38. Chapter 38
Chapter 38
Logan
"There's a party at the club tonight," I whisper into her ear. "Come with me?"
She's letting me hold her close, in the middle of the social access hall, where fans, journalists, and Strike employees can see.
I squeeze her tighter and take a deep breath. I fill my lungs with lavender and sigh. I hope she never gets perfume again. This scent is my new favorite.
"I'm not dressed for the club," she says.
"The only thing that looks better on you than my jersey is when you wear nothing." I rock her from side to side. "They'll let you in because you're with me."
"I'm wearing the lingerie you bought me." She smiles. "I thought you liked me in that, too?"
"I do, but I don't want anyone else seeing you in it. It's for my eyes only."
"Possessive, huh?"
"Selfish, really." I kiss her. "Greedy, too. I'd like you next to me tonight. To pull you close with the guys around."
"Would that make you happy?"
I nod. "So happy. "
I kiss her again, and I don't have to say much else. We end up in a car on the way to the club. I put the privacy window up.
I bring her to my lap. "Kiss me again."
She does. Her hands go under my jacket, traveling close to my skin.
"Can't get enough of you," I confess again.
Her eyes, so beautifully dark in the back of the car, lock with mine.
"I've stopped expecting I ever will," I add. "We may have lost today, but I'm on top of the world, just because you're here. I've redeemed myself. People are seeing me as my own man— in part thanks to my dad, funnily enough. And I have a team and a group of friends I fit with. People I want to keep around."
A small smile appears on her mouth.
"I want you around, Evie. You're at the core of me. This new version of me— it's in part because of what I feel for you."
She opens her mouth to speak, but I put a gentle finger on her lips.
"I know hearing this can be a lot," I say. "And you know I can be pushy. You've called me stubborn and persistent and yeah, I am those things. But perhaps in this you'll find that it's really loyalty— a belief in what I think we can have together. I'll wait until you can see it too. If you'll keep giving me the time to show you that you can believe in me, this way too."
I expect to see signs of worry or suspicion on her face, but there's none on that.
The line of her lips curls into a teasing smirk. She takes my hand and puts it above her heart. It beats fast, but her eyes remain open.
The drum in my chest is an echo to hers.
She runs a thumb over my bottom lip. "What if I told you my stomach isn't in knots? It's filled with butterflies instead. Even if my heart is racing, you know what? I can breathe easily."
She caresses my face. I pull her closer with the arm around her lower back. My other hand remains on her chest, counting heartbeats.
She grins. "All it took was you grinning at me. Laughing with me. And now I'm here, realizing it's not quite friendship that I want with you. "
"No? What do you want instead?"
"I'm going to be a better friend to the ones living in my pocket. I'll go visit them and include them in my life even if they live somewhere else. And I'm going to accept the friendship the guys have been offering for a long time. That's where I'll discover what friendship can be like."
"And with me?"
"With you I want friendship mixed with something else. Intimacy. A life we might share. To think of each other as we go through our days, planning dinner and a vacation together after you're done the season. A set of toothbrushes in each other's home. A conversation with HR to let them know we're together. I want to face all the people teasing us, and for us to ignore the comments on social media together. I want to discover where a journey like that might lead us."
I close my eyes for a second, and let her words become one with my marrow.
I got the girl.
"I see." I open my eyes. "You're in love with me."
"Logan!"
I laugh.
She scrunches up her face. "It's not fair when you laugh. Now I forgot what I was going to say."
"You were going to tell me you're in love with me."
"Right." She lifts an eyebrow, a soft curl to her lips. "Well, I see cocky Logan has made a return. I'm on my way there, sure, but that's very different from the brave, bold statement you made. You know the kind of balls it takes to say something like that?"
"I know. You're familiar enough with my balls to know I have nothing to fear in that regard."
"It's not the part of your anatomy that I'm the most interested in, to be honest, so I may have misjudged."
I adjust her on my lap. The weight of her brings deep satisfaction to my insides. I grab handfuls of her flesh, and suddenly I'm a cat making fucking biscuits .
I grin. "You probably didn't think to check, impressed as you are with my cock. But I got balls big enough to put into words what you're not saying."
She holds back her laugh. "Oh my god. You're that certain that I'm in love with you, aren't you? Shameless, I tell you. I said I could potentially see getting there one day. Maybe. Perhaps. We'll see."
"That's plenty of ground covered, in my opinion. How many yards, would you say? Might as well say you're approaching the end zone."
She breaks and laughs. "'I might as well' none of it. I can't believe you're changing my words like this. And you haven't even told me where in the field you are!"
I take her face in my hands. "Where do you think I am, when the first thing I said was you've made me a new man?"
"Is that what you said?"
"And that I don't want to imagine my future without you."
"I feel like I haven't quite heard that before."
"Weren't you listening? I said that it's time we reframe the past six months and admit we've been dating from the start."
"You're saying this club party isn't our first date?"
"I'm saying I started falling for you years ago, and that every second we spent together— regardless of what we called it— I got closer to the goal line. Now I'm staring at the last yard, standing in place and looking at you, waiting until you catch up."
"We'll get there together?" She grabs my wrists with gentle hands.
"I'll carry you through, my Evie," I say, and I kiss her.
The VIP section of the club is packed with players and friends. Saint, Dom, Evie, and I stand in our own tiny group. Bear sits with Pen, Nat, and Damián nearby.
I have an arm around Evie's shoulders. She made a knot on her jersey, pulling the fabric to the side and highlighting her shape. It's distracting, with the way it accentuates the curve of her generous hips, wrapped by a pencil skirt. All I want to do is grab and hold on for dear life.
"Okay, but what is this exactly?" Saint makes small circles in front of Evie and I. "Where do we stand as a group with all of this?"
"Saint, please," Evie laughs.
The receiver with a diamond earring points a finger toward my face. "Logan's classic frown is in place, which isn't surprising. Grumpy vibes? Check. But his arm is around you so I feel like we need an update."
"We don't need to provide an update," I say.
"What kind of update?" Evie asks. "As in, you have information that is outdated?"
Music is loud in the background, but focused on the first floor so we don't have to yell to talk.
"We have staged a few interventions with our quarterback." Saint scratches his chin in a thoughtful manner. "Hasn't he mentioned it to you? Shocking, to be honest."
"What's this?" Evie asks, her eyes on me. "You haven't said anything about interventions?
"Mmh." The sound out of my throat is grouchy.
Dom laughs.
"You may appreciate this." Saint seems unconcerned about my response. "Many months ago, when we were just coming together as a new team, we told him no one plays with Evie Moreno. So of course, we had to make sure he wasn't playing with you."
"You think he's been playing with me?" Evie smiles at them, also completely unconcerned .
"We quickly realized he's obsessed with you, so not that." Dom laughs. "Lately, the interventions are about making sure he won't let you go, not to mess it up, et cetera."
Saint's dimples deepen in his pretty face. "We're just trying to figure out what direction to take the interventions next."
Evie laughs. We don't get to respond, as Ames joins us alongside a put-together type of masculine individual. His dark, curly hair is perfectly combed for a modern look, and his eyes would probably look dark blue in the daylight. They compliment his dark blue suit, and contrast with his white skin.
"Hey guys!" Ames links arms with this person. "Thanks so much for inviting us to the party, Saint. Aidan and I are excited to be here with you. Everyone, this is Aidan, my partner."
"It's a shame about the game. The Strike deserved the win." Aidan's Irish accent is a soft burr as he shakes Saint's hand. "Not that I'm an expert, of course."
Saint nods. His usual spark evaporates, and he forgets all about the teasing he's been casting my way.
I smirk. Saint definitely has feelings for Ames. Considering she just introduced Aidan as her partner, she's the one person in the city he won't get to date. I'd tease him about it as retribution for all the interventions he's put me through, but I'm not an asshole. I wouldn't kick a man when he's down.
Dom pushes a hand forward and introduces himself to Aidan. I do it next.
"Logan King," I say. "This is Evie Moreno, a PR exec for the team, and my girlfriend."
That gets a reaction from Saint, whose dimples appear again. Dom laughs.
"All right, then." Saint smiles in our direction. "Happy for you guys. Now that that's settled, I'm going to go. There's a lucky someone out there I don't know, waiting for me to sweep her off her feet."
He gets a cocky playboy look on his face, bows to us, and leaves .
Ames looks confused for a second, but soon we're chatting casually again. We learn Aidan works on TV, and they met when Ames' team catered for one of his shows. Soon the whole group is sitting near Leon and the rest.
I only last twenty minutes before I pull Evie to the side. We find a spot further away from the group, in an empty cushion at the edge of the sofa. I bring her close, and we create a bubble just for us in the middle of the club.
I caress her face. "What are the chances I can convince you to hide in the bathroom for a little while? It's fancy in there. I can show you."
"Very low," she scoffs. "You'll have to wait until we go to your place. Right now, I want to be here with everyone and bond ."
I let out a dramatic sigh. "I suppose that's a good thing, considering."
"I have different plans for later in the car, though."
"Oh? Tell me."
"I… will… make you watch your dad's comments tonight."
"That's not as fun as what I had in mind."
"It will be wonderful. I'm on a mission to make sure you are inundated with messages of how amazing you are. I want to make sure you have zero doubts after tonight."
I lift my eyebrows. "What if I already know, and all I want is to celebrate with you?"
"We are celebrating!"
"Okay, fine. I am happy to let everyone see you looking at me adoringly like this."
"I'm looking adoringly at you?"
I nod. "It makes me want to puff up my chest with pride."
She laughs. "Then I'll show you the texts my friends sent after I told them about us. They will put a smile on your face."
"Mhh. Will you tell your parents, too? "
"I have to talk to them for sure. They need to know I have a boyfriend I adore, to start, but also… that we may have found a way to save the house. If your offer still stands?"
I raise an eyebrow. "The offer to help with the money you need?"
She rubs her lips and nods.
"I'd never offer and take it back, Evie." I put a hand on her face. "So why do you look unsure?"
"I didn't want to seem like I'm assuming, and it's still such a big deal, a life-changing kind of deal—"
I smirk and kiss her softly. "I like that I get to be the person doing this for you. So please let me do it."
She seems to struggle for a second longer, but the tension leaves her in a deep sigh.
Her face softens. "Thank you. A few plans are starting to take shape in my mind and finally— finally I feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel. A real end in sight."
"I hope to be involved in these plans."
She takes my face in her hands. "You're involved in every single one of them."
I kiss her. "I'm glad you're finally seeing sense."
"Logan!"
I laugh. A few faces turn our way in shock. I ignore them.
I gaze at Evie. "My pleasure, Mystery Girl."