Chapter 35
35
LEO
M y sister answers her door on the twentieth knock.
“What do you want?” she asks bleary eyed.
“You’re making the pies like usual, right?”
She rolls her eyes, gesturing behind her to the kitchen. “I have like fifty pounds of flour in my kitchen. Yes, I’m making the pies for you like usual.”
“Okay, thank god,” I mutter as I head back to my apartment without another word.
Slamming my door, I make my way back to my kitchen, immediately pulling up all the recipes I’ve been looking at for the last few days.
“You okay?” Briar’s voice filters into the room from the hallway, and I nearly pull something as I straighten as if caught doing something I shouldn’t be.
“Uh, yeah, everything is fine. Just, you know, going through everything I need to get done for this Thanksgiving dinner for the team tomorrow.”
Since I started with the Cobras, I’ve been throwing a Thanksgiving feast for everyone who can’t go home. Since we’re waist deep in the football season, most of us can’t go home to our extended families, and especially after my parents moved overseas, I just wanted to give my chosen football family something to look forward to during the holidays.
It’s become a tradition, with everyone looking forward to it.
Each year, I like to do something different with the turkey. Whether it be the year I deep fried it with the help from the local firehouse, or baking it in weird ways, I love experimenting with the multiple turkeys we serve the dozens of people who come through.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I watch as she walks further into the kitchen, her short shorts leaving my mouth feeling dry.
“Uh, well, I guess you’re putting together a cookbook, so you can help me make some decisions.”
She nods, sitting down at the counter and folding her hands in front of her like this is some kind of fucking business meeting.
“Which idea do you think is best? A turducken, a bacon-wrapped turkey, or a turkey deep fried in lard?”
She thinks for a second, her face twisted in confusion. “Why would you do any of those?”
I slap a hand to my face. “Briar. There are some traditions you just can’t change.”
“And your traditions include absolutely insane ways to cook a turkey?”
I rear back. “Yes? Is there something wrong with that?”
“No, I was just checking.”
“Okay then help me.”
She thinks for another moment before propping her chin on her hands. “Well, how many turkeys are you going to need?”
“Probably five.”
“Five?”
“Yeah. That’s on the low end. Maybe more. ”
“Okay, well then it depends on whether you want to wrap five plus turkeys in bacon. Because I don’t think deep frying five or more turkeys is a smart idea, and I forget what kind of monstrosity a turducken is but frankly, the name scares me.”
My shoulders slump. “That’s what I was thinking.”
“That’s going to be a lot of bacon, Leo.”
I know that. A lot of work, too.
“Anyways,” she starts, sitting straighter. “Do you need help with anything else? Can I make a pie?”
“Nah, my sister has that handled.”
“Tradition?”
I nod.
“I think the only thing I really need is the place tidied up. Make sure everything looks spotless because the people who come to this are messy. I’d rather keep the messes manageable.”
She nods, looking around. There’s not that much of a mess to clean up. A couple of Elara’s toys here, some of Champ’s toys there, but nothing too intense.
“Okay, great. Well, I can start on that while you start on your turkeys?” she asks.
“Yeah. I’m having them delivered in about an hour.”
“Where are you storing them?”
She clearly hasn’t seen the whole separate fridge I have in the closet just for this occasion.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Putting up her hands in defeat, Briar gets to work cleaning the family room.
“Are there going to be kids?”
“I know Emmett is bringing Juniper, and there’s some other guys who bring their whole families. So if you’re asking if Elara can be out and about, she definitely can. There’s not really any funny business and no one ever gets shitfaced here. They usually leave that for the bar afterwards.”
“Ah, ”
“I assume you’re not going to your family’s?” I ask her before I can stop myself.
She freezes for just a moment before continuing to load toys into her arms. “No, I’m not going to my parents for Thanksgiving.”
“I’m sorry,” I say softly. I didn’t mean to bring that up.
She shrugs. “It’s fine. I just don’t want to deal with them. They have their own things going on. I know Owen hasn’t gone in years.”
Silence settles between us as I get out ingredients for side dishes. Though things like mashed potatoes will have to be made tomorrow, I can make the green bean casseroles and stick them in the fridge until it’s time to add them to the oven.
Looking at everything in front of me, I sigh.
A little too dramatically, I think.
“Do you,” Briar stops in the center of the family room, her hands playing with the hem of her shirt like she doesn’t know what else she should be doing with them. She looks almost nervous. “Do you want help with that?”
“Yes,” I respond a little too fast.
With a small smile, Briar makes her way to the kitchen, rounding the island and settling next to me. When her shoulders relax, I know everything is going to be okay.
“What do you want to do?”
“What do you need me to do?” she asks, looking up at me. The golden flecks in her brown eyes shine in the afternoon light filtering in through the windows, and I want so desperately to pull her into me.
“Can you wash and snap the green beans?” I ask after a heavy silence.
She just nods, taking the giant bag of beans to the sink behind us.
Which leaves me to, well, do nothing. That was the very first thing we had to do. Okay, now what do I do?
Figuring that helping her with the beans would be better than going off and doing nothing, I turn, settling back in beside her as I take a handful of beans and start snapping the ends off. When I reach to rinse them off, our hands touch, and she yanks hers away as if burned.
“Sorry,” I say under my breath.
Shaking her head just slightly, she mutters, “It’s totally fine.”
We finish half the bag in complete silence, Briar’s elbow knocking against mine every so often, her blonde hair falling from her shoulders to hide her face from view.
When we’re almost done, Briar lets out an almost agitated grunt, turning toward the island. “You okay?” I ask.
“Yeah. I uh, I’m just looking at the recipes you have here.”
“Oh, okay.”
Five minutes later and I’m done with the beans. After tidying up, I go to see what she’s looking at. Standing just behind her, I peek over her shoulder at the recipe for the bacon wrapped turkey on the counter.
“I think you’re really dumb for making these,” she starts, resting her palms against the smooth surface.
“Why?”
She turns just slightly, meeting my eyes for only a second before turning back around. “Because do you know how much bacon you need for even one of these?” she asks, leaning a little further into the table, her hip touching the side of my leg sending heat through me.
“It’ll be fine.”
She freezes for a second before picking up the recipe, pointing toward an ingredient as she turns to me, moving a little to the left.
“Do you even have this spice?”
I furrow my brows, thoroughly confused about what’s going on here. Why is she acting so weird?
Setting the recipe back on the counter with a huff, she leans back down, and I realize now what’s going on .
The woman may think she’s slick, and I’ll admit it took me way too long to see what’s going on, but there’s no way she didn’t know she was moving directly in front of me. And with the way she freezes when her ass hits my body, unmoving, I know she did it on purpose.
So I decide to play along.
Leaning down, I cage her in my arms, my chest pressed against her back. Bringing my chin to her shoulder, I take a look at the recipe.
“I told you I had everything I need ordered before, remember?” I say, but my voice comes out deeper than I intended.
I feel her breathe in deeply. “Now that you mention it, I do remember you saying something about that.”
“Any other questions?” I ask, turning my head so my mouth is at her neck, her hair tickling my nose.
Briar’s breathing picks up and she turns just slightly, backing further into me, her ass moving against my length throbbing in my sweats.
“Leo, we can’t.”
“Is that why your body has been begging me for it for the last five minutes?”
“I,” she starts, but stops as she feels me press against her. “God.” She closes her eyes, biting her lip. “We can’t do this,” she says again finally.
“Okay.”
“I mean it. We really can’t do this, Leo. It’s not real.”
I press into her slightly, and I feel a shudder jolt through her. “This feels really real to me.”
With effort, Briar turns around, and I back away just slightly, my face still inches from hers.
While her brown eyes search my face, mine dart right to her beautiful pink lips. It’s been forever since I kissed them that night, and I’ve thought about how they felt every single night since, alone in my room, my dick gripped firmly in my hand as I read those dirty little stories on my phone, picturing Briar in every single one of them.
“I don’t want to get hurt again,” she says quietly.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then you’ll understand why this can’t happen then?”
I shake my head, the tip of my nose grazing hers. “I think it’s exactly why this has to happen. I don’t want you to ever get hurt again. Not you, not Elara, not anyone you care about.”
“Leo, you’re going to be the one to hurt me.”
My stomach plummets at her words.
“I’m not. I don’t want anything more than I want you, Briar.”
Her eyes graze over my face before landing on my lips, and I wait for her to come to me.
I don’t have to wait long.
Briar brings her face closer, her lips feathering over mine before she closes her eyes.
She looks like everything out of every fantasy I’ve ever had. My dream girl. Dangerous, capable of unraveling me to the fullest extent. The one thing that I don’t think I truly deserve to have.
The trophy just out of reach.
Fuck a Heisman. Fuck a Lombardi.
Having Briar Crosby love me would be the ultimate prize.
Having her trust me enough to let me in? Better than anything I could ever imagine.
“Do you trust me?” I ask into her lips.
“No,” she whispers.
“Do you want to?”
Her tongue peeks out, brushing against my lip, and it takes everything in me to wait as my dick throbs.
“Yes,” she whispers, her lips so soft against mine.
The seconds tick by, her eyes still shut.
“Do I have permission to kiss you?” I ask .
Another beat passes, and just when I think she’s about to answer, she turns, breaking us from our trance.
And my head is left spinning.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, her eyes shining. “I just, I just can’t right now, Leo. I want to, I promise I want to. God, I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything. I just can’t.”
“First,” I say, not bothering to hide how hard I am from her as she puts distance between us. I want her to see what she does to me. “You don’t ever have to be sorry for saying no. It doesn’t matter how much I want it.” I don’t bother saying or anyone else, because I’m not putting that energy out there. “I want you, Briar. But I want to deserve to have you. Is there anything I can do to make that happen?”
The longer it takes her to answer, the more I can feel my heart shatter.
“I don’t know,” she says, her eyes dropping to the floor as her shoulders slump.
“Please tell me if there’s anything, at any point.”
“Yeah, I will,” she says quietly before turning toward her room.
And as positive as I try to stay, it’s so hard not to picture my heart going with her.