his place for an hour, but he was at my house.”

“And both those motherfuckers forgot us,” said Trenton Hersberler, slapping Damon McKerry on the back.

“But we were playing Mario Kart and didn’t notice,” said McKerry, tossing his long, braided locs over his shoulder.

Hersberler, the tight end everyone loved and wanted to see on the field with Ryan for another season, extended a lightly suntanned hand toward me. “Hello,” he drawled, a stunning smile on his face. “Trenton Hersberler, though my friends call me Trent.”

“Your friends call you Pumpkin Dick,” Wilcox said.

He bared his teeth at Wilcox. “That’s not—no. That’s not true. It happened one time. No one calls me that.”

McKerry snorted out a burly laugh. The boy was half bear, there was no doubt in my mind. Just like all the other left guards in the League. “We do,” he said to me with a glazed grin that told me he was enjoying the hell out of his off-season. “Wanna know why?”

“My girl does not need to hear that story,” Ryan said. He curled his thick arm over my shoulder, his palm flat on my chest while his thumb and forefinger bracketed the base of my throat like he could deflect the silly filth of locker room talk.

“No, actually, I’d love to hear that,” I said, beckoning to McKerry to hit me with the dirt. I glanced up at Ryan. “I won’t be able to leave here without getting that story. I’m in it now, and so are you.”

“I hope you know what you’re asking for,” he said.

“I have no idea and that’s the best part.” To McKerry, I rolled my hand, saying, “Lemme have it.”

“Here we go,” Bigelow said under his breath, slapping a hand on Hersberler’s chest.

“Fuckin’ love this,” Wilcox said, bouncing on the balls of his feet like he was ready to get in the game.

McKerry said through halting giggles, “My boy here accidentally jerked off with a bottle of self-tanner.”

Bigelow and Wilcox dissolved into hysterical, wheezing laughter. Hersberler crossed his arms and glared up at the ceiling. “Fuck you all,” he muttered.

“Let’s clarify which part of this was the accident,” I said. “Was it the jerking off or was it the self-tanner? Because I have some questions if it was an accidental jerk-off. Like, how? Just how? I mean, I’m going to have questions either way, but I want to get to the root”—Bigelow clutched his side and barked out a laugh as he crashed into Wilcox so hard they hit the floor—“of the issue here.”

“I fucking hate you guys,” Hersberler grumbled.

“It gets better,” McKerry said, tears streaking down his round, teddy bear cheeks. Beside me, Ryan shook with laughter. Ah, not so stoic after all. “It was game day, and he went out and blew up his receiving yards. So, he had to keep it going. All fuckin’ season with the self-tanner.”

“Yeah, of course,” I said. There was no reasoning with athletes and their superstitions. My second stepdad Jim was the worst with that. Always had to watch a very specific episode of The Simpsons while eating oatmeal with exactly seventeen blueberries the day of a game. And he hated The Simpsons .

“Now,” McKerry went on, still cracking himself up, “his dick is…”

“Orange,” I said when it didn’t seem like the bear could continue.

“And sparkly,” McKerry cried.

I pressed my lips together while they howled with laughter and Hersberler muttered to himself about having shitbag friends. Ryan huffed out a laugh that I felt on the back of my neck. “And why do you know that, McKerry? What are you doing close enough to this guy’s dick to see it sparkle?”

That was the last straw for McKerry. He bent at the waist, his hands on his knees as he fought to suck in air. “He didn’t know how to get the glitter off. He asked me if I thought he needed a doctor.”

I glanced at Hersberler, who’d tipped his head back to drain his beer. “Same procedure,” I said to him. “But instead of the tanning lotion”—I used the universal sign for jerking off—“soap and water.”

Ryan stroked his thumb up the line of my neck. “Never change, Muggsy.”

I wanted to laugh at that, but I was a bit preoccupied with the fact he hadn’t taken his hands off me in the past two hours and my body just couldn’t distinguish fact from fiction.

“Ma’am,” Wilcox said from the floor, his hand extended toward me, “I don’t know your name, but I know I love you.”

McKerry slapped him away. “Get your fuckin’ hands away from this angel. She’s obviously mine.”

“Not even close to yours, McKerry.” Ryan motioned to me, saying, “Boys, meet Emme Ahlborg.”

Wilcox frowned as he gained his feet. “As in?—”

Bigelow shook his head like he hadn’t heard right. “Any relation to the Chicago Ahlborgs?”

“Yeah, same,” I said, feeling every muscle in me draw tight. “My dad.”

I knew this moment was coming. There was no way for me to spend time in Ryan’s world without dragging along the baggage that came with my last name. It was a wonder I’d made it this far.

Hersberler groaned as he rubbed his eyes. “You fucking tools told Charles Ahlborg’s daughter that my dick is orange and sparkly.”

That was what it always boiled down to. I was nothing more than my father’s daughter, a branch in a great tree that had its roots in the earliest days of American football. Someone far back in my father’s family had played on one of the first college squads at Penn. Then, a few years and probably some brain damage later, someone else in the gene pool decided to develop a regional pro league that would eventually turn into one of the four founding teams of the League as we knew it today. More than a hundred years later, the family still owned that team. My father and his sons—my half brothers—ran the organization today.

I wasn’t involved.

“No sweat,” I said to Hersberler. “The secret’s safe with me. But seriously about the soap and water. It’ll do you good.”

“I will do anything you ask if you’ll forget that whole story,” he said, a hand over his heart as he stepped closer. “Emme—can I call you Emme?”

“As far as you’re concerned, it’s Mrs. Ralston and back the fuck up while you’re at it,” Ryan said, waving him off.

Oh. So…we really are practicing tonight.

It was going to take me a minute to get used to this.

“Excuse me but did you just say Mrs. Ralston ?” Bigelow cried.

“When did that happen?” Wilcox asked.

“Soon enough,” Ryan replied.

“Can I be the ring bearer?” McKerry asked. “I’m being so for real—you know I’d be good at it.”

“Can we focus on me, please?” Hersberler clapped his hands together. “I’m the one in crisis here. If that story gets out and I’m traded to Chicago, I’ll never play again.”

My father had a bit of a reputation. He wasn’t known for being the warmest, fuzziest guy. He was great to those who played well for him, but he could be mean, petty, and vindictive. He would waste a trade on benching an all-star player like Hersberler if he thought it proved a point or fucked someone else over.

“As much fun as we had here tonight with this little story,” I said, “I can’t think of a single reason why I’d ever tell another soul about you and your pumpkin spice sparkle. Least of all my father. I rarely talk to him about anyone’s dick. It’s kind of a rule I have.”

“Thank you,” Hersberler said, “but if?—”

“Calm the fuck down, man,” Ryan said to him. “If you’d stopped dicking around with your contract, you wouldn’t need to worry about ending up in Chicago. Solve some of your own fucking problems and leave my girl out of it, all right?”

“That makes you a princess,” McKerry said suddenly, glancing around to the other guys. “She’s the princess—of football. Right?” He nodded vigorously, sending his loose bow tie flying like small, useless wings. “Am I wrong? She’s our princess.” He slapped a hand to his forehead. “I just told the princess about Pumpkin Dick. I said jerking off to the princess. Multiple times.”

I smiled though I didn’t mean it. I was hardly a princess in my father’s world. I was barely the princess of my own apartment.

“You did,” Wilcox said, slapping him on the back. “Well done, dude.”

“If I was gonna talk about dick to the gridiron princess,” Bigelow said, “I’d make sure it was my own and not fuckin’ Hersberler’s jack-o-lantern shit.”

“I seriously hate you guys,” Hersberler muttered.

“You love us so much,” McKerry said, pulling him into a rowdy embrace.

A photographer stopped by then and corralled us into a group shot. Ryan and I stood on the end, his chest warm and solid at my back and his hands on my waist. “If we aren’t inside an elevator in the next minute, I’m throwing you over my shoulder and running for the stairs. Just keep your head down. You’ll be fine.”

“You don’t want to hang with the team for a bit?”

His hands flexed on my waist. “Why? I hang out with them enough. Do you need more dick stories? Because they have them.”

“I’ve probably had enough dick for tonight, thanks.”

Beside me, Wilcox busted into laughter and took McKerry and Bigelow down with him. Hersberler made a beeline for the bar. To the photographer, Ryan said, “Thanks for your time. Have a good night.”

After another round of man-hugs punctuated by McKerry’s incessant giggling, we stepped into the elevator. Ryan pulled me up against him, my back tucked tight to his chest. I startled when he slung an arm low across my waist. There was no one around to see this.

He pointed his phone at the mirrored doors and snapped a few photos. “Pick one,” he said.

I swiped back and forth through the photos, zooming in on the tiny differences in each. His fingers were splayed wider across my belly in one, my lips were parted like I was gasping in another. My chin was tipped at a strange angle or there was the slightest hint of a smile on his face. But more than any of those barely noticeable details, we looked like we were together. Like I was meant to fit up against his body this way and his hand belonged on my hip and the hunger in his gaze was real.

“This one,” I said, tapping that smile of his as the doors opened at the lobby.

We headed toward the sidewalk where Bowen and the SUV sat waiting for us. “I’m picking you up and putting you in the car,” Ryan said. “Consider this fair warning.”

“The rest of my dresses need to have full range of motion,” I said as we reached the hotel doors. “If I can’t kick and squat and lunge, I’m not wearing it.” I rustled the sequined fabric. “Maybe I just need a slit up the thigh. That would’ve made a huge difference.”

“Don’t do that to me,” Ryan murmured as he scooped me up and dropped me in the seat before jogging around the car and sliding in on the opposite side. “The North End,” he said to Bowen.

“You promised me dessert,” I said.

He rubbed his brows. “What do you want?”

“Something with chocolate,” I said.

“Bowen,” he called.

“On it,” the driver replied.

Ryan went back to his phone. “Not that one?” He swiped to the image where I’d aimed a sharp, smirking glance over my shoulder. “I like that one.”

“I like the other one.”

With a shrug, he posted the photo to his social media accounts. No caption, but he did tag the charity. My stomach gave a hard flip at the idea of being perceived at such a massive level. Photos at the ball were one thing. Ryan’s personal social accounts were several enormous things.

I told myself it didn’t matter and gulped it all down. I’d tried to block this part out of the fake engagement plan. I knew I’d appear in public with him, I knew the connection to my father would become known, and I knew I’d give up my privacy—at least while we kept this going.

My hand shaking, I reached for Ryan’s forearm and squeezed. His gaze followed my hand and stared at it for a long moment. Then he shuffled closer, his arm coming around my shoulder and my head resting on his chest.

“You can choose not to care,” he said, pressing a kiss to my temple. “I know because you taught me how.”

I murmured in agreement. That was true. But it also wasn’t. Not caring wasn’t the same as not feeling. “Yeah.”

“Want to watch a movie or something?” he asked. “I’m told that’s what you do on Saturday nights.”

I bobbed my head. I didn’t take the bait. “Yeah.”

The car slowed on a side street and Bowen rolled down the driver’s side window. “Thanks,” he called to a person dressed in a chef’s coat. He set two large paper bags in the front seat and sped off.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I texted Bowen an hour ago to order everything on the dessert menu and have it ready to pick up,” Ryan said. “I never forget my promises to you.”

Ryan helped me out of the car and I could say with absolute certainty that I didn’t enjoy being a doll. It sounded really cute in theory—sweep me off my feet, hand-deliver me from one place to another, protect my delicate lady sensibilities from anything as crude as climbing out of a vehicle—but in practice, it was much less fun. My dress was cleaving my internal organs, my boobs were shoved up into my throat and suffocating me, and worst of all, I felt helpless. It wasn’t a good time.

Now, standing outside my building while thick layers of spring fog pressed down around us, I realized we’d have to do it all over again. I watched Ryan unlock the door—I was busy holding the desserts—and gave a few test steps to see if the dress had stretched out at all. There was a bit more give than I’d had earlier. It could be enough.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked the lock, still jiggling the key. That thing was always a problem.

When he finally had the door open, I said, “I think I can manage the stairs.”

Eyes wide, he stared at my dress for a beat. “What?”

I motioned to my thighs. “I think I’ll be able to make it up the stairs by myself. It might be slow but I have a little extra wiggle room now. It would help if I opened the zipper too.”

“It’s not going to”—he shoved a hand through his hair—“fall off?”

“Hardly. I’m strapped into this thing five ways to the weekend.”

Another hand through his hair. “I can carry you.”

“Oh, I’m aware,” I said.

He blew out an impatient breath and knelt down beside me, saying, “Pull up your skirt.”

It was my turn to blink at him. “What?”

“You’re not taking the stairs in these shoes.” He slipped his hand under my skirt and circled my ankle. His fingers were warm and the touch jolted a small squeak out of me. “Up.”

When I lifted the skirt, he went to work unfastening the tiny buckles. He held my elbow as I stepped out and then hooked them around his fingers. He motioned for me to turn around, and when I did, he tugged the zipper down to my waist. His knuckles bumped over the hooks of my bra and along the small of my back.

I shivered. There was no way he didn’t notice. I’d tried so hard to keep my reactions in check tonight, but now, with all this oxygen rushing to my head and the complete lack of an audience gobbling up our every move, I found I couldn’t hold back anymore.

That was the fear at the core of all this. I didn’t trust myself to hold back. I didn’t trust myself to keep my feelings out of the fake marriage. I didn’t believe it could ever be anything but real for me, and thinking about that broke my heart in advance.

His knuckles disappeared and he reached for the carryout bags in my hand, saying, “I’ll take those.”

We made slow work of the stairs but Ryan stayed a few steps behind me, silent with a steady hand low on my back the entire time.

Rounding the landing on the third floor, I asked, “What do you want to watch?”

“What do you usually watch with your cheese?”

“Just so you know, it’s not like I’m gnawing on a block of cheddar.”

“But it’s so much more amusing to me that way.”

“Anything to force you to smile,” I said.

He yawned. “I’ll watch whatever you want. It’s up to you.”

“In other words, you don’t want to choose but you will complain unless it’s Indiana Jones , The Hobbit , or Top Gun .”

“You forgot The Mummy and Black Panther .”

“Ohhhh, The Mummy ,” I said. “Definitely that.”

The apartment was dark when I let us in, no light seeping out from beneath Ines’s room. Probably still out. I closed the door behind us and motioned for Ryan to follow me to the other end of the apartment.

“I need to change into something completely shapeless and soft before my ribs get stuck this way,” I said, heading toward the closet. “My laptop is plugged in over there. Make yourself comfy.”

It took me a few minutes to wrestle my way out of the sewn-in bra and the shapewear shorts Wren had recommended for smooth lines . I pulled on sweats and a hoodie and ducked into the bathroom to wash off my makeup.

When I returned, Ryan had ditched the shoes, jacket, and bow tie, and opened his collar at the throat. He stood by the bed, his hands in his pockets as he stared at the old water spots on the ceiling. “You’re sure you don’t want to hang out at my place? I have an eighty-inch TV and the rain never makes its way inside.”

I settled on the bed and started unpacking the desserts. “I’m good.” I patted the spot beside me. “You’re not going to be able to see the movie from over there.”

He hesitated a moment and then climbed up. He raised his arm as if he was about to wrap it around me but stopped himself, instead saying, “You were incredible tonight. It was everything I needed and more. Thank you.”

I felt my cheeks heat. I tapped the screen to start the movie. “Anytime, husband.”

He made a noise as the opening credits rolled, something between coughing and clearing his throat. Then, “And thanks for putting up with the guys.”

“Oh, come on. They were easy.”

“Easy, perhaps,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you’d choose it. I know you don’t want anything to do with that world.”

I nodded as I organized the desserts. “As long as I don’t run into my dad at any of these events, I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll make sure you don’t.”

“That’s good enough for me to bust out the barmaid bra.”

A long breath gusted out of him as he settled back against the pillows. “The less I know about your bras, Em, the better off I will be.”

I was about to ask him about the kiss we shared tonight and whether he’d noticed how true and right it’d felt when those words hit me. I didn’t hear them at first but like raindrops slowly soaking through your clothes, they chilled me down to the bone.

As the movie played, I watched as Ryan drifted off to sleep, his hands clasped over his stomach and his jaw relaxed for the first time all night. It wasn’t long before he shifted toward me, his arm around my waist and his face pressed up against my side.

This— this was true. It was real but only when no one was looking. We didn’t want the same things and I knew that. I knew it but my silly little imagination ran away with itself tonight just as I’d feared it would.