CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Hardy
I sit on the balcony of my penthouse with my eyes on the water. Its white froth is the only thing I can see in the moonlight—the sway of it in and out—but it’s a soothing sound to go with my buzz.
The hand I scrub over my face does nothing to shake loose the bullshit of my last two days. I woke up to messages from my teammates back home, asking me who Red Dress had been at the premiere. None of their fucking business is who . Then there was Ari who wanted to analyze the “success” of seeing Whitney from a social media perspective. Fuck that .
Then there was a shitty practice that is one hundred percent on me.
My head was messed up. Still is. There’s something about my convo with Whitney, that I can’t quite shake from my mind.
It’s driving me mad.
But nowhere as mad as her fucking kiss. Her taste. The softness of her lips. The tentativeness stripped away with an urgent greed.
Christ. I can’t scrub it from my mind.
I startle when my mobile rings and am tempted to leave it be. No doubt it’s the guys asking me to come out with them.
But when I look at the screen, I pause. I wonder if I should answer but know I will.
“Whitney? Everything okay?”
“I . . . yeah.”
“What is it?”
“I’ve rehearsed this a million times in my head, but I know that means I’m going to mess it up.”
“Welcome to my life,” I joke and hear her nervous chuckle before she falls silent.
“Look, I tend to overthink things. Like ... a lot. Then I freak out and when I do I freak out, it’s in a big way.”
“Like take a commercial plane home kind of way?”
“No. Yes.” She sighs and then says, “ Yes .” Then pauses. “I’m calling to—I’m sorry. Okay? I just wanted to thank you for inviting me into your world. Thank you for letting me step outside of my life for the night and feel special. Thanks for ... just thanks.”
“I didn’t do it so you’d thank me.”
Her silence has me wondering if she’s still there, but the phone says she is so I give her the moment to do whatever she needs to do. “Trust is an issue for me, so is abandonment, but that’s a shit ton of baggage I prefer to keep zipped up and padlocked most days. Just know I appreciate you showing up at the airport. I appreciate you caring ... even when I didn’t deserve it.”
The break in her voice kills me. The courage I’m sure it took her to make this call even more so.
But why do I scare her so much? Why do I push her boundaries when I’ve made sure to paint within them?
Because the woman doesn’t let anyone in. She’s a loner on purpose. She has Martin and her girlfriend, Suri ... but no one else has come around. She’s alone most days, and if I consider what the media has painted of her past, I can understand why she is that way.
Fuck. How did I not see that sooner?
As a man who rarely thinks about his words before he speaks, I take a moment to think about these. “I like being around you, Whitney. That’s not a bad thing.”
“In my world it is,” she says softly and with a timidness that I’m not used to from this confident, no-nonsense woman.
I hate this.
I hate that whatever I’ve done makes her sound like this.
I try to get her back. “I promise to stay in my lane so long as I can be in the one next to yours. How’s that?”
She laughs through the nerves peppering her voice, and the sound makes me smile. “This isn’t a you thing. It’s a me thing.”
“Obviously, because I’m perfect,” I tease.
This time her laugh sounds way more resolute. “I’ve wanted things my whole life, Hardy, whether it be a family, a guy, a chance, a home to belong to, and all I’ve ever known is that it doesn’t happen for me. Nothing does. So it’s way easier to step back when I begin to hope and if you can’t understand that, then point proven.”
Her words hit me harder than she’ll ever know. I too, understand that notion in my own, skewed way.
“I understand, Whitney.”
And so many of our interactions make sense.
Hurt before you get hurt yourself.
Push away before the person leaves you.
Sleep beside a man, but bail in the morning before shit gets too real.
Funny how I understand that all too well. May have done it my fair share of times myself.
But through it all is that one single notion—the defiance, the resistance, her choice to leave New York on her own. It’s because she likes me too.
And maybe she just can’t see that yet.
“I have to go now,” she says. “Thanks for taking my call.”
“Whitney.” I fight the urge to keep her talking and on the call.
“Good night.”
And before I know what I want or don’t want to say, the call is over. She’s gone. And I’m left with a half pint of lager beside me and way more than I want to think about milling around in my head.
Who the fuck am I kidding? She’s all I was thinking about anyway.
I take a sip and savor its taste on my tongue.
There’s something about Whitney Barnes I can’t seem to shake no matter how hard I try.
It’s ridiculous. It’s annoying. It’s ... unfulfilling.
I’ve had many women. It’s not a brag, just a statement. A statement to remind me there are hundreds more out there.
And maybe it would be easier to think of them, to answer my buzzing texts as the guys text me from a club and tell me to meet them. I could find a woman to make me forget about Whitney for the night.
It’s tempting.
Fuck is it tempting.
But my legs are sore from practice and my head is fucked, but is it really worth it when my arse has to be up bright and early in the morning? Do I want to play the game tonight, pretending I care about whatever the woman I take home’s name is and then figure out how to walk away from her apartment unscathed afterward? Do I want to lose myself in someone else when I know it’s not going to do a goddamn thing to sate this desire I have for Whitney?
My phone buzzes again. I hold it in one hand while finishing off my beer with my other and contemplate my options on all fronts.
Fuck if I know the answers.
Then again, am I flogging a dead horse?
“I’ve wanted things my whole life, Hardy, whether it be a family, a guy, a chance, a home to belong to, and all I’ve ever known is that it doesn’t happen for me. Nothing does. So it’s way easier to step back when I begin to hope and if you can’t understand that, then point proven.”
I told her we’d fuck when she finally gave in to our chemistry, but maybe I was wrong.
Fuck this. Fuck the overthinking. Maybe finding some trouble will help get my mind off the one woman who doesn’t want me.